Ishiro Honda's Fascinating "Life in Film"

Director Ishiro Honda was instrumental in the creation of some of the most iconic movie monsters of all time, including Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan. But the life of this extraordinary man encompasses much more than just kaiju movies. In Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa, authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski offer us an insightful look at the life of this talented filmmaker. Honda was the son of a Buddhist monk who had a lifelong love of movies. He enrolled in film studies programs, and ended up working at PCL, a company that would later become Toho, the studio where he spent most of his career. His trajectory was derailed by military service, and the authors takes us through his harrowing experiences as a soldier during World War II. After his return from the war, Honda would return to filmmaking, making movies in a variety of genres, including documentaries, romantic tales, crime dramas, comedies, and military-themed epics.

Then came a radioactive, fire-breathing creature named Gojira, a monster who brought Ishiro Honda his greatest success, and shaped the next phase of his career. The film, released in 1954, was conceived as a Japanese version of American monster movies like King Kong and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. There was also a darker and anti-nuclear undercurrent to the film, in the wake of Japan's devastating experiences with the atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Gojira became a world-wide success, and in the United States, where the film was re-edited with additional scenes featuring Raymond Burr, and re-titled Godzilla, King of the Monsters, it helped launch a monster movie phenomenon that continues to the present day. The book details Honda's work on the original series of Godzilla films, and the other science-fiction, horror and fantasy movies he made for Toho, such as The Mysterians, The H-Man, Atragon and Matango.

Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa features in-depth looks at the making of films like Mothra, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Destroy All Monsters, movies that captured the imaginations of viewers around the world. By all accounts, Honda was a dedicated, hard-working man, who took his craft seriously and was well-liked by his friends, family and co-workers. While he was somewhat conflicted by the direction in which these genre films took his career, he was always loyal to Toho, and the authors paint a three-dimensional portrait of this intelligent, compassionate and gifted filmmaker. The book gives us an engrossing look at the Japanese film industry, and details how the popularity of kaiju films began to wane in the 1970s, which led to the studio cutting budgets for later films in the Godzilla series, as well as other genre films. Honda's final Godzilla film, Terror of Mechagodzilla, was released in 1975.

That wasn't the end of Honda's journey. The next phase of his career was one of his most personally fulfilling experiences. He was a life-long friend of world-renowned filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who had directed classics like Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress. The two men had come up through the ranks of Japanese cinema together, though their careers had taken them in different directions. Honda collaborated closely with Kurosawa on the last five films he directed, including Kagemusha and Dreams, serving as an assistant director. Honda's life story is a captivating and engrossing one, and Ryfle and Godziszewski do a masterful job of detailing the entire arc of his life and career. Both authors are experts in the kaiju genre, having written about it in previous books and also spoken about it in commentaries recorded for several kaiju DVD releases. Originally published in 2017, Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa, which features a forward by Martin Scorsese, is a must read for kaiju fans and cinephiles who'd like to dive into a thoroughly researched and compelling biography of a brilliant and often underrated filmmaker.