Cast: Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura, Masao Shimizu, Seijiro Onda, Sonosuke Sawamura, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Mayuri Mokusho, Minosuke Yamada, Haruo Nakajima. Katsumi Tezuka. Screenplay: Takeo Murata, Shigeaki Hidaka, based on a novel by Shigeru Kayama. Cinematography: Seiichi Endo. Production design: Teruaki Abe, Takeo Kita. Film editing: Kazuji Taira. Music: Masura Sato.
The inevitable sequel to Ishiro Honda's 1954 hit, Godzilla Raids Again introduces what would become the mainstay of the franchise: monster vs. monster. Godzilla encounters his first kaiju antagonist, an ankylosaurus called Anguirus, who looks like a cross between a hedgehog and a nubbly scrub brush. Anguirus's inflexible carapace somewhat limits his mobility in his conflict with Godzilla, but the two manage to do quite a bit of damage to Osaka before the latter prevails. Unfortunately, the rest of the film feels anticlimactic after the scenes of destruction, as it deals with the plan to bury Godzilla under a mass of rock and ice on an island near Hokkaido. This results in a rather perfunctory subplot, turning the film into a kind of buddy movie featuring two pilots, Tsukioka (Hiroshi Koizumi) and Kobayashi (Minoru Chiaku), who are the first to encounter the two monsters and are determined to see it through to the end. If you somehow missed the first movie, there are some clips from it, and Takashi Shimura returns in a cameo as the paleontologist Dr. Yamane, who shares his expertise on the creatures.
