Rodan (1956 film)

Directed by Ishirō Honda

Produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka

Frank King (USA)

Written by Ken Kuronuma (original story)

Takeshi Kimura

Takeo Murata

Starring Kenji Sahara

Yumi Shirakawa

Music by Akira Ifukube

Cinematography Isamu Ashida

Distributed by Toho

Release date(s) Japan-December 26, 1956, USA-August 6, 1957

Running time 82 min.

Country Japan

Language Japanese

Followed by Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster

Rodan (空の大怪獣 ラドン, Sora no Daikaijū Radon, lit. "Giant Monster of the Sky Rodan"), is a 1956 tokusatsu film produced by Toho Studios. It was the studio's first daikaiju eiga filmed in color (though Toho's first color tokusatsu film, Madame White Snake, was released earlier that year). It is one of a series of "giant monster" movies that found an audience outside Japan, especially in America.

The first were serious horror and adventure stories, before the genre devolved to the level of "kiddie" entertainment in the 1960s and 1970s. For a time the film was released in the U.S. under the title ''Rodan! The Flying Monster''.

Plot Synopsis
In the small mining village of Kitamatsu, on the outskirts of Kiyushu, two miners have gone missing. The two men, Goro and Yoshi, had brawled earlier that day, and no sooner had they entered the mine then the shaft had quickly flooded. Shigeru Kawamura, head of security at the mine, heads below to investigate. There, he and the local police make a grusome descovery: Yoshi's lacerated corpse. Obove ground, a docter examines Yoshi, and descovers the cause of death to be a series of deep gashes caused by an abnormaly sharp object. As some of the miners comfort Yoshi's wailing wife, the others discuss the possibility of Goro's involvement in the death. The two had never been friends, and had phisicaly fought that morning. Also, Goro was still missing, and could be on the run or still be hiding in the mine. Shigeru warns them not to speak of this until the police investigation begins. Outside, Shigeru meets with his fiance Kiyo, who is also Goro's sister. He comforts her, telling her that he is sure of Goro's inocence. Inside the mine, three policemen stand guard at the edge of the water, knowing if Goro tries to escape, he will surely come that way (as it is the only exit). Suddenly, they hear a splash in the flooded mine, and venture into the water. As they wade deeper into the shaft, they get more and more nervous. All of a sudden, one of the policemen begins to screem and then dissapears under the water. As the men are tied togeather, is is not to long before another is pulled under by something benieth the surface. The last policeman quickly unties himself and flees. However, before he can escape, he is cornered and attacked by someone, or something. Soon after, his body, along with the bodies of the other two policemen, are brought up and examined. The docter anounces that they, to, were killed by a sharp object that simply sliced them apart.

Later that night, the wife of one of the murdered men runs to Kiyo's house and screems threats at her through the door, as she believes that her brother, Goro, is the killer. Shigeru soon arives and comforts her, telling her that the officers that were killed were Goro's friends, and that he had no reason to kill them. Someone else, then, killed those men. As the two sit togeather, the answer to the question of who, or what, murdered the men suddenly reviels its self: a gigantic creature, resembling a gigantic insect larva, enters Kiyo's home, and both Kiyo and Shigeru flee. The police enter the home, but the giant insect forces them to flee. When they regroup, they chase the creature to the top of a hill and open fire with machine guns. The monster launches its self down the hillside and grabs two officers, clutching them in it's pincers as it flees. It soon drops them and quickly escapes back into the mine. When the police and Shigeru reach the injured officers, they descover that their wounds match the wounds of the murdered policemen and Yoshi. They have found the killer.

Soon after, Shigeru and a group of the metro-police head back into the mine to confront the insect monster and attempt to locate Goro, dead or alive. Unfortunatly, as they enter the deepest part of the mine shaft, they descover the butchered body of Goro laying on the floor of the mine. As they approach, the giant insect emerges and chases the men back up the mine shaft. Taking action, Shigeru releases the mine cart, which rolls down the shaft and collides with the insect, crushing and killing it. Shigeru and the others then venture back into the shaft and remove Goro's body. They descover a large hole in the wall that opens up into a large cave. They realize that this is the hole through which the water and the giant insect emerged. As they peek through, they are noticed by not just one, but several more giant insects. However, before the monsters can attack, the ground begins to shake, and the mine begins to cave in. Shigeru is trapped in the cave, and the police can do nothing and the mine collapses.

Rescue crews stumble across a clutch of giant, prehistoric insects which viciously attack several of the miners and prompt a government investigation into the matter. The giant bugs turn out to be little more than food for two gigantic flying beasts called Rodans, similar to pteranodons but far larger and more powerful, who hatch from giant eggs and proceed to terrorize the entire world.

More Information
Rodan is notable for its action scenes, which are surprisingly well filmed and still excite audiences today. Unlike most of the Toho monster movies, which featured "action" scenes consisting of roaring monsters lumbering across the landscape at a stupefyingly slow pace, the battle scenes and monster rampage in Rodan are thrilling, exciting, and fast-paced; it is much easier for the audience to suspend disbelief and accept the low-tech special effects here. The emphasis on action and thrills, and willingness to scare the audience, has made Rodan one of the more enduring entries in daikaiju eiga.

In the original Japanese version this daikaiju is called "Radon", (a truncation of "pteranodon"). While it is commonly believed that the Japanese Radon became Rodan for the international release due to a translation error, it is likely that the name was deliberately changed to avoid confusion with the chemical element radon (pronounced "Ray-don"). The name Radon is, however, preserved in the English-dubbed version of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993).

U.S. release
Lobby card to the 1958 US release of RodanRodan was quite successful in its first run in the United States. It was the first Japanese movie to receive general release on the West Coast to strong box-office.1 It later received the biggest TV advertising campaign given to a film to that date on New York's NBC flagship station WRCA-TV. 10-, 20- and 60-second commercials were shown for a week before the film's opening.2

It grossed an estimated $450,000 to $500,000 during its opening weekend at 79 theaters in the New York City metropolitan area. Several theatrical circuits, including RKO, announced that Rodan broke the records for a science-fiction film.3

George Takei, better known as Lt. Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek series, was one of the many voice actors employed for this film. The only other Kaiju film he performed voice work for was in the movie, "Godzilla Raids Again."

For the first time since 1989, in 2002, the U.S. version of Rodan was released on DVD as part of 5-disc set with the U.S. versions of Godzillas 1, 4, 10 & 15. In 2008, Classic Media is going to release the original Japanese version of Rodan as part of the new Toho Master Collection along with the original versions of Godzillas 1, 2, 4,5,6,10,15 and "War of the Gargantas".

Changes to the Japanese version :

Some of Ifukube's themes were removed in favor of Stock music A prologue showing footage of American nuclear tests.

Cast
Shigeru Kawamura　(coal mine shaft engineer) - Kenji Sahara

Kiyo (coal mine shaft office worker) - Yumi Shirakawa

Dr. Kyuuichirou Kashiwagi - Akihiko Hirata

Nishimura (Police inspector) - Akio Kobori

Izeki (Seibu Journalist) - Yoshifumi Tajima

Oosaki (coal mine executive officer) - Minosuke Yamada

Ishikawa (Earthquake Research Institute engineer) - Ren Imaizumi

Earthquake Research Institute engineer - Saburou Kadowaki

Minami - Fuyuki Murakami

Journalist - Kouji Uno

Suda - Akio Kusama

Hayama - Fumindo Matsuo

Military Commander - Hideo Mihara

Professor Isokawa - Mitsuo Matsumoto

Minakami - Kiyoshi Takagi

Gorou (Miner/Kiyo's　older brother) - Rinsaku Ogata

Yoshizou (miner) - Jirou Suzukawa

Tsunesan (miner) - Tateo Kawasaki

Suteyan (miner) - Kanta Kisaragi

Senkichi (miner) - Ichirou Nakaya

Tahei (miner) - Keiji Sakakida

Air Self-Defense Force commander - Hideo Mihara

Self-Defense Force signaler - Yoshio Katsube

Takeuchi (Air Self-Defense Force staff officer) - Mitsuo Tsuda

Chief constable - Ichirou Chiba

Tashiro (policeman) - Jirou Kumagai

Nurse - Saeko Kuroiwa

Female Honeymooner - Yasuko Nakata

Male Honeymooner - Kiyoharu Oonaka

Otami (Yoshizou's wife) - Kiyomi Ichinoya

Radon - Haruo Nakajima,Katsumi Tezuka

Meganuron - Haruo Nakajima (top), Katsumi Tezuka/Others (body)

Trivia

 * Many promotional stills and posters for the film depicted a Rodan that looked radically different from the one in the actual movie. Rather than the appearance of a slightly larger, more upright version of the traditional Pterodactyl, this version bore more of a resemblance to the bird-like Azhdarchidae family.
 * The giant insects featured in this film, the Meganula, would later go on to appear in the 2000 film Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.
 * This film marks the only time in which Rodan is seen to emit a strange burst of concentrated gas from its mouth as a form of weapon. The inclusion of this seemingly tangential ability was most likely meant to answer the popularity of Godzilla's atomic heat ray.