For ‘Kaiju eiga’ fans..
Saturday, September 30th, 2006In the minds of every one in this world who still enjoy being a little kid, the word ‘Kaiju’ is related to the Big giant monster, tokusatsu, Toho, Ishiro Honda, Eiji Tsuburaya or Godzilla (Gojira) and that’s right..Godzilla is the ‘koenig’ of the monsters (kaiju) but these past 3 decades, it seems that the big G is already lost his bite and his last film Godzilla : final wars is really a whole lotsa mess. Its like Toho desperately try to inject everything they could think of to maintain Godzilla status quo as the king. Add more action (matrix rip off definitely), hired Ryuhei Kitamura (the most sought director in Japan and in my humble opinion is overly hyped), cast a number of monsters that probably rivaled ‘destroy all monsters’ etc. There are some good points though, like seeing Akira Takarada and Kumi Mizuno again (Kumi Mizuno played secretary Namikawa..an homage to the character miss Namikawa from ‘monster zero’ of course), it could be a nice touch thoug if they can include Megumi Odaka (Miki saegusa in heisei series) or Jean reno in that flick but..what’s done is done. The action is awesome, i admit and the scene when Godzilla blows Ghidorah to the atmosphere was really make all the kaiju fans everywhere got major rush.
I still think GMK is the best flick in Shinsei (millenium) series. The king was look evil, soulless and yet the wittiest G ever. What can we expect from the man who gave us the ultra cool Gamera trilogy, Shosuke Kaneko.
Speaking of Gamera, we all know that Gamera is truly the king of monster during the 90’s (heisei) but there is one more kaiju icon that we should not under estimate…Thats right! I’m talking about DAIMAJIN!!!!
Have no idea what does he look like? browse google and type ‘daimajin’. Have no idea what the movie look like or how’s the movie’s feel? Picture this, the original Godzilla (1954), mix it with seven samurai and BAM! you got Daimajin.
A brief about the great majin, its a story about a village repressed by an evil landlord and the villagers prayed to the spirits to help them. The help come in the form of a giant samurai statue with Kirk Douglas face called Daimajin. The action in this picture is nothing compared to Godzilla or Gamera (Daimajin only appeared 20 minutes before the movie end) but the story, the acting, the scenery..everything are definitely the factors that can be enjoyed by the fans or non-fans kaiju genre.
Japanese monster movies are cheesy, low budget flicks? Feh! Just watch Daimajin trilogy and Godzilla 1954…you may eat those words and go suck an egg.
(Daimajin about to put the kibosh on those who dare to insult kaiju movies)