Plot Summary
(slightly spoilerish in terms of plot)
In the small town of Kitamatsu, strange things begin to happen when one of the shafts at the coal mine goes deeper than any other shaft they have there. First, a flood happens and when safety engineer Shigeru Kimura goes to investigate, he is horrified to find one miner dead and his friend Goro missing. Soon more bodies turn up and the main suspect is Goro. However, one night while Shigeru is visiting his fiancée Kiyo, Goro's sister, a giant caterpillar like monster crashes through her house. Immediately, the authorities realize that Goro is not to blame but the monsters are. Shigeru and the authorities then go back in the mine and track down the monster. While in the mine, they also find Goro's body and while they attempt to free Goro's body, a landslide occurs trapping Shigeru in an adjoining cavern. A few days later Shigeru is found but he is in a state of shock caused by the fact that he saw an even more terrible creature, a flying reptile called Rodan, hatch from its egg. Soon the world finds out about the creature and the world is now on alert as they await for this terrible monster to attack.
got to say, this is a lot closer to what I expect out of a monster film though once again a little slow in starting it does set up a somewhat flimsy but believable story involving the investigation of the murder. The first part of the movie with the giant caterpillars isn't very interesting either but once they get into the story of Rodan the movie picks up the pace nicely. The SFX were quite good for the time period especially the scenes where Rodan is terrorizing and destroying a city. Hell, even a bit of a blooper is left intact as the man in the Rodan suit fell to the water in one scene when the pulley broke but it actually made the scene more believable.
Once again, i'm left amused at how Japan seems to be the center of attention when it comes to these monsters attacking the country. I wonder if in a future Godzilla movie if they reference the fact that Japan should at the very least have a monster containment plan! The acting as near as I can tell (considering i'm reading subtitles) is generally good and I liked the guy who plays the young professor talking about Rodan and what it is etc etc.
The movie moves along at a good pace though I found the climax at the volcano a little tedious what with all the shooting at the mountain range in order to kill Rodan(s) (yes there maybe more than one
) All in all this is a solid template of what the Japanese monster
movie should be and it's above average to most of the ones that came
out. 3 stars
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