ULTRA MAN: The First Big Guy I Admired

At last, those of us who’ve waited decades to see Ultraman again can see 20 episodes – with a good picture and pretty good, if not absolutely perfect, sound – on an inexpensive 2-disc DVD set. The set includes the entire first season of the show.

For those who don’t remember, Ultraman was a half-hour 1960s live action TV series about a gigantic flying superhero from outer space who merges with Hiyata, a young pilot from Japan’s Science Patrol (a sort of space-age police force that deals with extraterrestrial invaders, giant monsters and such). Because of this merging, Hiyata can walk away from what should have been a fatal crash with the space hero’s ship – but in a crisis he can turn into Ultraman. He holds up a flashlight-like device called a “Beta Capsule” and a voice on the soundtrack tells us, “Using the Beta Capsule, Hiyata becomes Ultraman!” We then see a flash of light and the hero’s towering figure rising up out of it. (Though I was very young, the idea that one could hold up a cylindrical object and suddenly become much bigger somehow resonated with me).

Usually Ultraman appears to fight a Godzilla-like rubber-suit monster (the effects director, in fact, is Godzilla’s creator, Eji Tsuburaya.). After a few minutes of fighting, a bulb on UM’s chest begins to flash on and off, and to beep. The soundtrack voice tells us that his energy is depleting in Earth’s atmosphere, which builds suspense -- if he can’t defeat the monster in time, the voice-over warns, “Ultraman will never rise again.”

Hiyata’s Science Patrol co-workers – a cute young woman with an annoying little brother; the serious Captain; a buffoonish fellow pilot who often does pratfalls and such, etc. – have no clue that he is also Ultraman. To be fair, there’s no resemblance for them to spot, as there was with Clark Kent and Superman – Ultraman is taller than a skyscraper and has silver skin and a pointy head. (He also has opaque egg-shaped eyes that look, as a friend so aptly put it, "like an insect's." Now and then you may notice that they have little holes poked in the bottom so that the actor can see!) Ultraman’s powers include great strength, martial arts skills, flying, and the ability to cross his arms and shoot cosmic rays from the heel of one hand.




The dubbing is dreadful and the effects laughable, but that remains part of the series’ charm. One funny aspect is that the monsters continually get more and more outrageous looking and colorful (and sillier) because they had to come up with so many of them. Godzilla himself even shows up at one point, disguised, but not very effectively.



You can watch the DVD in Japanese if you want, and can leave the subtitles on even if you’re watching it in English – this is interesting, because the characters are often saying very different things than what was dubbed in. (For instance, the female character -- in an episode about a monster that eats pearls -- makes a rather surprising and solemn speech at one point about how her male co-worker does not "recognize a woman's wrath.")

These episodes are also complete, though when they first showed on American TV, they were edited for time – so some scenes appear in Japanese, with (and sometimes without) subtitles even if you’re watching it in English. This makes for a somewhat unpredictable viewing experience, but it never goes on for longer than a few minutes, so you don’t lose track of the story.

I found this set for five bucks at Kmart. On Amazon it’s around ten bucks. Trust me, it’s the deal of the century so far.

GODZILLA BEFORE RAYMOND BURR

Everyone has seen the first “Godzilla” film with Raymond Burr, but many people don’t realize it wasn’t really the first. Twenty minutes were eliminated from the original film to accommodate inserts with Burr that added nothing to the story but got a big American name into the credits. It had a little more pathos than your average big-city-gets-stomped-by-bigger-monster flick that came out in the 1950s, but a lot of fans would have been hard pressed to explain exactly why.

The original film, in Japanese but with English subtitles, is a totally different experience.

Considerably scarier but also somber and sad, the original “Gojira” makes the movie’s connection to the bombing of Hiroshima a lot clearer, lingering a lot more on the disaster the monster inflicts on Japan and the suffering of the devastated survivors. It also spends a lot more time on the Japanese characters whose story this really is, and makes it clear what wonderful actors are playing them (no awkward dubbing here). In fact, veteran actor Takashi Simura, who plays Paleontologist Dr. Yamane, had just recently appeared in another famous Japanese film – Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai.”

Much more time is spent in this version on what is just a subplot in the Burr adaptation – the romantic triangle between Yamane’s daughter Emiko (Momoko Kochi), hero/scientist Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) and salvage worker Hideto Ogata (Akira Takarada). Emiko is obligated by an arranged marriage to the scientist, who she respects and admires but does not love – she really loves Hideto. Serizawa has invented a device that can stop Godzilla from ravaging Japan, but resists using it because he fears it will be later appropriated as a military weapon (a nod to the film’s persistent anti-war message). Ultimately, he gives in – but lets the device destroy him, too, so its secret will die with him, freeing Emiko to follow her heart. It’s much clearer in this version how much his sacrifice reflects principles of honor in Japanese culture.

The monster here is also nothing like the amusingly silly rubber-suited wrestler of so many sequels aimed at a child audience. Filmed mostly at night, he is an ambulatory but shadowy tower of destruction relentlessly advancing on the fleeing population – death incarnate. The fact that his searing breath looks like steam here makes it creepier, more intimate somehow. Eiji Tsuburaya's special effects were very realistic for their time, and the night shooting added greatly to the film's atmosphere of menace.

“Gojira” will in no way detract from your continued enjoyment of the more familiar version, but seeing it for the first time is a revelation. There’s more to the myth of Godzilla than a lot of us who grew up with him ever knew. "Godzilla" with Raymond Burr is an exciting 50s monster flick; "Gojira" without him is an affecting, haunting work of art whose monster is a metaphor for issues that still rear larger than his 40-story frame.