Takashi Yamazaki's "Godzilla Minus One" was an unexpectedly large hit in the United States, and currently holds the distinction of being the highest-grossing Japanese-language Godzilla film in U.S. box office history. "Minus One" is also unique in the Godzilla canon in that it affects an optimistic worldview. Several Godzilla movies in the franchise tended to zero in on Godzilla's horrifying nuclear origins, pointing out that the monster is the direct result of atomic testing. Humans were only able to destroy Godzilla in Ishiro Honda's 1954 film "Gojira" by creating a new weapon even more devastating than the atomic bomb. That film is sad and dour and pessimistic. In contrast, "Godzilla Minus One" is about how ingenuity and redemption are still possible after World War II, and that humans needn't be hopeless or obsessed with death. It's okay, "Minus One" argues, to let go of the violence.
"Minus One,...
"Minus One,...
- 3/18/2024
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
As one of the main selling points of their films, Toho Studios has spent a vast majority of their time crafting monsters of various quantity and quality to be involved in their films whether it be in their main Godzilla series or their other features. While Godzilla has remained their big money-maker and longest-lasting series, that there have been other attempts at creating these kinds of movies that have meant the need for crafting either allies or opponents for these films over the years. Some are better than others, but when they hit a great idea for a creature or concept it should make sense to reuse the particular creature over and over again, such as with popular beasts like Anguirus, Rodan, King Ghidora, and Mothra, to name just a few. That makes it even weirder how some of the creatures were never given another shot as they provided a...
- 2/9/2024
- by Don Anelli
- AsianMoviePulse
Family, friends, and fans mourn the loss of a man notable for his entertaining performances and bright personality that put smiles on peoples' faces. On December 16th, 2023, beloved actor and stunt performer Kenpachiro Satsuma passed away at the age of 76 following a battle with interstitial pneumonia. Multiple news outlets have reported on his passing. Nikkan Sports says the following on the website Yahoo! Japan: “Kenpachiro Satsuma, the second generation suit actor in the “Godzilla” movie series, died of interstitial pneumonia on March 16 at the age of 76″ Satsuma's family confirmed the news to be true on social media. His passing has been met with an outpour of tributes, including from individuals who knew Satsuma personally, people who worked with him, and those who admired his work.
Kenpachiro Satsuma, born Yasuaki Maeda, was a major player in the tokusatsu performance art known as suitmation, in which a fictional character is brought to...
Kenpachiro Satsuma, born Yasuaki Maeda, was a major player in the tokusatsu performance art known as suitmation, in which a fictional character is brought to...
- 12/17/2023
- by Sean Barry
- AsianMoviePulse
The most famous kaiju in the world is set to make his triumphant rerelease to the big screen in more ways than one. The resurgence of Godzilla has blown up almost as big as the monster itself. The U.S. retried our hand at the gargantuan creature with 2014’s Godzilla, which aimed for redemption from the 1998 name-only version. That reintroduction spawned a monster-verse with King Kong getting his own reboot and culminating in a rumble for the film Godzilla vs. Kong. Not only is there to be a spin-off series with Monarch: Legacy of Monsters featuring the “Gorilla-whale,” but this December sees a new era with the Toho film Godzilla Minus One.
Fans of the series can now also celebrate the introduction of the Millennium series as Godzilla-movies.com reveals that special screenings of Godzilla 2000 will be shown at AMC theaters courtesy of Fathom Events. Fandango has listed the...
Fans of the series can now also celebrate the introduction of the Millennium series as Godzilla-movies.com reveals that special screenings of Godzilla 2000 will be shown at AMC theaters courtesy of Fathom Events. Fandango has listed the...
- 9/12/2023
- by EJ Tangonan
- JoBlo.com
Godzilla was once a monster well suited for Cold War symbolism, but times changed. And as written in the book Japan’s Favorite Mon-star, author and film historian Steve Ryfle suggested “the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fading of the global nuclear threat” may have played a part in Toho’s drastic decision to kill off its most celebrated character.” Death wasn’t unheard of for Godzilla; after all, the atomic monster perished in its first two appearances. The only difference in 1995 was Godzilla was no longer a mere metaphor for ruin and despair. So much had changed since Tomoyuki Tanaka’s creation embodied the nuclear horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Godzilla had somehow become a hero, albeit a complicated one in the ‘90s and onward.
While the last leg of the Shōwa age depicted Godzilla as Japan’s foremost protector, the next installment of movies...
While the last leg of the Shōwa age depicted Godzilla as Japan’s foremost protector, the next installment of movies...
- 12/9/2022
- by Paul Lê
- bloody-disgusting.com
Above: Us one sheet for Knight Of Cups (Terrence Malick, USA, 2015); designer: P+A.Leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, the beautiful new poster for Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups was by far the most popular poster (tallied in likes and reblogs) that I have posted on my daily poster Tumblr since last October. Unveiled nearly a whole year after the first poster for the film premiered at last year’s Berlin Film Festival (that which made my top ten posters of 2015), the new poster retains the arcane and antique feel of that design—not to mention the palm trees—while making it only moderately more commercial with its image of star Christian Bale (albeit upside down and barely recognizable) haloed by a giant harvest moon.Sadly, much of the past month or two has been spent commemorating those we lost: Jacques Rivette, Haskell Weller, Ettore Scola, artist...
- 2/12/2016
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
**Massive spoilers for every Godzilla movie, with the exception of the 2014 reboot, and Mothra follow**
August 6th and 9th, 1945 forever changed the course of history. When the first nuclear bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, World War II ended, but a new fear was born that dominated the thoughts of all men, women, and children for decades to come. The Cold War, atomic bomb testing, a cartoon turtle telling children to “duck and cover”, and this new technology that had the actual potential to literally end the world changed the perception of what was scary. Art reflects life, so cinema began to capitalize on these fears. Gone were the days of creepy castles, cobwebs, bats, vampires, werewolves, and the other iconic images that ruled genre cinema in film’s earliest decades. Science fiction was larger than ever and giant ants, giant octopi, terror from beyond the stars, and...
August 6th and 9th, 1945 forever changed the course of history. When the first nuclear bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, World War II ended, but a new fear was born that dominated the thoughts of all men, women, and children for decades to come. The Cold War, atomic bomb testing, a cartoon turtle telling children to “duck and cover”, and this new technology that had the actual potential to literally end the world changed the perception of what was scary. Art reflects life, so cinema began to capitalize on these fears. Gone were the days of creepy castles, cobwebs, bats, vampires, werewolves, and the other iconic images that ruled genre cinema in film’s earliest decades. Science fiction was larger than ever and giant ants, giant octopi, terror from beyond the stars, and...
- 11/4/2014
- by Max Molinaro
- SoundOnSight
Trying to get rid of Godzilla is like trying to throw away an old boomerang. Missiles, bombs and exploding mines merely annoy the huge beast.
Toho Studios, the big fellow's home since 1954, killed him off in 1995's "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", only to revive him due to popular demand. Roland Emmerich's inflated, Westernized 1998 version, which created a behemoth reptile with visual effects and digital technology, not only failed to finish off the Big G but also renewed interest in him in his native Japan.
So one of the movies' most enduring -- and endearing -- stars is back with all of his bad attitudes in "Godzilla 2000", his 23rd feature. Released domestically by Sony's TriStar Pictures with a dubbed English soundtrack, the movie reinstates all of the series' old tricks: the cheesy special effects, the wildly inappropriate English dialogue and, most importantly, the monster played by a man wearing an elaborate latex suit.
Because Godzilla is the cinematic equivalent of comfort food and, presumably, American appetites were awakened by Emmerich's film, this new incarnation should attract not only fans of the beast and high camp but also the curious who want to see the grumpy monster on his home turf -- trashing Tokyo for the umpteenth time.
Godzilla gets a makeover every few years. The new Godzilla has shrunk to about 170 feet -- closer to the 1954 model -- and has much scarier teeth, a crouch-like gait, a pinkish tone in his redesigned dorsal fins and fiery, don't-mess-with-me eyes. Tsutomu Kitagawa is the stuntman-gymnast inside the Godzilla suit, and special effects director Kenji Suzuki created the new look.
Godzilla disappears for too long during the middle of the movie as director Takao Okawara and his writers prepare the way for another monster to battle Godzilla. This foe is named Orga, according to media notes, though he is never called that in the film.
Orga starts out as a mysterious rock found in a coastal seabed and turns out to be a 60 million-year-old UFO. When scientists bring it to the surface, the thing gets fueled by the sun, zips around the sky and finally squats on a skyscraper, where it soaks up data from Tokyo's computer systems.
Searching for a way to adapt to Earth's hostile environment, the alien spots a rampaging Godzilla making life miserable for humans and apparently decides to transform itself into a Godzilla-like monster. Well, Tokyo isn't big enough for two Godzillas, so the two duke it out in a grand finale that, of course, levels the poor city once more.
The humans watching all this include Takehiro Murata as the head of the Godzilla Prediction Network, who seeks to protect the monster as a suitable subject for scientific inquiry; 12-year-old Mayu Suzuki as his beguiling daughter; Naomi Nishida as a photojournalist who tags along in hopes of getting good Godzilla shots; Hiroshi Abe as the intelligence agency chief obsessed with destroying the beast; and Shiro Sano as his befuddled
assistant.
What turns "Godzilla 2000" into a riotous comedy are the deliberately awkward English dialogue and archaic expressions like "Great Caesar's ghost!" A few favorite lines: "Ah, the damn teriyaki is cold here," "Quit your bitchin'" and "Oh, bite me".
While the film takes advantage of current technology to employ nearly 500 CG shots, the effects are deliberately not state of the art. The filmmakers, quite rightly, believe that a technically perfect movie would betray the spirit of Godzilla.
The Japanese have enormous affection for this goofy series and its ugly, angry hero. Some claim that Godzilla, supposedly awakened or mutated by nuclear testing, is a manifestation of that country's understandable terror of the nuclear age. But dragons and monsters roam the mythology of all cultures, and cinema is replete with such beasts, ranging from Dr. Frankenstein's monster to King Kong and the shark in "Jaws".
Monsters embody our fears. Our ambivalence toward them reflects our fascination with that which terrorizes us. Thus, the corniness of Godzilla, with its hokey effects and man in a monster suit, allows us to take childlike pleasure in a "villain" in much the same way Margaret Hamilton won our hearts as the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz".
GODZILLA 2000
TriStar Pictures
A Toho Company Ltd. presentation
of a Toho Pictures production
Producer: Shogo Tomiyama
Director: Takao Okawara
Screenwriters: Hiroshi Kashiwabara,
Wataru Minura
Director of special effects: Kenji Suzuki
Director of photography: Katsuhiro Kato
Production designer: Takeshi Shimizu
Music: Takayuki Hattori
Costume designer: Masato Arai
Editor: Yoshiyuki Okuhara
Color/stereo
Cast:
GPN Director Shinoda: Takehiro Murata
CCI Scientist Miyasaka: Shiro Sano
CCI Chief Katagiri: Hiroshi Abe
Yuki: Naomi Nishida
Io: Mayu Suzuki
Godzilla: Tsutomu Kitagawa
Running time - 97 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Toho Studios, the big fellow's home since 1954, killed him off in 1995's "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", only to revive him due to popular demand. Roland Emmerich's inflated, Westernized 1998 version, which created a behemoth reptile with visual effects and digital technology, not only failed to finish off the Big G but also renewed interest in him in his native Japan.
So one of the movies' most enduring -- and endearing -- stars is back with all of his bad attitudes in "Godzilla 2000", his 23rd feature. Released domestically by Sony's TriStar Pictures with a dubbed English soundtrack, the movie reinstates all of the series' old tricks: the cheesy special effects, the wildly inappropriate English dialogue and, most importantly, the monster played by a man wearing an elaborate latex suit.
Because Godzilla is the cinematic equivalent of comfort food and, presumably, American appetites were awakened by Emmerich's film, this new incarnation should attract not only fans of the beast and high camp but also the curious who want to see the grumpy monster on his home turf -- trashing Tokyo for the umpteenth time.
Godzilla gets a makeover every few years. The new Godzilla has shrunk to about 170 feet -- closer to the 1954 model -- and has much scarier teeth, a crouch-like gait, a pinkish tone in his redesigned dorsal fins and fiery, don't-mess-with-me eyes. Tsutomu Kitagawa is the stuntman-gymnast inside the Godzilla suit, and special effects director Kenji Suzuki created the new look.
Godzilla disappears for too long during the middle of the movie as director Takao Okawara and his writers prepare the way for another monster to battle Godzilla. This foe is named Orga, according to media notes, though he is never called that in the film.
Orga starts out as a mysterious rock found in a coastal seabed and turns out to be a 60 million-year-old UFO. When scientists bring it to the surface, the thing gets fueled by the sun, zips around the sky and finally squats on a skyscraper, where it soaks up data from Tokyo's computer systems.
Searching for a way to adapt to Earth's hostile environment, the alien spots a rampaging Godzilla making life miserable for humans and apparently decides to transform itself into a Godzilla-like monster. Well, Tokyo isn't big enough for two Godzillas, so the two duke it out in a grand finale that, of course, levels the poor city once more.
The humans watching all this include Takehiro Murata as the head of the Godzilla Prediction Network, who seeks to protect the monster as a suitable subject for scientific inquiry; 12-year-old Mayu Suzuki as his beguiling daughter; Naomi Nishida as a photojournalist who tags along in hopes of getting good Godzilla shots; Hiroshi Abe as the intelligence agency chief obsessed with destroying the beast; and Shiro Sano as his befuddled
assistant.
What turns "Godzilla 2000" into a riotous comedy are the deliberately awkward English dialogue and archaic expressions like "Great Caesar's ghost!" A few favorite lines: "Ah, the damn teriyaki is cold here," "Quit your bitchin'" and "Oh, bite me".
While the film takes advantage of current technology to employ nearly 500 CG shots, the effects are deliberately not state of the art. The filmmakers, quite rightly, believe that a technically perfect movie would betray the spirit of Godzilla.
The Japanese have enormous affection for this goofy series and its ugly, angry hero. Some claim that Godzilla, supposedly awakened or mutated by nuclear testing, is a manifestation of that country's understandable terror of the nuclear age. But dragons and monsters roam the mythology of all cultures, and cinema is replete with such beasts, ranging from Dr. Frankenstein's monster to King Kong and the shark in "Jaws".
Monsters embody our fears. Our ambivalence toward them reflects our fascination with that which terrorizes us. Thus, the corniness of Godzilla, with its hokey effects and man in a monster suit, allows us to take childlike pleasure in a "villain" in much the same way Margaret Hamilton won our hearts as the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz".
GODZILLA 2000
TriStar Pictures
A Toho Company Ltd. presentation
of a Toho Pictures production
Producer: Shogo Tomiyama
Director: Takao Okawara
Screenwriters: Hiroshi Kashiwabara,
Wataru Minura
Director of special effects: Kenji Suzuki
Director of photography: Katsuhiro Kato
Production designer: Takeshi Shimizu
Music: Takayuki Hattori
Costume designer: Masato Arai
Editor: Yoshiyuki Okuhara
Color/stereo
Cast:
GPN Director Shinoda: Takehiro Murata
CCI Scientist Miyasaka: Shiro Sano
CCI Chief Katagiri: Hiroshi Abe
Yuki: Naomi Nishida
Io: Mayu Suzuki
Godzilla: Tsutomu Kitagawa
Running time - 97 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 8/18/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.