Reports from the United States tell us that some Americans are having their faith restored in a popular postwar Japanese export. The subject of their revived affection is not a car or a motorcycle, not a camera or an audiovisual device, not a laptop personal computer or other advanced information-technology gadget. It is the authentic version of that fearsome old friend from Japanese movies of a more innocent age, Godzilla.
These Americans are renewing their acquaintance -- many are making it for the first time -- through a hit Japanese film of last winter, "Godzilla 2000." Once again, five years after the supposed demise of the series, the monster returns to his familiar pattern of creating havoc. Godzilla has been stomping on, swinging his massive tail at and breathing fire onto famous cities since Toho Co., Ltd. unleashed him in 1954 in a modestly budgeted, black-and-white movie in which the "special effects" involved little more than trick photography using miniature sets of Tokyo's most recognizable landmarks and a man in a rubber suit.
"Gojira" as the character is known here, his name being an amalgamation of the Japanese words for gorilla ("gorira") and whale ("kujira"), made his debut when the country's movie industry was enjoying a postwar renaissance. Almost everyone connected with the business, however, was astonished when the films now considered world classics, but that had been largely disdained by local audiences, suddenly began collecting top prizes at international film festivals. While American monster movies had become known here, there was little reason to expect Godzilla's first movie appearance to be a hit overseas.