Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Your Japanese Lesson for the Day Brought to You By Nostalgia From my Youth

Kaiju: Literal Translation—Strange Beast. Often used to describe a Genre of Film depicting Giant Monsters Typified by Godzilla.

Even when I was a kid I loved Movies. I don't know why, but I found that I had the attention span for them that a lot of my peers did not. One that I was always excited to watch when it was on T.V. (and tried to share with friends on multiple occasions with less than stellar results) was King Kong vs. Godzilla. It is available on DVD today.

I never know if these movies will stand up to the test of time. I always looked forward to the 1976 version of King Kong when it was on as well. When Peter Jackson remade King Kong a few years ago I borrowed the 1976 film from the library and was severely let down—it wasn't as good as I remembered—now that I'm thinking about it, the reason I recall a better movie is possibly because in editing it for T.V. it was improved by getting rid of a lot of unnecessary fluff. I also got the original 1933 version and watched it as well. The 1933 version is spectacular, there's a reason that version is a classic and it's not just because it's the original; it is a genuinely great movie.

Anyway, King Kong vs. Godzilla makes Kong a lot bigger than he ever was in previous incarnations, so as to match the scale of the much larger Godzilla. This also marks the first time either monster was filmed in color. 

2 comments:

  1. You and your "Monster" movies.
    I have never seen the 1933 version.

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  2. It's on the Shelf, you can watch it any time. And it's only an hour and a half long unlike the new version (three and a half hours) which is also on the shelf.

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