Retro Review | “Godzilla” 1954: A Somber Depiction of Atomic Power
Spoilers beware.
“If nuclear testing continues…then someday, somewhere in the world…another Godzilla may appear.”
Ishirō Honda’s 1954 Japanese kaiju epic, Godzilla, is one of the first classical, black-and-white foreign films I had ever watched. Maybe the first, the more I think about it. I had just gotten into talking about the giant radioactive lizard and I wanted to watch where the big guy originally started, so I checked out this initial film and quickly understood why the creature’s popularity was as big as it was, both to Japan and the rest of the world. Years later, and that feeling is once again felt. Godzilla, though showing some signs of age which I’ll get into early on in this review, is perhaps one of the most somber, melancholic, and darkest entries into the kaiju movie canon.
One fateful night near Odo Island, Japanese freighter Eiko-maru is destroyed in a mysterious radioactive accident, followed by the Bingo-maru shortly after. Paleontologist Kyohei Yamane, his daughter Emiko, and her secret lover Hideto Ogata are sent to Odo Island in order to investigate claims that a giant creature destroyed a number of buildings and killed several people during a thunderous storm. Discovering that the creature leaves both massive footprints and radiation similar to the…
