In the manner of Godzilla himself, Hollywood is stomping into Japanese cinema once again. But for some, the idea that Godzilla equals atomic horror suggests that non-Western directors may have missed the true point of the kaiju eiga monster film , genre. This was a cycle that included other famous titans of mass destruction such as Mothra, a colossal moth, and Rodan, a mutated flying dinosaur. He agrees with the common interpretation that the story of a scaly fiend arising out of a nuclear testing site that ravages cities and their populace can be read as both a nuclear age parable and an anti-war allegory.
But he argues that kaiju are more about the wrath of nature, human hubris and dark immutable forces rather than science gone awry. But deeper still may have been a fear of terrifying natural cataclysms. From the first human footfall on the Japanese isles millennia ago, the earliest settlers must have felt they had stepped onto an angry land.
Reischauer Distinguished Professor of Japanese Studies and visiting professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, who has had a borderline fixation with the reptile armed with atomic breath since boyhood. This semester, Tsutsui is teaching an East Asian studies course that explores the rich history of Japanese monsters, including the violent Godzilla. Tsutsui spoke to the Gazette about the year-old brute and his course, and handicaps the fight. It started in when the original film was released by Toho Studios.
There have subsequently been 32 live-action films made in Japan and in Hollywood. There were also three feature-length anime made in Japan. There have been several origin stories over the years, but in the one that was established by the first movie, Godzilla was a dinosaur from the Jurassic period who lived in the depths of the Pacific Ocean that was then radiated by American H-bomb testing in the South Pacific.
In the process, Godzilla became mutated and monstrous and radioactive. Of course, the core narrative in these films is that Godzilla then goes to Japan to attack Tokyo or other cities. The movies are very formulaic: Godzilla fights the other monsters; they wrestle; they destroy a Japanese city or two; and then at the end, Godzilla usually wins and the world is safe again.
This has all led to Godzilla being one of the most well-known icons globally. Over time, though, the movies lost that edge and evolved into more lighthearted entertainment aimed at children. This was meant to be the end. After 50 years, Godzilla was done and gone. America took another shot at making a Godzilla film. Legendary Pictures optioned the rights to adapt the King of Monsters to the big screen.
This would become known as the Monsterverse. The first of the Monsterverse films was the Godzilla. A sequel is due in The Kong film is the set up for the long-awaited remake of King Kong vs. Godzilla, which will be released in , under the title Godzilla vs.
Last November, the animated theatrical film Godzilla: Monster Planet came out, to positive reviews. It will debut on Netflix this coming Wednesday, January 17 th.
The second installment will be out later this year. Part three will be out in , which is the 65 th anniversary of Gojira. Through all the highs and lows; through all the good stuff and bad stuff; through all the decades, Godzilla is still with us. Sign in. Forgot your password? Get help. Privacy Policy. Password recovery. The movie has some eerie parallels. In the original November film, Americans zap Godzilla during an atomic bomb test.
The beast then ravages Tokyo before a scientist develops a secret weapon to destroy it. The original movie was "serious and somber," Tsutsui said. Many Japanese moviegoers left the theater in tears, but they also called it cathartic and therapeutic, he said. The movie rewrote the end of the war: Instead of using a secret weapon to destroy Japan, scientists in the movie deploy it to save Tokyo, Tsutsui said.
However, Godzilla's creators took a different perspective. They said Godzilla represented the souls of the Japanese soldiers killed during the war, "yearning to come home and be acknowledged by a nation that seemed eager to forget them," Tsutsui said.
Tanaka called the movie character Gojira — a nickname given to a hapless man at the movie studio that combines gorira gorilla and kujira whale , Tsutsui said.
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