My Japanese Film class was scheduled to watch Itami Juzo's Tampopop (1985) today but our professor came in and announced that in light of the recent tragic events in Japan he was changing today's film to Gojira, which had originally not even been on the syllabus. He said that he was going to show Gojira since it was a perfect example of how the Japanese people deal with tragedy as that seen after the Second World War and today in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear power plant breakdown.

Besides one other Caucasian girl in the class I was the only person who had seen the original Japanese version of Gojira. My professor was actually rather surprised to learn that a female Japanese foreign exchange student in the class had never seen a Godzilla movie - she said it was because they were "boys movies." For the most part however the class was, as far as I could tell, fairly respectful to the film. There were few snide comments and little laughing at the SFX, though everybody did seem to get quite a chuckle out of the fact that the Japanese SDF jets couldn't hit Godzilla when he was wading through Tokyo Bay.

Afterwards the professor lectured on the movie and its social and historical context. I was very happy that he ran Gojira and used it to help relate to what is happening in Japan now.... I'm also happy because I really didn't want to watch another movie by Ozu, Yasujiro.               

Last Edited By: DerGolem Mar 18 11 4:36 PM. Edited 1 times.