Radon
Entry updated 8 August 2022. Tagged: Film.
Film (1956; vt Sora no Daikaijū Radon ["Giant Monster of the Sky, Radon"]; vt, outside Japan, Rodan). Toho. Directed by Ishirō Honda. Written by Takeshi Kimura and Takeo Murata, based on a story by Takashi Kuronomura. Cast includes Akihiko Hirata, Kenji Sahara and Yumi Shirkawa. 79 minutes. Colour.
This film, the first Japanese Kaiju Monster Movie in colour, is from the same team that produced Gojira (vt Godzilla). A giant pterodactyl hatches in a mine (and eats giant dragonfly larvae, in the film's best scene); it is joined by a second flying reptile; they terrorize Japan then perish in a volcano. The spectacular effects are by Eiji Tsuburaya and his team. The US version added a voice-over written by David Duncan. Radon's second appearance was in Kaiju Daisenso (1965; vt Invasion of Astro-Monster; vt Battle of the Astros; vt Monster Zero; vt Invasion of Planet X) and his third in Ghidorah Sandai Kaiju Chikyu Saidai no Kessan (1965; vt Chikyu Saidai no Kessan; vt Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster). His swansong, where he performed alongside ten other major Toho monsters, was in Kaiju Soshingeki (1968; vt Destroy All Monsters; vt Operation Monsterland; vt The March of the Monsters). (For more on these sequels see Gojira.) [PN]
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