Director: Honda Ishiro
Script: Honda Ishiro & Murata Takeo
Cinematographer: Tamai Masao
Editing: Taira Kasuji
Art Setting: Chuko Satoshi et Kita Takeo
Music: Ifukube Akira
Cast: Takarada Akira, Kôchi Momoko, Hirata Akihiko, Shimura Takashi
Production: Toho
Distribution:
Metropolitan Film Export
29 rue Galilée
75 116 Paris
France
Phone: 0033 1.56.59.23.25
Year: 1954
Screening: 2019
DCP, B & W, 97 min
O.V. Japanese with French Subtitles
Part of Japonism 2018
Several Japanese freighters sink after being hit by a mysterious lightning striking out of the ocean. Paleontologist Kyohei Yamane discovers giant radioactive footprints and a trilobite on a nearby island: underwater hydrogen bomb testings have created a sea monster, Godzilla. After consulting with international experts, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces construct a 430-metre-tall, 300,000 volt electrified fence along the coast and deploy forces to stop and kill Godzilla.
Godzilla is a worldwide pop culture icon, which created its very own cinema genre, the kaiju eiga (litt.: cinema of monsters). The original movie spawned 31 sequels produced by Japanese company Toho, three Hollywood films, and numerous video games, novels, comic books, television shows. With the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons.
Huge success in Japan (more than 9 million audience members), the International version distributed by Americans was shortened by 18 minutes to reduce all sequences including nuclear testings and its consequences on the environment.
