Theme: Japanese Monster Movies

The Japanese monster movie (or Kaiju Eiga) began with Godzilla/Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1954). It has become its own genre niche since then with the studio Toho producing over 30 Godzilla films sequels. These range between efforts where Godzilla is a monster to in essence a superhero defending the country from other monsters, between serious efforts and juvenile efforts pitched to children, between live-action and animation.

Toho produced other monster movies too and then began to pit the monsters against one another in on-screen battles. Godzilla moved from rampaging aggressor to a heroic defender of Japan in his fifth film during the 1960s. The Godzilla series spawned other imitators such as rival studio Daiei’s long-running Gamera series.

Since the mid-1980s, both the Godzilla and Gamera series has undergone various overhauls and effort to rework the monsters with animatronic and CGI effects. There have also been efforts from other countries like South Korea’s Yongary films and several attempts to remake the Godzilla film for English language audiences.