02.17.07
Godzilla Flicks Forthcoming on DVD
Last year was a great one for classic Japanese monster flicks on coming out on home video.
Classic Media released very fine DVD versions of three early Godzilla flicks that have been unavailable State-side for many years, and even those were never widescreen and generally were crappy transfers besides. All of their releases are in nifty hard-back cases, and feature both the Japanese (with newly translated subtitles) and US versions in widescreen. Gojira (1954) and Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) came in a 2-disc set with various extras, while Godzilla Raids Again (1955) / Gigantis the Fire Monster (1959) and Mothra vs. Godzilla / Godzilla vs. the Thing (1964) came as single-disc packages with fewer extras. (Tip: the latter two are, strangely, only available directly from Classic Media’s tie-in site, GodzillaOnDVD.com, and have recently been marked down. Also interlacing issues on some early copies of Godzilla Raids Again have been resolved.)
Anyway, the point is Classic Media has the US rights for four more original-series Godzilla films, including many of the very best, and will be giving all of them the same quality treatment. All of these are scheduled to be released this year both individually and as part of a huge multidisc set comprising the whole lot. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) and Invasion of Astro Monster / Godzilla vs. Monster Zero (1965) are both scheduled to be released in June — so definitely keep an eye out for those.
Street dates have not yet been announced for All Monsters Attack / Godzilla’s Revenge (1969) — an absolutely awful kid-flick comprised mainly of stock footage and really not worth your time — and the long-awaited US release of Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975), the superior sequel to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) and the last of the Godzilla films to be directed by originator Ishiro Honda (who went on to, among other things, assistant direct on Akira Kurosawa’s Ran).
Also noteworthy is that Classic Media will be following those with releases of Rodan (1956) — which suffered a truly horrible DVD fate at the hands of the notorious Scimitar in the ’90s — and the unjustly negelected War of the Gargantuas (1966), a sort-of sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World which was last released here on pan-and-scan VHS prolly 15 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Tokyo Shock imprint of Media Blasters are no slouches either — au contraire! — with recent high-quality releases of excellent Toho films like Matango (aka Attack of the Mushroom People), The Mysterians and Atragon. They’re playing it close with street dates, but sometime this year they will offer a Region 1 release of Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), an intriguing and mostly-successful effort that I don’t believe has ever been released on Stateside home video of any kind…at least, not legally. Will it include the famous lost giant octopus sequence?? Stay tuned to find out. Also in their queue for 2007 is another fine obscurity beloved of serious Toho fans, Latitude Zero (1969) — which stars Joseph Cotton and Cesar Romero. I shit thee not.
If you’re so inclined, you can keep up with announced street dates for these and other Toho flicks at the Toho Kingdom site.
