Flying

Rodan, The Flying Monstrer

RODAN, THE FLYING MONSTER / SORA NO DAIKAIJU RADON (1956)

monsters: (MEGANURON*, RODAN)

Akihiko Hirata.......................Dr Kashiwagi - the paleontologist
Kenji Sahara..........................Kawamura - the mine worker who gets amnesia
Yumi Shirakawa.....................Kiyo - the girlfriend of Kawamura
Yoshibumi Tajima...................Reporter

Haruo Nakajima................RODAN

Reżyseria: Ishiro Honda
Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka
Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya
Music: Akira Ifukube
Photography: Isamu Ashida
Screenplay: Takeshi Kimura and Takeo Murata based on a story by Ken Kuronuma
The Toho studio decided to invest a serious amount of money into a new hit which would surpass the success of Godzilla, the King of the Monsters. Honda and his long-time collaborator, the special-effects master Eiji Tsuburaya, prepared a new monster stimulated to life by nuclear experiments.
The first scenes announce a typical crime movie: the police investigate a murder of a miner. Everything becomes clear when one of the engineers descends into a mine shaft: he bears witness to the hatching of a giant pteranodon. The monster attacks Japanese cities flying at supersonic speed and inciting powerful hurricanes with the force of his wings. Shortly, he is joined by a second, look-alike bird, and both creatures, obviously resisting any weapon, wreak havoc. Japan would be no more today if it weren’t for the ingenious scientists. They manage to lure the birds (Rodans?) into a rocky shelter and induce an artificial eruption of the volcano Aso. When the red-hot lava kills the monsters, the music becomes strangely melancholic—is their death regretted?
The success of Rodan, the Flying Monster is hardly accidental. From now on, the Toho studio will treat us to new movies every year and will remain peerless in its field for the next decade.
Although in the movie’s title the description “monster” is singular, there are clearly TWO Rodans. We will have to wait until 1964 for the bird’s resurrection (Ghidora, the Three-Headed Monster), when Rodan (now single) forms a duo with the most famous Japanese monster, Godzilla.
* MEGANURON is a little worm. “Little” for Rodan, of course. Two people-high, this insect multiplies in the cave (his size is possibly due to radiation exposure, just like Rodan’s) and becomes feed for The Flying Monster.

Pictures & noises

  • American trailer (avi - 1,82 MB).

  • Pictures:
  • Posters:

  • The Birth of Rodan: mp3 (27 sec 52.3 Kb)

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