Gojira aka Godzilla (1954)
This is not just another monster flick where a prehistoric beast roused from the ocean depths and made a rampage of massive destruction in a city. This masterpiece of cinema brings back the horrors of nuclear war to a country that experienced it first hand. In early August, 1945 the rest of the world witnessed as Japan experienced the most terrifying result that a war can produce, the ultimate act of barbarism that ever demonstrated on such a vast scale; a horror that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki haunted & carried through generation after generation.
Ishiro Honda & his crew beautifully played their magic tricks and introduced Godzilla to the world cinema. Though it gradually become the most popular giant movie-monster of all time but Honda's first Godzilla was not just a portrayal of a monster of death & destruction, it competently symbolize the "Little Boy" detonated over Hiroshima or the "Fat Man" exploded over Nagasaki near the end of World War II. The echoes of nuclear apocalypse come through Godzilla's roar; the devastation wreaked by Godzilla eerily mirrors that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and thus as a whole "Godzilla" is not just another entertaining product of celluloid art; it's a bleak metaphor that illustrates a black-and-white nightmare about the threat of nuclear experimentation in the ghastly game of world domination.
I saw it only once before and that was almost 15 years ago when I wasn't mature enough to understand the significance of this film. But after giving it a watch yesterday I like to put it in my list of all time favorites where it now holds a place in the top 10.
>>: A
Gojira no Gyakushu aka Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
>>: B+