« iTunes 4.5 is pretty keen | Main | What is the point of DVD region codes? »
Review : Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla on DVD
I picked up the official US DVD of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla.
The story is one of the better Godzilla movies. Toho once again decided to wipe the history of Godzilla yet again so in the context of this movie The Original 50s Godzilla, 60's Mothra, and The War of the Gargantuas were the only films to have happened in this time-line.
The story revolves around a female Mechagodzilla pilot who is followed by an accident involving the death of her coworkers back when she operated a Mazer canon. You know a mazer canon is those radar dish looking lighting bolt ray guns that they use against Godzilla in classic movies. There is a klutzy bio-robotics scientist and his cute daughter who has a pet plant. The girl also names Mechagodzilla "Kiru". They work together to build this Mechagodzilla and become friends along the way. Also I loved that the Prime Minister was Kumi Mizuno. She was in several classic Toho monster movies in the 60s.
This Mechagodzilla is a cyborg clone of the original 50s Godzilla and is one of the coolest Toho monsters designs ever. The special effects in this movie are a combination of the best models, real footage, digital compositing effects and 3d animation. The movie was made in 2002 and had a big budget for Japanese movies. In the US you could not make a movie of Tom Hanks scratching his ass for the budgets of a Godzilla movie. Toho has some of the most cost efficient special effects production in the world and they know how to get the most bang for their bucks.
It is a pity that Toho is going to kill Godzilla again and take a break from making movies for a bit. He never seems to stay dead since he has been a staple of Japanese cinema for half a century.
This is exactly how a Godzilla film should be translated and sold in the US. The picture quality was perfect and there were both Japanese and English audio tracks with subtitled. They superimposed English text over the main titles and at the place locations. The dialog sound less cheesy in Japanese but they did a good job of making the English track.
If you see this video RENT it. If you loved Godzilla 2000 them BUY it!
Jake at May 1, 2004 
Reviews
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.8bitjoystick.com/cgi-bin/mtype/mt-tb.cgi/603
Comments
Ooo! This looks cool. I don't think I've seen this one. Didn't they make a early 90's Mechagodzilla? I think that's the last one I saw. BBQ knows all about this stuff and I've been out of touch with him. Mechagodzilla is my fav, I remember that was the first godzilla film I saw. He shot his fingers like rockets!!!
I'm sad because Deviant Art is down...
Posted by: Ian at May 2, 2004 4:12 AM
