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Film: Godzilla Raids Again (Gojira no gyakushû)
Year: 1955
Director: Motoyoshi Oda
Writer: Takeo Murata and Shigeaki Hidaka
Starring: Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama and Minoru Chiaki
Review:
This film begins following a pilot for a fishing company, played by Hiroshi Koizumi. He reports back that he has found a school of fish. Headquarters relays this information to the fishing vessel. The woman he reports back to is actually his fiancée, played by Setsuko Wakayama. Her father is the owner of the company, played Yukio Kasama.
There is another pilot that is Koizumi’s friend, played by Minoru Chiaki. He does the same thing as Koizumi, but he has engine failure and crashes. Koizumi goes out and helps to find him. He lands by the island and they see they’re not alone. Godzilla is there fighting a giant Ankylosaur. They hide for the night.
Back safely they inform a zoologist of what they saw; he is played by Masao Shimizu. Also there is the captain of the Osaka Defense Corps, played by Seijirô Onda. Also another member is Yoshio Tsuchiya, who’s also at the meeting as well as the civil defense minister, played by Minosuke Yamada. They go through pictures in a book. Shimizu then explains about Ankylosaurs and how they are very aggressive. A plan is then set up to how they will try to keep Godzilla from attacking Osaka.
They know that Godzilla is attracted to lights, so they enforce a blackout. They also use flares to distract it from where they want it to go. Their plan starts to fall apart when Godzilla begins to head for Osaka. An evacuation goes into effect and they set their plan into motion. It begins to work until a group of prisoners escape from their police escort. There are three that steal a truck. They try to outrun the police, but end up crashing in an oil refinery. This causes a major explosion and attracts Godzilla. The Ankylosaur also attacks.
These two giant monsters face off turning Osaka into a battleground. The army tries their best to stop them, but they are futile. Godzilla ends up killing this other dinosaur and seems to calm down after. He goes back into the ocean.
Chiaki is transferred to Hokkaido to work for that branch of the company while the rest stay in Osaka to rebuild. There are continual patrols trying to find Godzilla, but they don’t get anywhere.
Koziumi, Wakayama and Kasama all go to Hokkaido to visit Chiaki. They also meet up with some of the Koziumi and Chiaki’s college friends. While they’re out, there is a report that a fishing vessel has found something on radar that is Godzilla’s size. All of these pilots begin their patrol.
Will they be able to stop Godzilla or will they all die in the process? Will Godzilla destroy this other city as well? Is there anything they can do to stop Godzilla?
I don’t remember watching this one growing up, but I love the Godzilla films. This one is interesting, because this is the first one where Godzilla fights another large monster. I will say that you need to get past that this film is a man in a lizard costume fighting another man in a different one in a fake, model city. This is a scary thing if it really happened though. The acting takes a backseat to the monsters and this film is really about how they can stop these giant monsters.
I have already touched on the issues about this film. The monsters look fake, the special effects are not very good and you can clearly tell that the city and the vehicles are fake, especially when they’re being attacked by the monsters. If you can get past this though, they are really enjoyable.
If you like the giant monster films of the 1950s, I would recommend giving this one a viewing. As stated, this one is one of the more important ones as being the first film that featured Godzilla fighting another giant monster. This is also from Japan, so keep that in mind that you have to watch it with subtitles or it being dubbed in English. This film is in black and white, so you need to keep that in mind as well. If you can get past that, I would recommend giving this film a viewing.
My Rating: 6 out of 10