Godzilla Raids Again 4K 1955 Ultra HD 2160p

Godzilla is back! And he brought along a friend . After 2 pilots who work for a fisher company discovering Godzilla battling another monster who the 2 are ancient rivals . Unfortunately its not to long before the kaiju head to japan to have their battle to the death !

User Review

The second film about cinema's most famous giant monster follows the standard sequel formula: twice as big, twice as dynamic, and so on, but this has a significant impact on quality, as is often the case with sequels.

To begin with, the very appearance of the second Godzilla is not played out in any way, and the appearance of such a monster is made completely ineffective. Even though we are immediately shown both monsters in their ensuing fight, the moment is completely devoid of any logic. Both technically, in terms of how each of the monsters is presented on screen, and in terms of the plot, their conflict and reasons for fighting each other are completely unclear, as is where they came from on the island and why they are both so active and aggressive at this particular moment. Recalling the original King Kong, one can immediately draw a parallel with the scene of the battle between Kong and the Tyrannosaurus - where we were effectively shown the appearance of each of the giants, the conflict and the reasons for the fight, which was the main character of the film, and we were shown a spectacular battle and a logically measured action episode. Here, however, the fight is a kind of chaos, where the previously clumsy Godzilla shows off his martial arts skills and ninja agility.
The first film was built on a beautiful logical chain, where they even tried to maintain twenty minutes of suspense from not knowing what Godzilla was. The sequel, on the other hand, chaotically mixes plot details, plunging them into the absurdity of what is happening.
Literally everything here is stupid, from the unexplained enmity between the monsters and their appearance to the final events with ice blocks. The main storyline of the pilot is also sparse and looks completely uninteresting, and not very necessary. The film falls apart before our eyes, losing its integrity and narrative logic, while the clumsily staged and silly-looking battles are somehow combined with decent scenes of destruction of city miniatures.

Godzilla's costume has also undergone minor changes, which is particularly noticeable after the retrospective insertion of footage from the first film. They also look ridiculous in the context of the plot, because they are clearly presented as real footage from these angles (especially the train from the first person and the alternation of distance), but it all looks like live footage. This was done solely to increase the running time, but in the American version, the film was heavily edited, with many scenes re-edited and cut out, while the Japanese version, considered the most complete, with its rather rapid pace of action, turned out to be dull, boring, and unremarkable.

In no case should the unsuccessful effects be blamed on the year of release, because the first film boasted an excellent monster model and beautiful visual accompaniment to the destruction, where the melting towers alone are worthy of applause. The sequel, however, is not rich in such scenes; everything turned out to be repetitive, but this time two monsters destroy cities.

Overall, in the context of the franchise, the film is far from the weakest. Compared to Godzilla vs. Megalon, it looks like a real masterpiece, but against the backdrop of the original, it falls short by exactly half, losing out badly to the first film and even looking dull against the backdrop of the already colourful sequels. And even though Kong himself looks much worse in Godzilla vs. Kong than Anguirus does here, the negatives in this film are quite strong and do not do it any credit. A rather mediocre and unremarkable sequel.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (66.0 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Info Audio

#Japanese: FLAC 2.0
#Japanese: FLAC 2.0 (Commentary by Director Motoyoshi Oda, Special Effects Assistant Camera Sadamasa Arikawa, & Moderator Yasuo Kurashiki)

Info Subtitles