Godzilla Vs. Hedorah

Directed by Yoshimitsu Banno

Fri October 22, 2021
9:40 PM
Credits  

Director

Yoshimitsu Banno

Cast

Akira Yamanouchi, Toshie Kimura, Hiroyuki Kawase, Keiko Mari, Toshio Shiba

contact

Janus Films

Japan 1971 85 mins OV Japanese Subtitles : English

One of three Godzilla films showcased during Fantasia’s inaugural 1996 edition, GODZILLA VS. HEDORAH, aka GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER, rocked the Imperial during an unforgettable midnight screening. Flash-forward to 2021 and the Godzilla franchise remains a foundational part of Fantasia’s DNA; this particular episode a high point of the series’ Shôwa-era period for presciently addressing the ongoing climate crisis (here framed as rising levels of pollution in postwar Japan – the country’s industrial waste becoming the lifeblood for the invading alien Hedorah!). Uniquely helmed by Yoshimitsu Banno at the tail-end of Japan’s counterculture movement, the film looks and feels like no other in the franchise. At once somber, psychedelic, political and endlessly goofy, GODZILLA VS. HEDORAH is a trip.

Showings

Fri October 22, 2021
9:40 PM