Tag Archives: Japanese

Kanashimi no Beradonna

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I’m again a long time between episodes of my nominally weekly horror podcast, partly due to difficulty finding a copy of the current movie that I could watch, but I think mostly due to being sick for the greater part of a month and falling behind on podcasts in general. I know one of the categories was revenge, but I don’t remember if that was the style or the monster, and I cannot remember what the other category was at all. (One supposes if I could, I’d also know which was which.) But I think revenge must be the monster die. Style could be a lot of things, but this is a 1973 anime named Belladonna of Sadness, so one supposes the style was Asian, or animated films, or not very plausibly 1970s. Just because of the glut of revenge movies from that decade, I mean.

Of course, I could be wrong about any of these facts, aside from what the movie was I mean. I’d check, but I’ve written way too much for that to make sense at this point.

There was a movie, I was saying. If I’m being real, I have no way to usefully talk about this movie without massive spoilers. Here’s what I can say before I reach that line: Belladonna of Sadness is a wildly stylized and yet minimally animated[1] movie about a medieval European, probably French, village in which a very much in love couple gets married, like you do, but then nothing whatsoever goes well for them for the remainder of the flick.

Okay, I’m not going to explain the plot point by point, because for one thing I don’t think I could anyway, but either way, definitely spoilers from here on in. Cut below the footnote.

[1] In the sense that there isn’t a lot of animation. There’s a lot of art, which the camera pans across, and sometimes small pieces of the art move in small ways. And sometimes it goes crazy. But mostly: very minimalist, from an animated perspective.

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Kaijû sôshingeki

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Okay. Nine movies. I have watched nine movies, mostly to delve into the mystery behind how many Godszilla existed, to which the answer is, for now, still two. But at some point I also just wanted to finish. Skipping seven movies like I should have done is whatever. But skipping two movies after I’ve already seen five of them? (And before you ask: yes, it gnaws at me occasionally that I did not go back and watch the original Mothra movie and the original Rodan movie, before those characters were explicitly spun into the Godzillaverse. (Or were they there all along? I don’t know! Which is why it gnaws at me.))

But the point is, I’ve watched those nine movies, which means I’ve made it to Destroy All Monsters, which means I can go back to my horror movie podcast, finally! …yeah, this was a mistake, but nevertheless, here we are.

What has not existed in these movies so far is a timeline. Like, the early movies were obviously in the middle of the atomic age, set for when they came out. Some of the later movies involved deep space travel of the kind that we were not ready for in the mid ’60s, but which then again who knows, what with the advances that would have naturally sprung from having to fight giant monsters birthed or awakened in atomic fires. Irrespective of all that, I can say with certainty that this one is set in the distant future of the year 2000, where all giant monsters are safely collared and contained on Monster Island. There’s a moon base, and in all other apparent ways, we have reached utopia.

Until…

Oops, the monsters are wandering around destroying everything again, and also asteroid aliens want to take control of the world and run it themselves, and hmm could these facts be linked? Mostly, I’m just relieved that they got back to basics, if by basics you mean alien invasions and alien monsters vs earth monsters and a big showdown on Mt. Fuji. Which I very much do. This is I think a good place to drop out for now.

Gojira · Ebira · Mosura: Nankai no daikettô

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Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, is… on the one hand, it’s a lot less weird than recent Godzilla movies I’ve watched, in that it’s not batshit crazy. But on the other hand, it’s actually weirder in some ways, because it’s heavily James Bond influenced I think? And also, this was probably the moment where Godzilla made the transition from anti-hero to good guy, which… I certainly see how it has affected all the future stories, making this clear delineation that he will never again be an existential threat. But I’m still not convinced in the contexts of these movies that it was a good idea, is all.

So get this. This dude’s brother is lost at sea, so he tries to enter a dance-a-thon to win a yacht, but since it’s already three days in, they won’t let him join. So instead, he and two other failed contestants and a third guy all steal a yacht together, semi-accidentally. Then they see a giant crab thing and shipwreck on an island, which is inhabited by a supervillain lair, except without a specific obvious supervillain. Instead, there’s a scientist (I think?) working on nukes, and an eyepatch guy who leads a group of henchmen with machine guns from place to place all over the island, just randomly firing at our heroes but always missing them. It is also inhabited by slaves from Infant Island (famously the home of Mothra) and by a comatose Godzilla, the latter of which is too coincidental for words, and yet here we are.

So anyway, these guys try to figure out how to escape, and how to free the Infants, and how to deal with the giant crab monster (who I believe is referred to exactly once by name?), and eventually there’s a lot of kaiju-fighting, to dance-a-thon music. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Mothra 2 finally grew up and is no longer a caterpillar.

Kaijû daisensô

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So I’m still watching Godzilla movies, right? Invasion of Astro Monster is on the one hand not nearly as weird as Ghidorah was. But on the other hand, it’s a much weirder Godzilla movie. See, there are radio signals from a planet beyond Pluto, which they have decided to call Planet X, and also it’s right next to (as in seems like a moon of) Jupiter, and in conclusion you can tell that the same people who were spouting paleontological knowledge in the first movie did the astronomical research for this one.

So these astronauts meet up with the citizens of Planet X, where King Ghidorah is rampaging and forcing them underground, and since from monitoring radio waves or whatever they have learned about how Earth survived Ghidorah’s attack, would we mind ever so much if they could borrow Godzilla and Rodan, in exchange for medical panaceas?

The problem with depth of genre knowledge is if good guy aliens ever show up offering us the keys to the universe, we’ll screw it up immediately by not believing them for a moment, since obviously it’s a trap.

Later, some monsters get in big fights, and the world’s most annoying toymaker makes the world’s most annoying toy, inspiring Tim Burton in the process. Oh, also of note: this is the first Criterion edition of these movies to have an English soundtrack instead of Japanese with subtitles. I don’t know if that was a Max choice or Criterion itself, but it is definitely what I had access to. (Made watching it at work a lot easier, I’ll say that much.)

San Daikaijû Chikyû Saidai no Kessen

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Okay. I have reached the point where I know what’s up. There are/were only two Godszilla, I have high confidence in this fact. The downside is, now I’m five movies into the series, and I was supposed to watch the first one and the ninth one. So, like… should I just go ahead and power through since I’m already more than halfway there?

There is one compelling factor here: Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen, and that is saying a lot.[1] See, there’s this princess of a nearby island nation who is trying to make a peace treaty with Japan, maybe? Or something. but also internal politics means there are people trying to assassinate her, and also sometimes with no explicit explanation provided, she is from Venus and has been on Earth for thousands of years. Also, the Mothra twins are visiting for a TV show appearance. Also, a meteor shower woke up Rodan, who you would have no reason to know (aside from watching a separate movie without a Godzilla) is a giant pterodactyl thing. Also also, there was a meteor shower that had one weird meteor that changes sizes and has sporadic magnetism, and landed in the Japanese Alps, a mountain range with which I was unfamiliar.

My point is, Godzilla doesn’t even show up until 40 minutes into the movie, and okay, it’s not his name on the title card, but King Ghidorah isn’t much sooner (and might be later still, for all I remember). In the meantime, the Venusian princess is warning people that “Rodan will wake up in a second so don’t go get that guy’s hat that blew down the hill”, or “don’t get on that ship because last time we saw Godzilla he was maybe drowned again, and ships go on water”, or “King Ghidorah destroyed all life on Venus and he’s here on Earth now so get your affairs in order.” Luckily, they didn’t write her as Cassandra, so after the first time she’s right, people start listening.

But the best part of the movie is close enough to the end that I’m going to warn of spoilers, even though I’ve been really cavalier up to now.

[1] I mean, it should be the weirdest movie basically anyone has ever seen, averaging out across the populace. But in the nichier markets there are some true unpolished gems. The Baby, anyone?

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Kingu Kongu tai Gojira

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You may recall that the only reason I’m watching these Godzilla movies is to determine just how many Godszilla there are, having been betrayed by the first one. So anyway, the third movie in the series maintains us on Godzilla number two, while introducing a surprise guest star!

King Kong vs. Godzilla is the story of how rival Japanese television networks try to drum up ratings by pitting Godzilla (who has recently been freed from an iceberg that is approximately where he ended up in the previous movie[1], which is how I know it’s the same Godzilla) against King Kong (who has recently been kidnapped from his home in the Solomon Islands by the lower in the ratings of the two TV networks, in a bid to gain marketshare by showing him off to Japan).

No really, that’s the whole movie. Wake up Godzilla who will attack Japan because it’s a habit at this point. Kidnap King Kong for ratings. Notice that maybe since he’s tall, he could defeat Godzilla and save Tokyo. Notice that atomic fire breath sets giant ape skin on fire same as everyone else’s. Notice that, implausibly, where a million volts of electricity makes Godzilla say “ow” and wander off in a different direction, it makes Kong say “yummy!” and then flex like Popeye on a week-long spinach bender. Put them both on the slopes of Mt. Fuji for an electro-charged rematch. Profit?[2]

I’d say you cannot make this stuff up, but, singing Mothra twins? This doesn’t even scratch the surface of what you can make up. In conclusion, Godzilla’s fate at the end of the movie was uncertain, which means I still have to watch another one. Sheesh. At least it’s on Max, because having to settle for 1080p because my Plex server couldn’t deal with the 4K version of this movie was an annoyance and a half.

[1] by meddling Americans, of course
[2] In fact, yes, massive, massive profit in the Japanese market.

Gojira no gyakushû

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I couldn’t help it. I just had to know how Godzilla recovered from being reduced to his component molecules by the oxygen destroyer. So I went digging around and found the second Toho movie, Godzilla Raids Again.

This movie focuses on Japan’s fishing industry, albeit with nearly no fishing. Apparently they have spotters who fly around looking for fish to send the fishing boats to, and lady radio operators to convey messages back and forth between the pilots and the fleet. Which is all fine and good, until one of the spotters, er, notices Godzilla. This gives the writers a chance to correct the paleontologist from last movie. Now, Godzilla is from somewhere between 130 to 70 million years ago, “as everyone knows”. But no fear! there’s also a similarly proportioned ankylosaurus from the same time period also awakened by more atomic testing, who they started calling Anguirus for reasons that were not at all clear to me. And this is where the paleontologist got a bunk script again, because, okay, that guy is also nearly 200 feet tall (I suppose I know why they weren’t going to walk that part back), and he has spikes all over his back instead of only along the sides, and he’s a vicious carnivore.

People knew better in the 1950s, right? I mean, they must have. And yet.

Anyway, from there the movie proceeds about as you’d expect. Here come monsters to attack Osaka, but the Japanese have learned how to lure Godzilla away now. Which worked out great, up until a subplot with a prison transfer escape attempt ends up blowing up the waterfront fishing cannery, and suddenly Anguirus and Godzilla are locked in mortal combat, and also lots of familiar pilots are flying around in danger, with familiar radio operators swooning over them.

I want to watch the next movie and find out how Godzilla comes back next time, but it’s not available anywhere. …which reminds me, I never did tell you how he came back this time! …he didn’t. This is just a different Godzilla. How many of them are there?? But just remember anytime you are watching one of those old sequel movies, it’s not even the actual Godzilla.

I feel so betrayed.

Gojira

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So this is super weird.

I know I’ve seen the Raymond Burr Godzilla (which is perversely difficult to find on streaming (not that I particularly wanted to), as compared to how easy it was to find on any given Saturday afternoon in my youth), and I would swear I’ve seen Gojira as well, or even if not, it’s the same movie minus inserted Raymond Burr footage, right?

But, because it has been a while, I figured to myself that I would watch the film in advance of the horror movie podcast episode about it, and it turns out that either they diverge wildly, or I just have not seen this movie after all. I remember the people running along trails to hilltops to see Godzilla approaching, and Burr giving close-up commentary on the moment, and I remember him (Godzilla, not Burr) smashing through buildings and elevated trains and such in Tokyo, but I had minimal to no memory of the family drama / romantic subplot between the paleontologist, his daughter, her scientist fiance, and her fisherman lover, and I had completely no memory of how the movie ended.

For example, and this is a spoiler for a seventy year-old movie, so with that said, did you know Godzilla dies at the end?? There are like ten or a dozen or more other Toho movies in this series, the vast majority of which he is alive in, and I have no idea how! It never crossed my mind that he could die, that was the one thing I was certain of!

Like, I used to be sure that (before he became a guardian instead), Gojira was a metaphor not only for the dangers of nuclear testing, but also for the learned hopelessness of the Japanese people a mere nine years past Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nation of people in all the world’s history who were the most thoroughly crushed by opposing forces. But if they can just turn around and kill the supposedly undefeatable nuclear behemoth, that particular metaphor flies right out the window.

It’s like learning that Rosebud was his wife’s middle name, or that Rick and Elsa had never been to Paris. Everything I know is wrong, and what can I even do with this information now?

Hausu

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Man. This was a ride.

You know all the stereotypes about Japanese schoolgirls you learned from anime? It turns out they also existed in 1977 in Japanese cinema. This particular set of schoolgirls, and let me see if I can get this right, consist of Fantasy (who has a vivid imagination), Mac (who likes to eat), Melody (who plays music you see), Sweet (who helps out, like with cleaning or whatever), Kung Fu (who… I mean, you can suss this one out), Professor[1] (she’s smart and wears glasses), and Gorgeous, who in addition to, one supposes, being pretty, also precipitates the main action of the film by being upset that her father has decided to remarry eight years after his wife’s death, so she refuses to take all her friends on summer vacation with him and his fiancee and instead takes them to visit her (maternal, natch) aunt’s House.

Between the melodrama of Japanese schoolgirls and the separate melodrama of the tragic tale of Gorgeous’s spinster aunt, dating back to the war[2], I really had no idea what to expect at this point, and while it perhaps would be better for the viewer to show up similarly uninformed, I gots to earn my money[3] somehow, so, stop here if you want to see the movie based on only the above description and my nod that yes, probably watch it.

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