Godzilla: Deluxe Collector’s Edition

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

When most people think of the name Godzilla, they usually think of some silly Japanese monster parading around destroying Tokyo with primitive man-in-suit effects. You’d think so, right? But that’s not how the how the story started out.

While the original 1954 movie was successful enough to gain worldwide attention, its international release in the Western world was for a long time only in the form of an Americanized version dubbed in English re-titled Godzilla: King Of The Monsters. Now, the uncut Japanese original, coupled with the Americanized edit, has been released on DVD in a Deluxe Collector’s Edition of Godzilla.

The story begins as a Japanese fishing boat is suddenly attacked by a flash of bright light off the coast of a small island. When a rescue boat heads out to investigate the incident, it’s also attacked. The natives on the island soon believe that the cause of the boats’ destructions was from a purported god-like monster known as Godzilla.

A paleontologist named Kyohei Yamane (Takashi Shimura) soon leads a team to investigate around the island. When he finds footprints laden with radioactivity along with a trilobite, Yamane discovers that the mysterious creature they belong to is actually an unusually amphibious form of dinosaur likely resurrected from the prehistoric past due to the testing hydrogen bombs.

In the midst of all this, Yamane’s daughter Emiko (Momoko Kochi) is in love with steamship lieutenant Hideo Ogata (Akira Takarada), despite being already arranged to be married to secluded scientist Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), a colleague of her father’s. Her attempts to reveal her secret to Serizawa are complicated when her fiancée shares with her a deadly oxygen-destroying device he’s entrusted her to keep secret.

Meanwhile, the government responds by dispatching a fleet to kill the monster using bombs, despite Yamane’s desire to study the monster’s genetic properties. However, the monster proves to be indestructible to any weapons, as it emerges and attacks several times, emitting highly radioactive atomic breath. And despite an attempt to barricade the capital city of Tokyo with a 50,000 volt electric fence, Godzilla soon destroys the entire capital city of Tokyo.

With Tokyo in ruins and thousands of people dying and injured, Emiko tells Serizawa’s secret to Ogata. Now they must convince Serizawa to use his creation to destroy Godzilla before it attacks again.

While the special effects are relatively primitive, even for 1954, and the story derives greatly from the previous year’s giant-monster movie The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, the original Godzilla has managed to still carve out its own distinctive niche.

It does this due to its unique use of social and political symbolism, which is almost completely unheard of in a giant monster movie. Godzilla, unlike similar monsters like King Kong, is a creature inadvertently man-made. The destruction scenes of the monster are considerably darker and more violent, thanks to Akira Ifukube’s chilling score.

The other unique thing about this compared to others like it is the rather stark and sober ending when Godzilla ...