MovieChat Forums > Gojira (2004) Discussion > Great film! And incredibly dark (the or...

Great film! And incredibly dark (the original Japanese Version)

posted 12 years ago by StoneGriffin
3 replies | jump to latest

I loved the film when it was shown uncut and in the original release version at a local theater. The theater itself was packed BTW. I loved the dread and build up of suspense. This was a really SCARY Godzilla, not a cutsey plastic toy type monster, but a really terrifying visage. The human cost of the destruction of Tokyo was also there. I'm forever haunted by the woman who is huddling against a building with her children as the buildings are falling around them "We'll be with 'Father' soon", indicating that her husband is already dead and they will soon be joining him. Ugh. Talk about heart breaking. This is classic cinema and I can see how many other movies 'borrowed' elements from it. :D

Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.

[–] s-napolitano8 12 years ago

I think the ending of this film, when Serizawa sacrifices himself, and how they showed Godzilla almost waiting at the bottom of the ocean, very sad but so well done by Honda. This one was much better than the "King of Monsters" american version. Thanks to TCM I FINALLY got to see the original.

[–] peprd6 12 years ago

True, this movie scared me as a child.

[–] Raysand 12 years ago

I agree with you all. It's a great movie [incredibly dark] and there are many outstanding moments--from the opening credits as we hear Ifukube's theme and Godzilla's amazing roar [the most amazing and singular monster roar in movie history!] to the monster's attacks on Tokyo, the woman with her children huddling in the corner of the building, the heartbreaking hospital scene with the cries of despair from a child screaming for her mother, to the children's choir singing, to the scientist's suicide at the end, etc...

What's more, it must have been difficult for the Japanese audiences just a few years distanced from the atom explosions that killed so many people in Japan to make a movie that is a metaphor for the a-bomb and where Godzilla's rampage and aftermath looks like an a-bomb explosion with a burning city, people sprayed by Godzilla's radioactive ray, crumbling buildings and radioactively poisoned victims in a hospital.

Yes, it's a great film. What a pity that they just didn't translate the original instead of chopping it up and introducing out-of-place Raymond Burr.