Rodan (film)
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| Rodan | |
|---|---|
 Rodan (1956) |
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| Directed by | Ishirō Honda |
| Produced by | Tomoyuki Tanaka Frank King (USA) |
| Written by | Ken Kuronuma (original story) Takeshi Kimura Takeo Murata |
| Starring | Kenji Sahara Yumi Shirakawa |
| Music by | Akira Ifukube |
| Cinematography | Isamu Ashida |
| Distributed by | Toho |
| Release date(s) | Japan-December 26, 1956, USA-August 6, 1957 |
| Running time | 82 min. |
| Country |  Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Followed by | Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Rodan, released in Japan as Sora no Daikaijū Radon (空の大怪獣 ラドン? lit. "Giant Monster of the Sky Rodan"), is a 1956 tokusatsu film produced by Toho Studios. It was the studio's first daikaiju eiga filmed in color (though Toho's first color tokusatsu film, Madame White Snake, was released earlier that year). It is one of a series of "giant monster" movies that found an audience outside Japan, especially in America.
The first were serious horror and adventure stories, before the genre devolved to the level of "kiddie" entertainment in the 1960s and 1970s. For a time the film was released in the U.S. under the title Rodan! The Flying Monster.
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[edit] Synopsis
Rodan follows in the footsteps of other Japanese monster movies, such as Godzilla, which involve a giant monster being awoken from an ancient hibernation by human beings. In Rodan, miners digging far into the earth stumble across a clutch of giant, prehistoric insects which viciously attack several of the miners and prompt a government investigation into the matter in the year 1957. The giant bugs turn out to be little more than food for two gigantic flying beasts called Rodans, similar to pteranodons but far larger and more powerful, who hatch from giant eggs and proceed to terrorize the entire world.
Rodan is notable for its action scenes, which are surprisingly well filmed and still excite audiences today. Unlike most of the Toho monster movies, which featured "action" scenes consisting of roaring monsters lumbering across the landscape at a stupefyingly slow pace, the battle scenes and monster rampage in Rodan are thrilling, exciting, and fast-paced; it is much easier for the audience to suspend disbelief and accept the low-tech special effects here. The emphasis on action and thrills, and willingness to scare the audience, has made Rodan one of the more enduring entries in daikaiju eiga.
In the original Japanese version this daikaiju is called "Radon", a truncation of "pteranodon"). While it is commonly believed that the Japanese Radon became Rodan for the international release due to a translation error, it is likely that the name was deliberately changed to avoid confusion with the chemical element radon. The name Radon is, however, preserved in the English-dubbed version of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993).
[edit] U.S. release
Rodan was quite successful in its first run in the United States. It was the first Japanese movie to receive general release on the West Coast to strong box-office.1 It later received the biggest TV advertising campaign given to a film to that date on New York's NBC flagship station WRCA-TV. 10-, 20- and 60-second commercials were shown for a week before the film's opening.2
It grossed an estimated $450,000 to $500,000 during its opening weekend at 79 theaters in the New York City metropolitan area. Several theatrical circuits, including RKO, announced that Rodan broke the records for a science-fiction film.3
George Takei, better known as Lt. Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek series, was one of the many voice actors employed for this film. The only other Kaiju film for which he performed voice work was Godzilla Raids Again.
In 2002, the U.S. version of Rodan was released on DVD for the first time since 1989, as part of 5-disc set with Godzilla, Mothra vs Godzilla, Godzilla's Revenge, & Terror Of Mechagodzilla. Classic Media will release the original Japanese version of Rodan on September 9, 2008 as part of the new Toho Master Collection, along with War of the Gargantuas.
Changes to the Japanese version :
- Some of Akira Ifukube's music was replaced with stock music.
- A prologue showing footage of American nuclear tests was added.
- Extensive narration was added throughout the film.
[edit] Cast
- Shigeru Kawamura (coal mine shaft engineer) - Kenji Sahara
- Kiyo (coal mine shaft office worker) - Yumi Shirakawa
- Dr. Kyuuichirou Kashiwagi - Akihiko Hirata
- Nishimura (Police inspector) - Akio Kobori
- Izeki (Seibu Journalist) - Yoshifumi Tajima
- Oosaki (coal mine executive officer) - Minosuke Yamada
- Ishikawa (Earthquake Research Institute engineer) - Ren Imaizumi
- Earthquake Research Institute engineer - Saburou Kadowaki
- Minami - Fuyuki Murakami
- Journalist - Kouji Uno
- Suda - Akio Kusama
- Hayama - Fumindo Matsuo
- Military Commander - Hideo Mihara
- Professor Isokawa - Mitsuo Matsumoto
- Minakami - Kiyoshi Takagi
- Gorou (Miner/Kiyo's older brother) - Rinsaku Ogata
- Yoshizou (miner) - Jirou Suzukawa
- Tsunesan (miner) - Tateo Kawasaki
- Suteyan (miner) - Kanta Kisaragi
- Senkichi (miner) - Ichirou Nakaya
- Tahei (miner) - Keiji Sakakida
- Air Self-Defense Force commander - Hideo Mihara
- Self-Defense Force signaler - Yoshio Katsube
- Takeuchi (Air Self-Defense Force staff officer) - Mitsuo Tsuda
- Chief constable - Ichirou Chiba
- Tashiro (policeman) - Jirou Kumagai
- Nurse - Saeko Kuroiwa
- Female Honeymooner - Yasuko Nakata
- Male Honeymooner - Kiyoharu Oonaka
- Otami (Yoshizou's wife) - Kiyomi Ichinoya
- Radon - Haruo Nakajima,Katsumi Tezuka
- Meganuron - Haruo Nakajima (top), Katsumi Tezuka/Others (body)
[edit] Trivia
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (June 2007) |
- Many promotional stills and posters for the film depicted a Rodan that looked radically different from the one in the actual movie. Rather than the appearance of a slightly larger, more upright version of the traditional Pterodactyl, this version bore more of a resemblance to the bird-like Azhdarchidae family.
- The giant insects featured in this film, the Meganula, would later go on to appear in the 2000 film Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.
- This film marks the only time in which Rodan is seen to emit a strange burst of concentrated gas from its mouth as a form of weapon. The inclusion of this seemingly tangential ability was most likely meant to answer the popularity of Godzilla's atomic heat ray.
[edit] Footnotes
- Note 1: "Toho's Science-Fiction Team Completes Another Thriller; Tint Entitled 'The H-Man'" Far East Film News May 30, 1958, p.15.
- Note 2: "Rodan" Far East Film News April 4, 1958, p.4.
- Note 3: "Toho's 'Rodan' Hits Jackpot in New York" Far East Film News March 28, 1958, p.15.
[edit] External links
- Rodan multimedia
- 空の大怪獣 ラドン (Sora no Daikaijū Radon) (Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-07-13.
