Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple.

Review #2493: Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple.

Cast: 

Toshiro Mifune (Miyamoto Musashi), Kōji Tsuruta (Sasaki Kojirō), Mariko Okada (Akemi), Kaoru Yachigusa (Otsu), Michiyo Kogure (Dayū Yoshino), Mitsuko Mito (Okō, Akemi's mother), Akihiko Hirata (Seijūrō Yoshioka), Daisuke Katō (Tōji Gion), Kurōemon Onoe (priest Takuan (Takuan Sōhō), Sachio Sakai (Matahachi Honiden), Yū Fujiki (Denshichirō Yoshioka), Machiko Kitagawa (Kogure), Eiko Miyoshi (Osugi, Matahachi's mother), and Eijirō Tōno (Shishido Baiken) Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki (#2173 - Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto)

Review: 

Sure, let's do another samurai movie. You might remember Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) utilized the epic novel Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa (about the life and deeds of swordsman Miyamoto Musashi) for a worthwhile film that obviously had to keep going. A variety of people returned to do this film ranging from its director in Hiroshi Inagaki and its writer Tokuhei Wakao (who co-wrote the last one with Inagaki as based on a play by Hideji Hojo), its assistant director in Jun Fukuda and select members of its cast. You get some action pretty quickly in the film with the opening that sees the kusarigama (a chain-sickle) get used up before one sees the lead engage himself in self-development while also trying to take on a school of swordsmanship. One year later saw the release of Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island, which I take it will surely have an involving duel between Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō, who apparently was described as the toughest opponent he ever faced (of course all of this happens before Musashi even turned 30, because the actual man ended up dying in 1645 in his sixties, in a cave, from what might have been lung cancer).

Sure, you might wonder where the path of enlightenment comes from for a movie that involves a good deal of slashing. Well, there is meant to be a path for the pilgrims who wish to learn the ways of what a samurai are besides thinking it means to turn people into dead slabs (it doesn't involve blood, but in fairness, it was the 1950s). Mifune is now going through the road of stoicism that basically reveals that the road of honor and respect can be a very tenuous one when nobody plays exactly to the rules. There are no easy solutions to growing up as a person beyond actually doing it. Everyone has their own murky intentions because no one is defined by just being someone in somewhere. It just so happens that committing to fight one man ends up being a confrontation with a school because of other people's waylaid views. Mifune is about as good in stoic conviction, mainly because you get the idea pretty quickly that his destiny is going to go down to his choices of seeing himself beyond who he thinks he is and to actually realize it. One respects things in nature and life without becoming reliant on them, I suppose. Tsuruta makes for a solidly addition to the proceedings, curious in his maneuvering at least when compared to the drama played out by returners such as Yachigusa (okay there's also another going after him and a whole thing about other returners, but I think you get the idea). The opening battle sequence is there to show that the journey isn't getting better at swordplay, because anybody can go with swords when they are young. The ambushes that are shown in the film are pretty interesting for the time period, and in general you get a movie that allows its final sequences to breathe on their own in what is past and what is to come. As a whole, Samurai II continues the journey of its one curious samurai with plenty of energy and interest in making a journey of fulfillment come around with enough fun beyond looking at things as just moving through the next blade movement. It sets the stage for what is to come in the next film in setting how the journey has gone in learning and seeing beyond the trappings of period and action dramas for a pretty good time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

All Monsters Attack.

Review #2391: All Monsters Attack.

Cast: 

Tomonori Yazaki (Ichiro Miki), Kenji Sahara (Kenichi Miki), Machiko Naka (Tamiko Miki), Hideyo Amamoto (Shinpei Minami), Sachio Sakai (Sembayashi), Kazuo Suzuki (Okuda), Junichi Ito (Sanko Gabara), Hidemi Ito (Sachiko), Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Marchan the Dwarf (Minilla; Midori Uchiyama as the voice of Minilla), and Yasuhiko Kakuyuki (Gabara)

Directed by Ishirō Honda (#167 - Godzilla [1954/1956], #711 - Mothra, #1092 - Gorath, #1224 - King Kong vs. Godzilla, #1225 - Mothra vs. Godzilla, #1226 - Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, #1623 - Invasion of Astro-Monster, #1999 - Matango, #2250 - Destroy All Monsters)

Review: 

"When I make a monster film, I never think that it will be for children. As a director, I’m a man who wants to imagine and express a story. But when it’s distributed to the theaters it’s always the children who are the most interested ... particularly those in the primary schools.”

You might think I am perhaps a bit generous to select films of the Godzilla franchise, at least within its early years. Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) was the low point for me in the first batch of movies*, if I remember correctly. Anyway, let's deliver some context to what the hell this movie is in the first place: Destroy All Monsters (1968) was planned to be the final Godzilla film at one point in time...until it wasn't the plan. They thought of developing an animated series with Filmation and while that collapsed, the idea to do a Godzilla movie centered for the children's market with a focus on doing it fast and cheap was an obvious one for Toho to latch onto. Outlandish ideas for young audiences wasn't a new concept for Honda anyway, as evidenced by films he did such as King Kong Escapes (1967), a co-production with Rankin/Bass Productions that dealt with North Pole hideouts and guys named "Dr. Who". The movie started production...in October 1969. For release in late December 1969. Ishiro Honda directed his eighth (out of nine) Godzilla movie, one that saw the special effects scenes shot alongside the drama sequences (Eiji Tsuburaya was given credit out of respect), with each being filmed in the same (small) studio. For whatever reason, when the movie was released in America (with edits and dubs, naturally) in 1971, it was called "Godzilla's Revenge", complete with being on a double feature with Island of the Burning Damned. According to one Honda book, the film was the first of a new breed of Godzilla films that would be part of the Toho Champion Festival, which dealt with entertaining children with films (some re-edited, like King Kong vs. Godzilla) that would occur three times a year - the festival would run for nearly a decade. This was the penultimate Godzilla script that Shinichi Sekizawa did all by himself while Honda (who stated his liking of the finished film) directed two further movies in the 1970s. The next Godzilla movie would be Godzilla vs. Hedorah in 1971.

Sure, the movie can have a few neat little moments, mostly in the fact that it does have some moments that are shot well, and it does try its best to aim for its selected audience. And the acting in the film is generally about what you would hope for a goofy little movie that surely wouldn't be subject to heavy editing for audiences in distant places, suffice to say. Now let's take a hammer to the egg: it easily is the lamest film of the Godzilla movies in the 1960s. I'm not sure how low it will rank among the lesser of the films of the ever-expanding series (does one count the 1998 American abomination in rankings because of the name?), but it fundamentally is just not a consistent movie in its ambition and execution. It may have a few nice shots, but you can still see the seams in this being a fast-and-cheap rush job. It isn't so much that the movie is expressly terrible in action or in its story, it just so happens that it fundamentally doesn't have enough its foundation to make a whole film. It tries to cover an actual issue (note: latchkey kids) but just comes off as short of making it seem authentic beyond "be more assertive" that comes off as hollow, the kid just seems a bit "timid" more than really troubled. Calling it a movie for kids almost sounds like a shield for something that is packaged like a product ready to be churned and churned over than an actual experience. I wonder if one could re-imagine the film to involve a person (young or not) being so gloomy or so warped that they resort to fantasy to try and cope with their life**. Yazaki may not have become a noted name, but he did fine here for a kid actor, which mainly involves seeing a young soul that is caring and imaginative enough to make you want to root for him in his curious trails (spent in his imagination or otherwise). Amamoto is encouraging enough to make an adequate support (remember that you see more of a neighbor than the parents of the lead character, so that tracks), while the paper-thing characterization of Sakai and Suzuki is about what you expect (incidentally, there are a few folks you might recognize from prior Honda productions). There isn't anything worth going volcanic over, even when you consider that going from Godzilla having a son to having said son depicted as talking is not nearly the worst thing possible. I also think it is a bit funny to have a kid-monster talking about being told to fight one's own battles only to have a climax where the kid ends up helping the poor bastard (catapults, rocks, and stuff) anyway. You'll see a few familiar elements from older films without groaning at it being just a "Greatest Hits" collection, at least.

I particularly find the climax ludicrous, nitpicky or not. So you have a kid cornered by robbers (sure) who decides to take action and goes at one of them while it keeps cutting from the robber to Gabara. Cowardly or not, it seems strange to imagine fighting someone that has a knife by pretending they are a monster (to say nothing if it was an adult being shown imagining it). After this and getting to go home, the kid then goes and has a scuffle with that bully by slideshow presentation (get it, because showing violence by kids isn't as ideal as showing monsters doing it to each other) before the kid decides to honk the horn (get it, because it will lead to an adult getting a bit distracted and goof up in paint, get it). I guess one could replace timidness with brat-nature, but whatever. As a whole, this is a movie removed from the usual Godzilla experience that may or may not be worth a watch for its sheer, well, curious strategy for entertainment. It's not a good movie, but you at least see where one could justify spending 69 minutes maybe once.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*For the purpose of just outlining every Godzilla movie of the 1960s, here's a list with a blurb: 

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) - Godzilla fights King Kong to a relative draw.

Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) - Mothra joins the mash!

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) - A monster so important it made the title

Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) - Nick Adams in: Spaceman's Adventure

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) - Terrorists, lobsters, and more.

Son of Godzilla (1967) - A real family drama

Destroy All Monsters (1968) - Mash like it's 1999 in Monsterland

**Taxi Driver came to mind, imagine a Godzilla-Taxi Driver mashup. I may be an idiot, but at least I try to throw you a curveball.

Redux: Godzilla (1954).

Redux #167: Godzilla (1954)

Cast: 

Akira Takarada (Hideto Ogata), Momoko Kōchi (Emiko Yamane), Akihiko Hirata (Dr. Daisuke Serizawa), Takashi Shimura (Dr. Kyohei Yamane), Fuyuki Murakami (Dr. Tanabe), Sachio Sakai (Hagiwara), with Ren Yamamoto (Masaji Yamada) and Haruo Nakajima & Katsumi Tezuka (Godzilla) Directed by Ishirō Honda.

Review:

"Having seen the terror of the atomic bomb in real life, it is most important to weave this element into the film well, so that everyone will understand."

From my review on June 16, 2012:

This is the first world cinema film to come from Japan [on Movie Night]. Gojira (also known as Godzilla) is a film franchise over 50 years old with 28 films in exactly 50 years (1954-2004). This film is chilling, with good atmosphere, with some night scenes that are genuinely frightening. The effects look good to this day, giving you a scare and two. The setting in Japan with the black and white color of the film make it even more threatening as the effects could be hide any mistakes visible in color. Setting it in Japan after the devastation from World War II only adds to it more. The scene that is chilling is at the near end is with the choir girls singing as the city is in peril. This film may be a bit slow at times, but it is still an achievement in filmmaking to this day after 58 years.

I had been waiting to look back at the original Godzilla (known in the Hepburn romanization as Gojira and occasionally released on home media as such) for a long time. After all of these years, I looked forward most to covering it again probably more than seeing the follow-up films that came in its wake. But to know it is to understand how it came together so curiously: Tomoyuki Tanaka had first come up with a idea to do a giant monster film after the failure to make a film in Indonesia (set during the Japanese occupation the previous decade, incidentally). He was flying back on a plane, and it came to him to basically take inspiration from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident, in which a boat had suffered from contamination after the Bikini Atoll was going through nuclear testing in March of 1954 (one crew member died from radiation sickness, the others survived). Shigeru Kayama was hired to do the initial treatment (which had ideas such as featuring footage of the Maru that went by the wayside) before Takeo Murata and Ishirō Honda wrote the screenplay; Honda had been hired to direct after people such as Senkichi Taniguchi declined. Teizō Toshimitsu and Akira Watanabe designed the creature under the supervision of Eiji Tsuburaya while two performers would be in the suit. Toho actually had a radio drama air during the summer in order to try and build interest for audiences before eventually showing photos of the monster in newspapers prior to release. The movie was first released in one city (Nagoya) on October 27, 1954 before getting a nationwide showing on November 3, 1954, to profound success in its native country. As people already know, an Americanized version of the film was released in 1956 that was trimmed and re-edited, although Toho would later use the "King of the Monsters" label to refer to the character to go along with even showing the edit as "Monster King Godzilla (Kaiju o Gojira)" in theaters. While he didn't direct the 1955 sequel, Honda would direct various other productions for Toho, such as the color monster movie Rodan (1956) and seven of the follow-up Godzilla films from King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) to Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975).

 

Admittedly, it is a movie that is more historical for what it spawned in its wake more than just being a perfect movie. It is easy to see where the American edit found the 96-minute runtime something to try and edit down for some sort of idea of standards in getting to the point, and one might wonder what the fuss is in that buildup to destruction. But admirers (such as the one I grew up with) see those composite shots mixed with miniatures and can enjoy the craftsmanship anyway for a movie that is sobering in its spectacle and depiction of sacrifice that is moody and capably made in a manner that set a blueprint worth cribbing from in the years to pass. In the seven decades since its release, technology has improved in making a movie monster look more "real" and for some there have been some quality follow-up Godzilla films (perhaps in story or otherwise), but the power of the original still manages to strike a nerve in terms of the sheer curiosity it generated in how it all came to be. Even trying to make an American rendition (1998, 2014) only shows that big money isn't everything (I say this as someone who likes some of those films in selective ways). The acting works with the bleak atmosphere in sheer confidence for what its director wanted to do in humanism, working its main triangle (Takarada-Kochi-Hirata) to worthwhile drama, particularly with Hirata in terms of conflict for what is most important when it comes to technology and the face of danger. Shimura just provides the established presence of worried curiosity that makes the mark handily. Sure, you would see some of these actors again in other Godzilla films, but they really did just hit out of the park in tension on the first try in ways that is easier to celebrate rather than replicate. The movie has carefully dedicated angles, as worked on by Masao Tamai with the cameras of the time (namely old ones) to go alongside a dazzling musical score by Akira Ifukube to accentuate the terror. It just manages to balance the fine line of showing terror (mostly in the reactions rather than directly interacting with the creature) without testing one's patience for the matters at hand. The prayer-for-peace sequence is especially startling in its sincerity. The climax itself is carefully curated in a way that you don't always see in impactful decision-making without needing bombast to drive it all home, particularly in those last moments musing about the nature of where nuclear testing or war may go if left to certain hands. Far from exploitive, there is real passion at hand from Honda and company in what we end up celebrating as a whole rather than simply going right in on just the effects. Metaphor or monster, the power of Godzilla is in just how enduring it all is as the years go on in humanistic filmmaking that made for worthwhile entertainment in ways that we still marvel at to this day.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

Review #1223: Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

Cast: 
Raymond Burr (Steve Martin), Takashi Shimura (Dr. Yamane; dubbed by Sammee Tong), Momoko Kōchi (Emiko), Akira Takarada (Ogata; dubbed by James Hong), Akihiko Hirata (Dr. Serizawa; dubbed by James Hong), Sachio Sakai (Hagiwara), Fuyuki Murakami (Dr. Tabata), Ren Yamamoto (Seiji), Toyoaki Suzuki (Shinkichi), Tadashi Okabe (Dr. Tabata's Assistant), Toranosuke Ogawa (President of Company), and Frank Iwanaga (Security Officer Tomo), with Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka (Godzilla) Directed by Terry Morse, as originally directed by Ishirō Honda (#167 - Godzilla, #711 - Mothra, and #1092 - Gorath)

Review: 
The original Godzilla was a success upon release in 1954. Over nine million tickets were sold in Japan upon initial run in Japan (which remain the second most attendance for a Godzilla film in Japan) - it soon found its way to being distributed to the United States - in Japanese-American neighborhoods. In 1955 (the same year that Toho would release Godzilla Raids Again), the international rights for the film would be sold to an American group interested in adapting it for further audiences in America, led by Joseph E. Levine, who was involved in over 400 films in his life-tiem as either producer, distributor, or financier (ranging from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians to The Producers). 20 minutes of footage with Burr, alongside stand-ins were edited into the feature, trying (for 1956 standards) to make it seem that he is part of the action, with a bit of dubbing involved when not having Burr just ask someone that he knows to help translate what is going on. The run-time is obviously different from before, with Gojira running at 96 minutes and this lasting 80 minutes. It feels strange to see this one after nearly seven years since I viewed the original - so it is interesting to see what I viewed once again (for the most part), if only to remember how serious it had taken itself (such as shots involving people trapped under rubble), with the black-and-white cinematography helping to make the sequences with Godzilla really stand out in terror. A good deal of the subtext involving the horrors of nuclear testing (along with character elements) is cut out, which admittedly does make for a more stream-lined movie, which I suppose is preferable to dubbing the whole dialogue - even if it does undercut the ultimate decision made in the climax a bit. Burr gives a fairly wooden performance with such a strange role of being in the background of impactful events in the film and occasional dialogue to other characters (one sequence amusingly having him talk to the back of someone's head) that would probably work better for an audio play than anything. He doesn't really get in the way of enjoying the actual film, which in its own right still holds up well. If given the choice between watching the original film with subtitles, a dub, or this, the easy choice for me is still the film in its original 1954 film, but this manages to be a fair second choice. After all, this is the version that audiences outside of Japan were introduced to, lingering as a drive-in favorite and in TV syndication for years on end. It treats the original (and its cast members) with respect, letting them be in the forefront (beside sequences with Godzilla, naturally) just as before.

Believe it or not, this isn't the last time the film would receive edits for release in another country. Italian filmmaker Luigi Cozzi made further edits in 1977 to this film, colorizing the film (hence why it the credits list it as presented as in Spectorama 70) along with adding new scenes (such as Godzilla destroying a train and various stock footage) that made it last 105 minutes; it is referred to as "Cozzilla" in most circles, with limited availability besides the Internet Archive. In 1985, New World Pictures released Godzilla 1985, a re-edit of Toho's The Return of Godzilla (1984) that served as a follow-up to the original film, including additional footage with Burr reprising his role of Martin from this feature. It shouldn't be forgotten that Godzilla, King of the Monsters! soon found its way to Japan, being released in 1957 under the title Kaiju Ō Gojira (translating to "Monster King Godzilla"). In any case, while this film loses some of the underlying structure that made the original Gojira a riveting monster movie, it holds itself well enough with its foundation to make for an interesting piece of entertainment nonetheless.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.