What do most non-Japanese, Western or otherwise, know about Japanese films? About Japanese pop culture, period? More than they did a decade ago certainly, but let's get real: Go to a typical family gathering in America — blue state or red, it doesn't much matter — and ask those assembled for the name of a Japanese actor. Chances are you'll get one: Godzilla. (Bruce Lee doesn't count.)
Who else? Movies starring Big G and his less-famous monster friends may well be the only non-animated ones from this country they've ever seen. (Unless they've rented that lone copy of "The Seven Samurai" or "Shall We Dance?" from the neighborhood Blockbuster.) Also by now, 50 years after his debut in Ishiro Honda's 1954 "Gojira (Godzilla — King of the Monsters)," the eponymous lizard has become detached from his mostly bad and mediocre films and entered the realm of icon-hood, like Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe. (And like them, now has his own sidewalk star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.)
Godzilla's appeal is easy to understand, even for the very young: He's a big, scaly reptile who roars like tortured steel, breathes atomic fire and stomps cities with ferocious glee. What's not to like?