Call Me Stormy

Know Your Monster: 31

ZEDUS

Last but certainly not least in our Know Your Monster series is Zedus, arch-foe of Gamera. Zedus is a powerful monster, a sea beast who bears a strong resemblance to Godzilla but has a few different embellishing traits.

For instance, Zedus has a forked, serpent-like tongue that he often uses to impale his enemies. Frilly dorsal fins run the length of his body from his head to his tail. His extremely long tail is second only to his tongue in his arsenal of weapons. He can whip it around at a fast clip, knocking down buildings and bowling over opponents. Zedus’ other notable feature is his titanic size. He towers over 200 feet tall, making him one of the largest of the Kaiju.

Zedus made his screen debut in Gamera The Brave, the most recent Gamera film, released in 2006. He doesn’t actually battle the original Gamera but instead the big turtle’s offspring, Toto, who hatches from a mysterious egg and is raised by a young boy named Toru. Yes,  the filmmakers return to familiar territory, giving us a Gamera who is a protector of kids and a force for good. But before dismissing the film as sugarcoated pablum, watch this scene of the bad-ass Zedus, munching on some villagers. Many Kaiju are fierce, but how many do you recall who are carnivorous?

And for a double-dose of Zedus, here’s his showdown against Toto.

Hope you’ve enjoyed our Know Your Monster series and learned a thing or two about the Kaiju, the Japanese movie monsters. The next time one of your friends try to stump you with a Godzilla trivia question, bring up Zedus or Biollante, and test who’s really the expert on the subject!

Know Your Monster: 29

VIRAS

A gigantic squid-like creature from Outer Space, Viras battles Gamera in the 1968 film Destroy All Planets, also known as Gamera Vs. the Space Monster Viras. It’s the one and only screen appearance by Viras, barring fleeting glimpses of him seen in stock footage shown during other Gamera movies.

Viras is the leader of an alien race intent on conquering the Earth. He sees Gamera as the only threat to stop his plans, so he targets the flying turtle, preying upon Gamera’s one weakness — a kindness and affinity toward children. Viras kidnaps two Boy Scouts and holds them hostage on his spaceship. With Gamera coming to their rescue, Viras can employ his arsenal of tricks, including telepathy and mind control, to defeat the Earth monster. Otherwise, Viras has a limited arsenal of weapons. He doesn’t spit fire or hurl radioactive beams. He can only smother opponents with his tentacles or spear them with sharply pointed head.

We already presented the theatrical trailer for Gamera Vs. the Space Monster Viras in our Know Your Monster installment on Gamera. So, instead of repeating the trailer, here’s a well-done review of the movie — well-done, with one exception. The reviewer slips out of the gate and calls the monster “Varan” instead of “Viras.” Oh, well, nobody’s perfect. And he does catch and correct the mistake moving forward.

Tomorrow’s featured monster: Yonggary

Know Your Monster: 28

VARAN

Varan is one of the most fascinating Kaiju, but also less well-known than other Japanese movie monsters. That’s because he’s appeared in only two films. The first — Varan the Unbelievable! from 1958 –received only a limited distribution in the United States. Otherwise, Varan has been seen only in a cameo role in the omnibus Destroy All Monsters.

If you can imagine a reptilian flying squirrel, then you have an idea of Varan’s appearance. He has skin flaps connecting his legs and arms, allowing him to glide and swoop down on his enemies. But his stony facial expression and scaly, blistered hide also make him look like an offshoot of Godzilla. One of his most powerful weapons is his tail, which he uses as a whiplash, powerful enough to knock down buildings.

In the same manner that Mothra was cast as the guardian protector for the natives of Infant Island, Varan is a mountain god worshiped by a remote tribe. But his ancestral stomping grounds lie in Siberia along the Kitami River. After the Japanese send out a scientific expedition to capture or destroy the beast, he returns the favor by attacking Tokyo.

Let’s watch a short clip of Varan in full destructive mode. He does have a nice roar!

Tomorrow’s featured monster: Viras

Know Your Monster: 27

ULTRAMAN

Ultraman is a Japanese superhero who first appeared on a 1960s television series battling new monsters every week. The series ran for 39 episodes in 1966 and 1967, sometimes pitting Ultraman against kaiju (the gigantic mutant monsters from our own planet) and other times having him square off against seijin, or alien invaders aiming to conquer the Earth. The central role played by monsters in the series is hardly surprising. Ultraman was created by Tsuburaya Productions, under the command of Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects pioneer who brought Godzilla to life. He recruited many Godzilla veterans to take part in the TV show, notably monster suit actor Haruo Nakajima.

Tsuburaya recycled some of his most famous monster suits, including those for Godzilla and Baragon, in this series, but he modified the costumes to avoid legal conflicts with Toho Studios, which had released the original monster movies. Sometimes, the alterations were done on the fly, during production, with the actor still inside the suit. Nakajima once quipped that the staggering gait he used for his monsters had nothing to do with his acting style. He was simply reeling from the noxious fumes from the spray paint applied to the costumes.

Much like Superman, Ultraman poses as an ordinary mortal but when danger arises he can transform into a superhero — in this case, a gigantic monster-smashing Space avenger. In his everyday life, he’s no slouch either. As Shin Hayata, he belongs to the Science Patrol, otherwise known as the United Nations Scientific Investigation Agency. Its mission: To protect the Earth from all manner of monsters. Hayata secretly uses a “Beta capsule” to become Ultraman. He wears a warning light on his chest, the Color Timer, that signals his energy state. When it’s a steady blue, he can fight as Ultraman, but if it begins flickering and turns red, he must finish his business quickly and change back into Hayata, or else risk total energy depletion. In that event, a narrator warns,  he “will never rise again.”

Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Monsters to see a complete list of all the monsters and aliens from the Ultraman series, as well as its countless sequels, spin-offs and copycat productions. For a little taste of Ultraman, watch this short clip.

Tomorrow’s featured monster: Varan.

Know Your Monster: 26

SHOBIJIN

The Shobijin are not monsters, but rather high priestesses from Infant Island assigned to watch over one of the most famous monsters of them all — Mothra.  A few things worth noting about the Shobijin:

* They are usually portrayed as identical twins, but much smaller than humans. Their race shrunk owing to nuclear testing on Infant Island. It’s sometimes depicted as a Polynesian paradise and other times as a lost island within the Indonesian archipelago.

* They sing haunting ballads to Mothra, who they worship as the guardian protector of their Lilliputian race.

* They can communicate telepathically with the monster, even across oceans and great distances. In some more recent films, they can even teleport themselves or other creatures.

I’ve always been a sucker for the Shobijin. Besides the fact that the actresses playing these fairies are stunningly beautiful and well-known pop stars,  the ballads have a haunting and ethereal quality all their own.  Take their most famous ode to Mothra — “Mosura No Uta” or “Mothra’s Song” — originally written in Malay although sometimes sung in Japanese in the movies. An English translation of the lyrics:

Mothra oh Mothra
If we were to call for help
Over time
Over sea
Like a wave you’d come
Our guardian angel!

Here, the Shobijin awaken Mothra in the 1966 movie Godzilla Vs. the Sea Monster.

Tomorrow’s featured monster: Ultraman

Know Your Monster: 25

RODAN

By any name, Rodan is a survivor. Let me explain. The monster we in the United States call “Rodan” was originally christened “Radon” in his debut Japanese screen appearance in 1956. The name was a contraction of the dinosaur this beast most closely resembles — the Pterandon. The name also hinted at the word “radiation,” although radiation didn’t produce Rodan. Instead, he was said to be a prehistoric creature unearthed by miners. And just to confuse matters further, there were actually two Rodans in that original 1956 movie, both of whom died. But by the time Rodan resurfaced as one of Godzilla’s Kaiju cronies, the pair had miraculously morphed into one lone survivor. Got that? Good!

Harking back to his discovery by miners, Rodan is often associated with erupting volcanoes and volcanic lairs. Being nurtured around magma has its advantages. Rodan not only seems impervious to Godzilla’s atomic breath, but also shrugs off King Ghidorah’s gravity beams. Sometimes, he’s depicted as being as big as Godzilla, although usually he’s smaller, though no less durable or deadly.

Rodan’s lightning-fast speed and enormous wingspan allow him to swoop down, like a bird of prey, on hapless victims. In that sense, he mirrors the monster Gyaos, although Rodan is more birdlike and has less in common with the bat. Rodan doesn’t even have to make contact to be effective. Flying at supersonic speeds, hugging the horizon, he can generate hurricane-force gales and building-shattering sonic booms. In the heat of battle, he will peck at enemies with his beak or rip them with his talons.

Here’s the trailer for the English-dubbed version of Sora No Daikaiaju Radon, as the original Japanese film was titled.

Flash forward nearly a half-century later, to the film Godzilla: Final Wars, commemorating Godzilla’s 50th anniversary in 2004. Here, Rodan teams with Anguirus and King Caesar to fight the Big G.

Tomorrow we won’t have a featured monster but instead will introduce a pair of monster’s sidekicks, the Shobijin, the miniature fairies who summon Mothra.