Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)

Movie: 5/5
Video: 4.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 4.5/5
Overall: 5/5

"Germany's First Godzilla Blu-ray!"

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster was a turning point for the Godzilla series. This is where Godzilla changes from being the destroyer that he is to Earth's savior. After a meteorite crashes to Earth, a group of scientists go to investigate. At the same time, a princess is heading to Japan when her plane explodes during it's flight. Believing that the princess is dead, a mysterious prophet claiming to be from Venus looks exactly like the dead princess. The prophet claims that the monsters are going to be awoken and it all begins to hit the fan.

The meteorite turns out to be King Ghidorah and soon he begins laying waste to Japan. Rodan, Mothra (in larva form), and Godzilla gather. Mothra tries to stop Godzilla and Rodan from killing each other and begs them to stop and to save the world from the wrath of King Ghidorah. After the monsters ignore her pleas, Mothra goes to fight King Ghidorah by herself. Godzilla and Rodan sees Mothra's sacrifice to save the planet and soon the three unlikely monsters begin the battle for the Earth and duke it out against King Ghidorah.

I remember being six years old when I first saw this film, in 1996. I had recorded it off of the Disney channel along with Son of Godzilla. Yes, Disney channel back in the day would actually play Godzilla films. Would you see something like that now a days? No. You would get the crap you see on there today.

What I love about this film is how hysterical it gets when the monsters fight and the sarcasm that they have. You can tell that Rodan is laughing at Godzilla when Mothra is spraying him down and then Rodan shuts up as soon as he gets sprayed himself. This is a film where the suits look amazing and well done. I can't recommend this film enough, 5/5.

Video: 4.5/5

Ascot Elite presents the film in 1080p and uses the Toho remaster from 2008. How does the film fare in comparison to Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla Vs Biollante? It's spectacular. It blows the HD remaster away for Destroy All Monsters. However, there's some scratches on the lens which they couldn't remove. The picture is pretty flawless for an almost fifty year old film. I give the visual presentation 4.5/5.

Audio: 5/5

We have two audio presentations of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster; Japanese and German DTS-HD MA 5.1. Both tracks sound glorious. Hearing Godzilla's roar and the other monsters roaring and fighting all sounds amazing. Both audio tracks sound great. All around 5/5.

Extras: 4.5/5

We have some great extras, however, most of them are PAL encoded which means it won't work in your Region 1 players unless your player is compatible. We have a 40 minute score version which is in HD. And we have a German commentary track; I have some issues with it. They claimed that Shusuke Kaneko liked Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster so much that he remade it as GMK. Unless I translated it wrong, I honestly don't believe that is correct. I know that Kaneko loved this film and made Shiro Sano and Chiharu Niiyama watch the film. Also, they claimed that the American title for the film was the literal Japanese translation for the film; Giant Monsters Decisive Battle.

We have an interview with Shusuke Kaneko, which is fine and good fun, but; we have scrolling German subtitles from the right side to the left side of the screen. It honestly hurt my eyes trying to read it as moved way too fast. And these subtitles are burned into the video itself. And finally, we have the trailer in Japanese and German. Basically, it's just German audio over the Japanese trailer. I do like the bonus material; however since it's all in German, it won't help all of you. 4.5/5.

Overall: 5/5

This Blu-ray is region free and is a cheaper alternative to the Japanese Blu-ray which costs about $80. I managed to get the German Blu-ray for $17 off of Grooves Inc. Like the Japanese Blu-ray, this German Blu-ray is not English friendly. However, if you've watched this film as many times as I have, you get used to watching the film despite the fact there's no English subtitles. Much like how i can watch the German Blu-ray Casshern and don't really need subtitles whenever it's playing in Japanese or German. This is classic Godzilla, remastered, and very stunning for an almost fifty year old film. I give this Blu-ray 5/5.

Godzilla Vs Biollante (1989)

Movie: 5/5
Video: 4/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 3.5/5
Overall: 4.5/5

"Godzilla's 17th Outing."

Godzilla Vs Biollante, the seventeenth outing of Japan's biggest monster, makes it's way to the U.S. on Blu-ray for the first time since it's original VHS release in 1992 by HBO Video for Miramax, pre-Disney buyout. After the events in the 1984 reboot, Godzilla (or Godzilla 1985 to us in the States); Godzilla is reawakened after a Middle Eastern terror cell and a group known as "Bio-Major" blow up Mt. Mihara. Which is where he was sucked into at the end of the last film. At the same time, a mad scientist takes Godzilla cells and mixes them with the DNA of a rose and accidentally creates a giant monster named Biollante. The first incarnation of Biollante is in the form of a beautiful rose but with some nasty vines with Godzilla-esque jaws. Biollante is quickly defeated and burned up by Godzilla's heat ray. Biollante returns in a deadlier form ready to take on Godzilla and save Japan.

I remember being about four years old whenever I saw this, probably around 1993. This was the first Godzilla film I saw in it's original aspect ratio as HBO presented all VHS copies of this film in 1.85:1. A rarity as most Godzilla films were presented in their hacked up 1.33:1 crops. What I love about this film is that this is like Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla in a way, we have a monster that is Godzilla-esque. Especially when we have the final form of Biollante going up against Godzilla, it's DNA really makes it close to Godzilla. I give the film a 5/5.

Video: 4/5
The video source is the Toho remaster from 2008. Which is amazing that both Echo Bridge and the horrible Media Blasters can get their hands on the Japanese prints as opposed to being handed the international prints by Toho. My biggest complaint about this restoration is that since this is the Japanese remasters, it has Japanese subtitles burned into the video for whenever the film has English dialogue. The overall image is soft; it doesn't hurt the detail at all in the image. There is some slight compression that is noticeable when there's smoke, but only if you are looking for it. 4/5.

Audio: 5/5
We have three audio tracks present on the disc; Japanese 5.1 DTS-HD MA; Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0; and English Mono Dolby Digital 1.0. For an old English Mono track that seems that it's sourced from a VHS tape, it's passable. The Japanese DTS-HD MA track is beautiful. I believe this is the remixed audio created back in the early 2000's. The 2.0 Japanese track sounds ok. I give it a 5/5.

Extras: 3.5/5
We have about an hour of bonus material, presented in SD. This making of was presented on the Thai DVD that I own, so I have seen it before. It contains behind the scenes footage as well as deleted scenes. Then we have concept models made for what Biollante was originally supposed to look like. There was like three or so designs that we had on it. It's pretty amazing. I give the extras a 3.5/5.

Overall: 4.5/5
For us Godzilla fans, this is a no brainer, considering that it's going for $7.99. This Blu-ray is amazing and is a must own. We got the same restoration as Japan got and for a fraction of the price that it goes for over in Japan. I give this release a 4.5/5.

Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Movie: 5/5
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Extras: 3/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Godzilla's Second Blu-ray Outing in the U.S.

I was full of dread once Media Blasters announced that they had gotten the rights to two Godzilla films; the other being Godzilla Vs Megalon, which still hasn't been released since it's original November release date. Media Blasters is a horrible studio who does nothing but delay titles on Blu-ray much to the frustration of fans of the films that they have. Luckily, the release of Destroy All Monsters was only delayed by two weeks, whereas we waited over a year for Ichi the Killer and about a year for Machine Girl, just to give some examples. I paid about $18 for this release, I wouldn't pay more for it if you can it for that. There is problems with this release in terms of quality control.

In Godzilla's ninth outing; the film starts off in the year 1999 when all of the monsters are contained on Ogasawara Island, aka Monster Island or in this film Monster Land. A group of astronauts are called back to Earth after Monster Land is ravaged and the monsters have been unleashed. They learn that a race of aliens are bent on dominating the Earth and are using the monsters a pawns in their plan. The astronauts, as well as the higher ups in Japan, are scrambling to find ways to bring down the aliens and stop the monsters from destroying the planet.

Godzilla was my inspiration for wanting to be a filmmaker. I had first seen Destroy All Monsters when it was released by ADV video; it was amazing to actually see a Godzilla film in it's original aspect ratio at the time in 1999. I really enjoy how Toho seemed to go all out with the usage of all the monsters; sure this film focuses a lot on the Human interaction, but it is great to see Godzilla on the screen when he appears. I give the film a 5/5.

The video is problematic and this is due to Toho's HD remaster of the film that occurred in 2008. Some shots appear nice and crisp while other shots will be dull or covered in dirt and scratches. I found this to be quite frustrating at times. If Toho would have done better job at their remastering, I think this could have been a phenomenal release. Colors do pop out with great definition, like with how green the grass and trees look while Anguirus is on Monster Land in the opening of the film for example. Video scores a 3.5/5.

Now, I do like that Media Blasters brought in the AIP dub of the film since I've never heard it before. However, I wonder where they sourced it from. At times is sounds like it's rolling around and the pitch seems to drop. It especially was bothersome when all of the monsters destroy Tokyo as you hear the pitch dropping and rising. Also on the disc is the Toho international dub which sounds just the same as it did on the ADV Video release of the film. And then we have the Japanese audio presented in DTS-HD 5.1 and a Dolby Digital 2.0 track. The Japanese track sounds great, but the problems with AIP dub of the film brings it down and I give the audio a 3.5/5.

While there is a good amount of bonus material, Media Blasters could have encoded it much better and needed to do some serious quality control. We have a series of Destroy All Monsters trailers listed as "Promo Reel". The first trailer is an English trailer that's 4:3 widescreen and most likely sourced from the PAL format given the black and white lines at the top of the video. The audio sounds weak and is very low and then as it ends, you get the Japanese trailer which is booming in comparison. After the Japanese trailer, we have a French trailer, which again is very weak sounding and low. Also, it's another PAL formatted video converted over to NTSC and it's obviously telecined from a print that was stretched to 1.33:1 from 2.35:1 as we see the lines just right above the image. Then after the French trailer, we have several English language radio spots for the film.

After that, we have an 8mm sourced reel that could be found in the 70's whenever people owned 8mm and Super 8mm projectors and cameras. It's 4:3 full screen, cropped from it's original aspect ratio. It's very worn and faded with brownish/redish tone to the image. Again, could Media Blasters not worry themselves about trying to fix the audio, it's very low. After that we have some photo galleries and storyboards. There's a commentary track by two Godzilla experts as well some trailers for coming attractions on the main menu screen. These two trailers are for Godzilla Vs Megalon and Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. Again, Riki-Oh's trailer is 4:3 widescreen. Could they not be convinced to shave off the black bars on the top and bottom to have it fit properly? I mean, this is a Blu-ray and we all have 16:9 set ups here. Bonus materials score a 3/5.

Media Blasters could have done a better on this Blu-ray and it feels rushed and that they did the authoring at the last minute since this title was delayed by two weeks. If you announce a title in April and then waste all that time in between just screwing around, it's gonna show and it does here. How hard would it be to actually take the time to fix these issues with the audio to make it just right? Overall, I give this release a 3.5/5. If you're a hardcore Godzilla fan like myself, you'll enjoy it but wish for more.

Godzilla (1954)

Movie: 5/5
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 2.5/5
Overall: 4/5

The King of the Monsters is on Blu-ray!

A misconception about the video is that it is an upconvert from the 2006 DVD. That is not true. Classic Media got a film print of the Japanese version from Toho and they made a raw HD master from their extremely damaged print. They did not clean up and restore the print like Toho did with their releases, which is a shame because this could have looked even more awesome if they did restore the film. The audio, even for 2 channel, is very impressive; it sounds much better than the 2006 DVD release.

The extras are ported over from the 2006 DVD. Now, to address the biggest issue regarding to the U.S. version with Raymond Burr; Toho does not own an actual film print of the 1956 "Godzilla, King of the Monsters". Over the years, the film was replaced with a VHS copy of the film. I'm sure if Classic Media was to make an HD master of a VHS, it would look horrible. Now, there are film collectors out there who own an actual 16mm of the film but was rejected by Classic Media for the 2006 release, however they did get the end credits from a collector but did not use the whole film, which is a shame. Given that Japanese version looks great, despite the poor handling throughout the years, I give this release a 4/5 total.