As a kid, I was fortunate enough to have VHS access to many of the overseas classics, including Godzilla (and most of his Vs. sequels), Mothra, Gamera, Ghidrah - the Three-Headed Monster and one of my personal favorites: Rodan.

US made giant monster flicks never struck a chord with my young, still developing Death God sense of wonder. King Kong bored me to death at an age where all I wanted was big monsters crushing the military and each other, as did all the other homebrewed classics like Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, One Million Miles To Earth and the like. Besides, the only American giant monster movies I ever saw were B&Ws from the '40s and '50s, so as far as I knew there were no American color kaiju films to be had! The closest I ever came were the US treated editions of Far East favorites, which I probably thought were American originals at the time anyway, numbskull that I was. No matter what the monster though, I was never scared once by the possibility of these beasts existing. My thinking was, if they were that friggin' big, what are the chances they'd notice me, just a little insect to them, if I were to ride my bike around them? As long as I could keep out from under those city smashing size 17,000s, I'd be alright. Rodan was the exception to this sense of security, not only through the hurricane strength, sonic booming gusts the monster(s) could summon, but because I'd finally realized that these city smashers weren't the only result of atomic testing... the fallout affected other creatures too... you'll understand what I mean early into the movie...

Following an American introduction of military stock footage named "Mission: Gigantic", where a pair of H-Bombs are tested on two uninhabited locales, the moral question is raised as to what these bombs' effects on Mother Nature will be. Chances are it won't be good, especially considering the gigantic winged dinosaur on the movie's box cover... To illustrate just what kind of aftermath is possible from these tamperings in God's domain, we look to the little mining village of Tikamatsu in Japan. Tensions between miners have become unusually high as one of their mines, number 8, has gone too far into the Earth, resulting in a "creeping floor". A creeping floor happens when too much coal has been removed from the mines and the tunnels become unstable, leading to a kind of shifting. As the operation goes deeper and deeper toward Hell, Mine 8 runs into a patch of deep water one day, halting work. As Shigeru, one of the engineers (and our main protagonist) examines the patch of hydro with some of the laborers, they find one of their own face down in the flooding and dead, not from drowning though, but from massive slash wounds! One of the miner's, Shigeru's future brother-in-law Goro, is suspected of the killing, but when a second search party heads in to look for the renegade rock cracker, they too find death at the hands of mutilation and once again Goro is blamed. With the 'G' man not around though, his sister Kiocha has become the target of scrutiny by the wives and sisters of the dead miners. But, unless Goro makes weird screeching noises (like two pickles being squeaked together) and has taken on a form that would scare a couple of grown men to death, I'm not so sure this case it as cut and dry as everyone would think...

That night, while Shigeru is consoling his future wife Kiocha, their conversation is interrupted by the rude social tendencies of a giant mutant grub worm monster. Yes, this is what I was talking about as far as the "the fallout affected other creatures too" part. These man-eating grub worm beasts terrified me as a child, because they could kill people on a ground level. They wouldn't just pass by me as I watched them step overhead like the big monsters, as they'd be too busy breaking down my back porch and cutting me in half with their pincers! The idea scared me as a kid, while the execution, well, makes me laugh out loud now... though the idea does still kinda creep me out when I look out my bathroom window at night... not another word, or I sick the sock puppets on you!

The monster is driven back into the hills by the mining group's security force, though not before taking a few troops on it's way out in one of the silliest moments Toho's ever given us! We're talking little figurines being dragged through sandboxes with no effort to cover up the strings! Afterwards, Shigeru insists on going back into the shaft to look for Goro, but is denied by his boss, who thinks it's time to let the military interject on their new pest problem... likely because he doesn't want to have to train any new security guys to replace those already killed. Well, you can't make a profit if you're busy worrying about your overhead, right?! Besides, he's already got plenty of dead to replace with new workers, and this kind of shit wreaks havoc not only on the life insurance aspects, but all the back and forth with tax forms would drive a man mad!

So in comes the military with their high powered machine guns and the push down into the depths of Mine 8 with the mighty fist of the people's army begins... and fails almost instantly when it turns out that not even the high powered machine guns can kill these over-sized grub worm demons. Being inspired by the mother of invention, Shigeru jumps a small group of mine carts and Indiana Joneses all over the monster's ass! The beast momentarily retreats back into the black waters from whence it came, allowing Shigeru to mount attempt at recovering Goro's body. Unfortunately for our hero, the tunnel collapses around him... moments after discovering that there's more than one of these worm mutants living in Mine 8... not a good day to be a guy named Shigeru.

As if efforts to dig out Shigeru weren't bad enough, a series of earthquakes begins tearing up the landscape, but as luck would have it, one of these tremors (huh, kinda funny considering the combination of earthquakes and giant worm creatures...) actually frees Shigeru-san and he's picked up wandering the hillside alone. Only problem is, when he's brought back to the camp, it seems he's suffering a full blown case of amnesia! We're talking a case of extra-strength, "Days of Our Lives" type amnesia! Meanwhile, it turns out the infestation of late isn't of mutated meal worms, but of an ancient species of insect, probably trapped in the frozen waters deep beneath the Earth's crust, awakened by the mining operation and miraculously revived somehow throughout the course of the digging... maybe this is where those creeping floors come in... but then there I go filling in the plot holes myself again.

Elsewhere, a military pilot makes a report of an unidentified object flying through the stratosphere at super sonic speeds, climbing straight up into the sky and pulling a 180 on a dime, returning back to attack the pilot. All that's recovered of the man from the wreckage are his helmet and tattered flight suit, both covered in blood and none of which carrying any pieces of the pilot. Soon, sightings of the UFO come in from all over the country as planes are destroyed for no reason, boats are smashed from it's airborne assault and sight seers are literally plucked from their shoes. From the negatives of the sight seers' camera though, scientists finally get a clip of photo evidence of the object. The image resembles a giant wing, not of the industrial kind, but of the prehistoric kind! Meanwhile, Shigeru watches a bird hatch from an egg, only to have his memory shot back into his vacant head as to what occurred following the collapse of the cave on his head! Turns out he was trapped in an underground chamber of sorts, where he witnessed a gigantic egg hatch, from which a Pteradon like beast emerged and began scarfing down the giant grubs for food! Apparently this sight is what traumatized the hero into his amnesic state, but now Shigeru, working with the scientists, helps to identify the monster that's been torturing the countryside as of late... and who is obviously in need of Beano™ if the exhaust trail the creature leaves behind is any indication...

Afraid that there may be more eggs in the tunnels, the miners take up their pick-axes and head back into Mine 8 to bust any additional eggs there might be lying around, braving the potential of more unfriendly bugs. All they find in a piece of the monster's shell, which they take back for study, revealing that the creature is reptile in nature, over 20 million years in age and (thanks to the work of their "electronic computer") as having a probable capacity of more than 100,000 cubic feet, making for one big bird!... and no, not Big Bird, so if anyone from the Childrens' Television Workshop™ is reading this, please hold your lawyers on their chains as I didn't mean anything. A press conference is called and the head science nerd unveils his theory that the monster egg was trapped in the nearby volcano millions and millions of years ago, sealed away until the mining operation unsealed it's cavern, allowing in warm waters which incubated the monster egg and allowed it to hatch, unleashing from within a giant prehistoric monster known as a "Rodan". So, uhm, if it wasn't the result of atomic testing, then WHAT THE FUCK WAS ALL THAT OPENING STOCK FOOTAGE ABOUT?! Bah. Anyway, further investigation into the volcano itself (suddenly gone active in recent days, as if out of some kind of cinematic irony...) reveals human bones scattered about it's interior and yes, Rodan's nesting area, made into a huge cavern inside the lava pit's gaping maw! No sooner is the monster discovered, then it's time for a full scale military interjection! Wahoo!

The model planes and stock footage take to the skies, unleashing missile attacks on the monster (and a live volcano?! How is this safe in any context?!) and trying to seal off it's cave, re-burying it in the Earth's mantle. Rodan simply makes an alternate escape route by burrowing through the nearby mountain range and taking off, revealing a second Rodan, also taking to the skies! Sadly though, in our "afraid of the "unnatural" society, this second monster is instantly deemed as the first Rodan's "mate" rejecting all possibility that this one may be of the same sex as the first. What, two guys can't get a place together for a few millions years without it seeming "gay"?! Oh well, if they're calling this second one a female than I guess it's a female (despite the fact that there's no scientific evidence of such, given that the creatures were supposed to be extinct long before man soiled the Earth) and I will refer to it as such. The second monster's name shall be Rodonna to prevent any confusion... aside from the obvious confusion that comes from the two looking the exact same to begin with...

The military tries to take down both of their targets, but the resultant chase hurts the area more than it helps, as model buildings, cars, trees and bridges are blown away by hurricane winds kicked up from Rodan and Rodonna's huge wings... though you know Rodonna would swallow me alive if she heard me say her name with the word "huge" in the same sentence... The skirmish between nature's wrath and man's technology ends with Tokyo in ruins, walls of lame rising to meet the night sky, as the Mr. and Mrs. Rodan return to their subterranean honeymoon hideaway, giving the populace a chance to lick their wounds. Instead of leaving the monsters' fates in the hands of nature, the army decides the only way to preserve Earth for the human race is to bomb the volcano's crater, setting into motion a violent eruption and trapping the beasts in the intense magma that, though it will no doubt destroy the countryside and villages around it, will surely kill the menace of the Rodans... hopefully... and don't call me Shirley.

The bombing operation goes as planned and the volcano is soon on it's way to a forced eruption. Miles of plant life, earth and no doubt wildlife are blown all to shit as it looks like the Rodan family might actually make it out alive anyway! Unfortunately for one of them, a column of lava fucks up its flight capabilities and forces it down into the rivers of magma. While the other could have easily escaped to torment the world forever, it instead sends itself into the flames to be consumed in a "fiery holocaust", the last of their kind in a death that Shigeru, through his own words, can only hope to have as a lowly man. And so, for now, the final score is Mankind - 2, Rodans - 0 as technology (through the abuse of Mother Nature, using her and then telling her to take the money on the nightstand and get out) conquers nature once again and man proves that he's master of his own destiny... until later on when he'll be depending on Rodan to team with Mothra and Godzilla to save his sorry ass from threats of a cosmic level...

Rodan had a far more profound effect on my viewing experiences as a kid than it does now as an adult older kid. The big insect monsters are no longer scary, the puppeteering is no longer realistic and the strings holding the big birds up are more easily recognized. Other small (i.e. glaringly huge) things surface now too that I either didn't notice years earlier or was too naive to pick up on. Top 3?
(1) At one time, the lead scientist guy is said to refer to the Rodans as "reptiles, members of the snake family"... yeah, big snakes with wings and beaks and legs...
(2) While pursuing the jet fighters through the skyways, Rodan leaves an exhaust trail... ?!?! I repeat: "?!?!"! Does the big snake need some serious Beano™ before his meals, or just an oil change?!
(3) The sequence where the mining community is pursuing the big mutant insect through the hills is forever marred now that I'm older, wiser and able to realize that the bug was a puppet and the two men it attacks and throws are dolls being dragged with strings...
*SPBLUPTH* For those of you not familiar with that little sound effect, it was the sound of my childhood dreams being thrown against a wall and slowly rolling down to the floor ala a Wacky Wall Walker™, only made of feces and fairy dust...

My other big complaint reads like so: clocking in at a little under 75 minutes long, it just doesn't feel like we get enough film to flesh out Mr. & Mrs. Rodan as characters, aside from their almost romantic final bath amidst the burning rocks of the volcano. Sounds off-the-rocker to expect a movie to make me care about a couple of rubber costumes, right? Wrong. If done right the kaiju can take the spotlight away from the human characters and earn their place as the titular monster. Godzilla's always the star of his movies, but somehow the Rodans seem to slip and fall on the second banana in their own flick like a couple of islander extras on an episode of "Gilligan's Island". This could explain why Mothra has had three flicks in the past 10 years or so (along with several parts in some of Big G's movies from '90 on, including 2 title credits) while Rodan's only had one celluloid appearance amidst his peers and it was in Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II, meaning he wasn't even worthy of being the movie's "vs. monster"! Again, it's sad to have to ruin a good childhood memory for myself, but hey, if I can't ruin my own pleasant points in life then whose can I ruin?!

The saddest note of the movie's shortcomings is that it has so much going for it in the crew credits, but still doesn't give me the fan fellatio it did when I was a lad. It of course features music by Akira Fukube, Toho's number one music guy on the west side, having scored all of Toho's big children of the old skool. You also can't ignore the Toho superstar cast that made the movie (see the credits up top for what I'm talking about) when you consider how ineffective Rodan is when compared to the rest of the Toho stable. Rodan's been the lesser of his daikaiju brothers (and sisters?) as much as I hate to say it, yet he's always got this air of snide superiority to him. I can never back an egotist. Meanwhile, Angillas hasn't been anything more than a sidekick since Godzilla Raids Again, he's the punching bag of the Toho universe, yet he's got more fans than Rodan because he's the humble underdog we all pull for to come out on top. What's all this mean in the end? It doesn't matter the price of rice in Canada, because Rodan will still be mediocre at best no matter what language it's dubbed in...

Just let it go.