RADON

(vt, outside Japan, Rodan)

   Film (1956)

   Toho. Dir Inoshiro Honda, starring Kenji Sahara, Yumi Shirkawa, Akihiko Hirata. Screenplay Takeshi Kimura, Takeo Murata, based on a story by Takashi Kuronomura. 79 mins.Colour.

   This film, the first Japanese MONSTER MOVIE in colour, is from the same team that produced GOJIRA (vt Godzilla). A giant pterodactyl hatches in a mine (and eats giant dragonfly larvae, in the film's best scene); it is joined by a second flying reptile; they terrorize Japan then perish in a volcano. The spectacular effects are by Eiji Tsuburaya and his team. The US version added a voice-over written by David DUNCAN. Radon's secondappearance was in Kaiju Daisenso (1965; vt Invasion of Astro-Monster; vt Battle of the Astros; vt Monster Zero; vt Invasion of Planet X) and histhird in Ghidorah Sandai Kaiju Chikyu Saidai No Kessan (1965; vt Chikyu Saidai No Kessan; vt Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster). His swansong,where he performed alongside 10 other major Toho monsters, was in Kaiju Soshingeki (1968; vt Destroy All Monsters; vt Operation Monsterland; vtThe March of the Monsters). (For more on these sequels GOJIRA.)

   PN