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Post by Xenorama ™ on Nov 3, 2007 23:27:06 GMT -8
Ryo Ikebe ... Dr. Tazawa
Yumi Shirakawa ... Kiyo (Takiko) Sonoda
Takashi Shimura ... Kesuke Sonoda
Akira Kubo ... Cadet Astronaut Tatsuo Kanai
Kumi Mizuno ... Kesuke Shinoda
Ken Uehara ... Dr. Konno
Fumio Sakamoto ... Sumio Sonoda
Kô Nishimura ... Secretary of the Space Agency Murata
Keiko Sata ... Murata's Secretary
Akihiko Hirata ... Spaceship Otori (J-X Eagle) Captain Endo
Jun Tazaki ... Dr. Sonoda
Nadao Kirino ... Dr. Manabe
Kenji Sahara ... First Officer Saiki
Masanari Nihei ... Astronaut Ito
Hiroshi Tachikawa ... Astronaut Wakabayashi
a fun movie, one of Honda's best. really needs a good DVD release. gotta love the walrus Magma!
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Post by Gwangi on Nov 6, 2007 8:01:37 GMT -8
It is funny how my three favorite non-Godzilla Toho kaiju features (Mothra, Gorath, Gargantuas) are not yet available on DVD.
This is one where just about the entire cast is great. From Ryo Ikebe as the dedicated scientist. Akira Kubo as the heroic astronaut. Yumi Shirakawa (in her best kaiju role, me thinks) as the woman who is in love with Ikebe, and it seems that she is literally keeping everyone steady. Kumi Mizuno in one of the greatest scenes in any movie - her taking a bubble bath! ;D Takashi Shimura as the older, wise, mentoring scientist. And even those in smaller roles like Akihiko Hirata as the cool, no-nonsense captain of the JX-Eagle and Eisei Amamoto, as the pessimistic guy in the bar. But the one who comes out best, in my opinion is Jun Tazaki as the captain of the doomed J-X Hawk. Small role, but quite dominate!
Similar to George Pal’s “When World Collides”, and though I love that movie, “Gorath” is just more fun to watch and obviously much more optimistic. Watching Ryo Ikebe sweating as he monitoring Gorath’s path, sometimes I’m sweating right along with him!!
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Post by RedKing on Nov 7, 2007 7:26:29 GMT -8
Another of my favorite Tohos! Magma is cool, but I honestly do think the movie works better without him-he brings the movie's narrative to a halt while we have a short kaiju interlude inserted into the movie. Still no kaiju is ever unwelcome in a Toho movie! Ironically, magma has more screen time in episode 27 of ULTRA Q where he appears as Todora, but the only difference is some long whiskers attached to his face! The movie itself is great-probably the best cast of any Toho movie and a very interesting and well done story. I like both the US and Japanese versions of the movie(the US version is heavily re-edited) and both versions work equally well. I heard some wacky "scientist" on the radio the other morning talking about Planet X and how this rogue dwarf star is heading for the earth and immediately thought this nut must have been watching Gorath! Check out his site-returnofplanet-x.com He actually qoutes Criswell (the noted psychic,entertainer and commentator-  ) and expects to be taken seriously! |
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Post by Gwangi on Nov 11, 2007 22:15:05 GMT -8
With regards to the missing Magma footage, watching this as kid, in the 1970s, even I suspected their was some kind of monster the scientists were shooting at. You can even hear the creature for one moment, and it just didn’t really make sense that the ship was just shooting at rocks! Of course, later on, my hunch was correct. Eventually, I saw the walrus footage, on a bootleg I got several years ago. Probably not the best monster design, and Tomoyuki Tanaka really didn’t need to put a creature in this picture, but still, I wish it wouldn’t have been cut in the American version. Something was there under the ice and it is quite apparent!
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