The first thing that still comes to mind when thinking of “Gojira” is that everyone always brings it up whenever you talk about “Godzilla” and other Kaiju based topics (king kong, Pacific Rim…) and I still feel that few actually go out of their way to watch the original. I will always think this until people start talking about the original film instead of going onwards to the sequels (.vs Mothra etc), and thats just me being pretentious. But am I allowed to be pretentious through my autoethnographic experience? After-all it is what I’ve experienced compared to what others may not have.
Although my experience was purely one of excitement and awe of finally getting a chance to watch the film, I did learn a thing or two about the Japanese lifestyle, such as how the Japanese see their own map and how they view films.
The Map of Japan seen in Gojira is displayed on ‘its side’ from a western perspective but shows how the Japanese see their own country. This makes me curious as to whether their maps of other countries also follow the same rule of display in Japan compared to Australia or other countries.
Watching the film techniques and the VFX within the film also proved that the Japanese were not to be tossed around in the cinema industry. What they could produce in terms of story line, themes, action sequences and even special effects should not be overlooked by “Hollywood Blockbusters”, I was usually quite sceptical but the Japanese CAN produce great film outside of Anime. The film industry that Japan had started had such an influence in film that Hollywood has copied and ripped off of Japanese cinema, remaking films such as Gojira, Ringu, Ju-On and more.
Who would’ve known that by assuming Japanese cinema was kinda lame that I’d in reality missed some of the best stuff?
Digital Asia 