Dr. Bill Kobb
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Godzilla happily takes off suit as monster turns 50
TOKYO (AFP) - An unofficial icon of Japan, the city-stomping Godzilla with its fiery breath and giant claws, turns 50 this week and the days are numbered before the monster fights its final wars.
But few would notice that cinema's premier monster is actually a lean, middle-aged man who on an autumn afternoon was teaching youngsters martial arts at a small hall in Tokyo.
Tsutomu Kitagawa, 46, has donned the Godzilla suit since 1999. He is the third actor since the monster first stormed the screen on November 3, 1954, the year Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio visited Japan on their honeymoon.
Kitagawa, with dyed brown hair and a suntan, said he initially felt "enormous pressure" especially because he was becoming Godzilla the year after a US computer-generated version of the creature by Tristar Pictures.
He was also the successor to Kenpachiro Satsuma, a renowned suits actor invited by North Korean leader and monster buff Kim Jong-Il to play in his Stalinist state in the 1980s.
"The suit moves me, rather than me moving it," Kitagawa told AFP. It took him into his second year to get accustomed to the costume, with its radio-controlled mouth and tail pulled by piano wires.
The actor, weighing 54 kilograms (119 pounds) and 161 centimeters tall (five feet, 4.4 inches), said he would lose three to five kilograms after a whole day in heavy Godzilla suits with maple-leaf spurs on his back.
Eventually he assimilated into the character of the monster.
"I used to live on the 19th or 20th floor of an apartment and had the same view of buildings as the giant Godzilla," he said.
"When I was in the Godzilla suits and looking at miniature buildings as I waited, I had an illusion that I was at home, looking out through the window."
But the man behind the monster would still feel pangs of regret when he crushed meticulously designed miniature buildings.
"The staff spend a month to make them, hours to install them, and I can't describe how sorry I was when I stomped on them," he said.
Kitagawa's fifth and last Godzilla film is "Godzilla: Final Wars" to be released in Japan on December 4.
The colossal reptile will bid farewell to the big screen with the 28th episode, excluding a Hollywood version, after destroying more buildings than economic power Japan could ever afford to replace.
The series has drawn a total of 98.3 million viewers in Japan alone.
In the latest movie, Godzilla will be pitted against more than 10 popular monsters that appeared in past episodes, including Kumonga the spider and Mothra the moth, according to distributor Toho.
The monsters will go on the rampage in New York, Paris, Shanghai and Sydney in the star-studded "Final Wars".
The two-billion-yen (18.9 million-dollar) upcoming film was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, who is reputed for sharp action scenes.
At a seven-minute preview of "Final Wars" in Tokyo, Kitamura declared to loud cheers of hundreds of enthusiastic fans that he had made "a movie that will shake Hollywood up for the first time in 50 years".
Kenji Koike, a 21-year-old university student at the event, said that "words cannot describe the charms of Godzilla".
"He's cool, so strong, and mirrors the spirit of the times," Koike said.
In the original 1954 film the monster rose out of a roiling sea and swam to Japan after being awakened by a hydrogen bomb test in the South Pacific, a pointed allusion after a US test at Bikini Atoll in March that year.
Like many a human actor, Godzilla has taken rests from the screen. He first disappeared from theatres in 1975 when the film industry was overwhelmed by the popularity of television.
Godzilla also "died" in 1995 before Hollywood launched the digital Godzilla, which earned 379 million dollars worldwide.
The two-meter latex suits for the latest film weighed 30 kilograms, less than one-third of the costume used in the last movie in 2003, to make sharper moves possible.
Kitagawa instructs aspiring stunt actors and is married to a former stunt woman, Eiko. But he has found that Godzilla does have its detractors.
His son Ryo, now 16, used to come to see him at the studio and "declared he would become my disciple one day".
"I regret, however, he's now begun to stay away from me as his friends are apparently teasing him at school" about being Godzilla's son, he said.
Kitagawa said he had no regrets that the series was coming to an end and he would no longer get to stomp on miniature buildings.
"I now feel most happy when I'm making miniature Godzillas," he said as he lit up a cigarette after the interview.
He spoke fondly of someone else known as Godzilla -- Japanese baseball star Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees.
"I think he is closer to a real Godzilla than I," he said.
TOKYO (AFP) - An unofficial icon of Japan, the city-stomping Godzilla with its fiery breath and giant claws, turns 50 this week and the days are numbered before the monster fights its final wars.
But few would notice that cinema's premier monster is actually a lean, middle-aged man who on an autumn afternoon was teaching youngsters martial arts at a small hall in Tokyo.
Tsutomu Kitagawa, 46, has donned the Godzilla suit since 1999. He is the third actor since the monster first stormed the screen on November 3, 1954, the year Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio visited Japan on their honeymoon.
Kitagawa, with dyed brown hair and a suntan, said he initially felt "enormous pressure" especially because he was becoming Godzilla the year after a US computer-generated version of the creature by Tristar Pictures.
He was also the successor to Kenpachiro Satsuma, a renowned suits actor invited by North Korean leader and monster buff Kim Jong-Il to play in his Stalinist state in the 1980s.
"The suit moves me, rather than me moving it," Kitagawa told AFP. It took him into his second year to get accustomed to the costume, with its radio-controlled mouth and tail pulled by piano wires.
The actor, weighing 54 kilograms (119 pounds) and 161 centimeters tall (five feet, 4.4 inches), said he would lose three to five kilograms after a whole day in heavy Godzilla suits with maple-leaf spurs on his back.
Eventually he assimilated into the character of the monster.
"I used to live on the 19th or 20th floor of an apartment and had the same view of buildings as the giant Godzilla," he said.
"When I was in the Godzilla suits and looking at miniature buildings as I waited, I had an illusion that I was at home, looking out through the window."
But the man behind the monster would still feel pangs of regret when he crushed meticulously designed miniature buildings.
"The staff spend a month to make them, hours to install them, and I can't describe how sorry I was when I stomped on them," he said.
Kitagawa's fifth and last Godzilla film is "Godzilla: Final Wars" to be released in Japan on December 4.
The colossal reptile will bid farewell to the big screen with the 28th episode, excluding a Hollywood version, after destroying more buildings than economic power Japan could ever afford to replace.
The series has drawn a total of 98.3 million viewers in Japan alone.
In the latest movie, Godzilla will be pitted against more than 10 popular monsters that appeared in past episodes, including Kumonga the spider and Mothra the moth, according to distributor Toho.
The monsters will go on the rampage in New York, Paris, Shanghai and Sydney in the star-studded "Final Wars".
The two-billion-yen (18.9 million-dollar) upcoming film was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, who is reputed for sharp action scenes.
At a seven-minute preview of "Final Wars" in Tokyo, Kitamura declared to loud cheers of hundreds of enthusiastic fans that he had made "a movie that will shake Hollywood up for the first time in 50 years".
Kenji Koike, a 21-year-old university student at the event, said that "words cannot describe the charms of Godzilla".
"He's cool, so strong, and mirrors the spirit of the times," Koike said.
In the original 1954 film the monster rose out of a roiling sea and swam to Japan after being awakened by a hydrogen bomb test in the South Pacific, a pointed allusion after a US test at Bikini Atoll in March that year.
Like many a human actor, Godzilla has taken rests from the screen. He first disappeared from theatres in 1975 when the film industry was overwhelmed by the popularity of television.
Godzilla also "died" in 1995 before Hollywood launched the digital Godzilla, which earned 379 million dollars worldwide.
The two-meter latex suits for the latest film weighed 30 kilograms, less than one-third of the costume used in the last movie in 2003, to make sharper moves possible.
Kitagawa instructs aspiring stunt actors and is married to a former stunt woman, Eiko. But he has found that Godzilla does have its detractors.
His son Ryo, now 16, used to come to see him at the studio and "declared he would become my disciple one day".
"I regret, however, he's now begun to stay away from me as his friends are apparently teasing him at school" about being Godzilla's son, he said.
Kitagawa said he had no regrets that the series was coming to an end and he would no longer get to stomp on miniature buildings.
"I now feel most happy when I'm making miniature Godzillas," he said as he lit up a cigarette after the interview.
He spoke fondly of someone else known as Godzilla -- Japanese baseball star Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees.
"I think he is closer to a real Godzilla than I," he said.
