Godzilla Raids Again

Godzilla Raids Again (Gojira No Gyakushu)  (1955)

Runtime: 81 minutes

Directed by: Motoyoshi Oda

Starring: Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura

From: Toho

As I have this movie on disc (as part of a collection) and to continue with the theme of what I've been watching as of late, I figured I should check out this film, the quickly made first sequel to Gojira after it became an unexpected huge success. Note that I did see the original Japanese version; the disc has that and the American dubbed version, which is hilariously known as Gigantes the Fire Monster; there's a whole story behind that but I don't know if anyone cares.

To be brief, they were going to film an American version and basically use the suits from here and have it totally be different. That fell through so some people decided to dub it and alter it to be notably different from the original version. I briefly skimmed through it and it's shortened by a few minutes, has a new prologue about nuclear bomb testing, and has some pretty bad dubbing, although one of the people who dubbed it... George Takei! Characters come off as different and I may have to watch it in full sometime in the future, even if only to laugh at it.

The plot description from the IMDb: “Godzilla battles an irradiated Ankylosaur and destroys Osaka in the process.” To be exact it's a creature that resembles the quadrupedal Ankylosaur dinosaur and it's known as Anguirus and it's appeared in several other films in the franchise. Airplanes are the thing in this movie instead of the fishing boats in the original.

The movie ends up in Osaka instead of Tokyo and yep, things get trashed. Apparently, the edict that gets issued in the city of turning all lights off at night actually relates to World War II and what was done at that time. That makes things somber; then again this is still a pretty serious film and it does not end up on the goofy side like some of the other movies in the series... I know, I say that when this movie introduces the idea of Godzilla fighting monsters, guys rolling around destroying sets in rubber suits, and has such things as the hilarious way the monsters are drawn to the city (it involves escaped convicts), and a scene of people getting boisterously drunk. Oh, and sometimes you can see the strings on the model airplanes; that's the benefit of DVD remastering, I suppose.

Overall, the movie is fine. At least it's not crappy. There's such things as stock footage from the original and a budding romance to kill time, but it is fine. What wasn't fine was about 22 minutes in when you see a billboard of what can be best described as a Sambo character. Times were different back then, to say the very least. Anyhow, at least this movie is still entertaining to watch and doesn't suck. I'll return tomorrow night.