| Godzilla is considered to be the greatest movie monster in screen history. He is the son of the legendary Toho Studios. Founded in the 1930's, Toho Company Limited is one of the premiere movie studio in Japan. Godzilla was the creation of Ishiro Honda & Tomoyuki Tanaka, both of whom were close friends with famed director Akira Kurosawa. Originally intended to be a takeoff of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the beast eventually became an allegory for the US bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. At first a one-shot deal, his success in Japan & the world lead the studio to create one of the longest running movie series in history. It even lives on to this day, with a new installment being released nearly every year. Even though Godzilla is the most popular Toho movie monster, he is by no means the only one. Following Godzilla's success, Toho decided to do a whole series of other kaiju eiga. The likes of Rodan, Mothra, The Mysterians, Atragon, and Matango are just a small sample of these many films. Even other studios took Toho's lead and made their own monster movies. Gappa, Gorgo, X from Outer Space, and Yongkari are some of the better known, yet only one other monster comes close to The Big G. In 1965 Daiei International released Gamera the Invincible. Though cheaper made than Toho's films they still contained the same scense of fun and exitement. In the late 70s, Daiei went bankrupt and halted all movie production. However, in the 1990s Daiei came back from the dead and revived Gamera as well. The result was the much superior Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, a film wich single-handedly revolutionized Japanese Giant Monster Cinema. Its two sequals are even better than the first and are even being hailed highly by even American movie Critics. G-Fans never had it so good. |
