Movie Review: Godzilla (1954)

DIRECTOR: Ishiro Honda. CAST: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura, Fuyuki Murakami, Sachio Sakai, Toranosuke Ogawa, Ren Yamamoto, Hiroshi Hayashi, Seijiro Onda.
Forget about Godzilla: Hokey Kid’s Matinee Hero; that nonsense does not apply here. Godzilla was originally a post-World War II nuclear nightmare, a prehistoric fusion of land and sea reptiles awakened by American weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean. Japan’s citizens relive the horror of August 1945 when the monster attacks the city of Tokyo, setting things aflame with his atomic breath and laying waste to everything else in his path. Although Godzilla is not without its share of melodrama, it is so much more than a cheesy monster movie—the atomic bomb metaphors are abundantly clear, as are the questions raised about Japan’s psychological state in the early 1950s. Godzilla’s fantastic black and white photography gives the film a documentary-like quality that enhances its somber tone. Excellent and completely deserves to be remembered as the king of kaiju movies.
AKA Gojira.