Review: "Bringing Godzilla Down To Size"

Now that the shackles have come off, I can now comment and review items that I felt "constrained" not to.

A year ago, Classic Media released a DVD set of Rodan and War of The Gargantuas. The set included an extra called, "Bringing Godzilla Down To Size: The Art of Japanese Special Effects."

This was a documentary on the traditional style of Japanese monster filmmaking and techniques and featured many of the big-names in Japanese special effects movies, past and present.

Included are director Shusuke Kaneko, suitmaker Shinichi Wakasa, actors Yoshio Tsuchiya, Hiroshi Koizumi and Ryuji Honda, son of director Ishiro Honda and producer of Tsuburaya Dream Factory.

The documentary begins with scenes of today's Tokyo that are juxtaposed with scenes from past monster movies. This montage of images was effectively done by the documentary's director, Norman England. The documentary was also enhanced by the narration provided by director Alex Cox (Repo Man and Sid and Nancy).

Other interesting items included Toshio Aoki's demonstration of creating miniature trees and a reunion of the three primary Godzilla suit-actors: Haruo Nakajima, Kenpachiro Satsuma and Tsutomu Kitagwa. While some others wore the Godzilla suit in the movies, these three men were the primary Godzilla suit-actors during their eras. Each demonstrated their style of performing as Godzilla.

The capper of the documentary was a demonstration of creating volcanic smoke in a water tank by Yasuyuki Inoue.

Normally, I am not very impressed with much of fan-produced DVD extras, but this one was well-made and the principals are to be commended for the end result. It was both entertaining and informative. I met with G-fan Richard Pusateri for lunch at Crazy Tokyo Sushi in Tarzana last year, about the time of the DVD's release, and told him at the time, "Not bad!"

While most would purchase this DVD set for the movies, the inclusion of a documentary of this calibre is a big added bonus. Too bad the "Spirit of Godzilla" hasn't been made available with English subtitles in the U.S. One of these days...

My grade: A.