Godzilla Raids Again
Directed by Motoyoshi Oda
Written by Takeo Murata and Shigeake Hidaka; story by Shigeru Kayama
1955/Japan
Toho Company
First viewing/Amazon Prime
[box] [last line; Japanese version] Shoichi Tsukioka: Kobayashi… we beat Godzilla for you.[/box]
The quaint language used in the English dub wrecked this otherwise worthy first Godzilla sequel for me.
Kobayashi is forced to crash land his plane on a remote island. His pilot friend Tsukioka comes to rescue him. This is when the men witness a resurrected relative of Godzilla battling the Angilas monster. They report when they come home and a high-level meeting is called. Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura) from the first movie tells the crowd that, now that the oxygen destroyer and its creator have perished, Japan is doomed.
The two monsters set off toward Osaka. For a while, authorities are successful in attracting the beasts off shore through the use of bright lights. Unfortunately, some escaped convicts manage to set a refinery on fire and the battle is on in downtown Osaka. The rest of the film follows the all-out effort to defeat the monster.
Rumor has it that the original Japanese version of this movie is up there with the original Gojira. The only one available to me though was dubbed in English. This might not have been so bad except that the characters were made to speak in a very old-fashioned and slightly ridiculous lingo as when a crowd is said to be “making merry” in a night club. The character of Kobayashi, played by one of the Seven Samurai, comes off as comic and mentally slow, when in fact he is the hero.
American Trailer
Joe Dante on the film – Trailers from Hell
