Dear readers, to-day we break from the official Godzilla franchise to preach the Good Word of Rodan, the Flying Monster! I am not too proud to admit, brothers and sisters, that I was once not a fan of Rodan. It’s true! Yes, a dark shame clouded my past. I too, was a living wretch. I too, was steeped in sin and degeneracy. I too, did not recognize…the Higher Power. WAY up on High. High in the SKY! I was once lost, good people, but now I am FOUND! I see the LIGHT! Sing it from the mountaintops with me, brothers and sisters: RODAN KICKS ASS

Yeah, I said what I said. In the Godzilla series, I never really liked Rodan. Sure, in theory Pteranodons are awesome. Rodan’s model/costume never seemed very mobile or dynamic though. His wings flap a little bit, he flies around, things get blown over. Fine. And he just keeps. showing. up. over. and. over. To top it all off, I just downright do not like his musical motif. Bwaa-na-naaaaaa Bwaa-na-na-na-na-NAAAAAA. Ugh. And so it was that I went near on 39 dumb empty years of my life not knowing true joy because I had slept on the 1956 origin of Rodan.

And guess who’s back from Godzilla(1954)? EVERYONE! Or pretty close! We’ve got Ishiro Honda doing a MASTERFUL job at directing, Takeo Murata co-writing the screenplay, Eiji Tsubaraya heading up the special effects team, and Akira Ifukube scoring it up like a boss (he was sorely missed in Godzilla Raids Again). Ifukube hasn’t landed on Rodan’s fanfare yet, which is, to me, a blessing. (This is apparently introduced in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, special thanks to Ed Chang at cuebycue for tracking the score details. Music info on these films is something you really have to dig for, and he goes more in-depth than my lack of expertise will ever allow me to).

Rodan is a brutal kaiju movie, and the first kaiju film from Toho to be shot in color. It opens and is focused on a group of mine workers, which is still one of the most dangerous professions. The grueling danger and nobility of laboring in a mine provides a strong dramatic backdrop featured in all kinds of films, novels, and comics. It just works. The film opens with a physical dispute between two mining colleagues, and after a brief discussion on global warming causing flooding, we discover that the mine is flooded…and… there’s been a MURDER! Yes, one of the poor saps in the fight is floating dead as a doornail with bloody wounds, and the other, Goro, is suspect number one. Officials look for Goro in the flooded mine, the waist-deep water adding to the already claustrophobic setting of a dark mineshaft. One of the miners gets dragged under in a delightful over-the-top death scene and we hear some weird bug-like sounds. Huh, I thought this movie was about a flying dinosaur? Our main character Shigeru Kawamura, played by the inimitable Kenji Sahara, a Toho mainstay, checks in on Goro’s sister Kiyo played by Yumi Shirakawa. And OH MY GOD, who busts in but this AMAZING giant larva dude! It is in this moment that I truly and completely fall in love with Rodan. Sold. Look at this guy, just look at him.

Police chase this gnarly bug up a hill, but he grabs two of them in his severe pincers, whips them around like ragdolls, and throws their blood-spattered corpses back at the crowd. There’s no high pressure spray effect like in Kurosawa’s ventures, but for a goofy monster flick there is blood everywhere. Rodan comes out swinging. We discover that global warming and tectonic shifts have created just the right conditions for these “Meganulon” larvae to hatch. Being focused on the extraction of fossil fuels and global warming, Rodan takes on a more environmentalist theme than an anti-war or anti-nuclear bent. This will be a strong message in many Toho films to come. The first we see of Rodan is from a distance, he’s doing some loopty-loops in the air, as we see from the contrails in his wake. An air force pilot follows suit, labeling him a UFO, seriously considering spacemen or an enemy superweapon, but he’s no match for Rodan and his helmet is put on gruesome display during discussions on what to do about this new menace.

It turns out Rodan has blasted out during an earthquake, caving in the mine where Shigeru was investigating. When they find him stumbling out of the crater left behind, he’s got…amnesia! I’m willing to bet amnesia cases in movies and TV outnumber those in real life, but Kenji Sahara did do a lot of research on amnesiacs for this role and puts on a spectacularly haunted performance. In a flashback, we learn that after hatching, Rodan chows down on the Meganulon larvae, and damnit, I should have known that’s where they were going with these cool bugs. Akira Ifukube’s score during this flashback absolutely rules and instills a looming sense of terror. You can really believe the experience has pushed Shigeru to his wit’s end.

As the action picks up, we see Honda crafting some great aerial point of view shots, and the sonic boom sound effects of Rodan swooping by are taken from actual aircraft. The atmosphere this creates is incredible, especially when the pilots are in hot pursuit directly behind Rodan. The music during Rodan’s assault is quick in tempo, to match his fast-paced fury, a stark contrast to Godzilla’s lumbering bass march.

Rodan spends a lot of time smashing up a city, as kaiju are wont to do. It feels like he spends a lot more time down on the ground landing into buildings and throwing down some kind of concentrated air-breath that may be an answer Godzilla’s radiation breath and unfortunately we never see this again. Seeing these scenes in Rodan makes you realize that he’s criminally underused in subsequent films. There’s some sloppy editing, and you can clearly see wires in a lot of scenes, but it gives the film a great sense of wabi-sabi. Every imperfect shot they chose to keep adds to Rodan’s beauty. As if all the chaos isn’t enough a SECOND Rodan appears! At this rate, humanity is not long for this world. When the Rodan’s go back to their nest, the army spends 4 solid minutes of screen time bombarding the mountainside causing an eruption (or at least helping it along). One Rodan makes it out, but its partner is wounded and falls into the lava. The free Rodan comes back for them, but gets caught in the fumes and flames, and after one last-ditch attempt to fly out, succumbs to a fiery death. It’s honestly heartbreaking, and then the movie abruptly ends to leave you mourning these big red terrorbirds.

Ishiro Honda’s return to Toho’s monster madness is a stellar piece of work. Rodan’s grounded story and characters flush out a well-paced film and I’m sure Isamu Ashida’s cinematography plays a huge part in why this rendition of Rodan slaps so hard compared to other Showa-era appearances. The countryside-skyline-monster contrasts do some amazing heavy-lifting to show off the relatively new commercially available color filming techniques. This comes across especially well during an earthquake and we some deep reds in the earth that mirror Rodan’s leathery red hide. This may also be why there’s an almost comical amount of blood in this movie compared to other Toho projects. The red just pops!

And so I leave you, dear readers, with hopes that you too will see the light and come around to the Good House of Rodan. Treat yourself, you deserve happiness, love, and joy.

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