The Kaiju Film

A Critical Study of Cinema's Biggest Monsters

Jason Barr author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:McFarland & Co Inc

Published:31st Jan '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Kaiju Film cover

The Kaiju (strange monster) film genre has a number of themes that go well beyond the ""big monsters stomping on cities"" motif. Since the seminal King Kong (1933) and the archetypal Godzilla (1954), kaiju has mined the subject matter of science run amok, militarism, capitalism, colonialism, consumerism and pollution. This critical examination of kaiju considers the entirety of the genre-the major franchises, along with less well known films like Kronos (1957), Monsters (2010) and Pacific Rim (2013). The author examines how kaiju has crossed cultures from its original folkloric inspirations in both the U.S. and Japan and how the genre continues to reflect national values to audiences.

Jason Barr’s lively and fun study (subtitled ‘A critical study of the cinema’s biggest monsters’) is both an enthusiastic celebration of an often despised genre, written with both a fan’s indulgence and a scholar’s hard-core grasp of information. Ambitiously, Barr is not content to simply tackle the Japanese variety of destructive behemoth, but adduces American films such as the remarkable Kronos, with its bizarre Cubist-inspired robot machine and the much-loved British film Gorgo, with the title monster’s mother, no less, laying waste to such London landmarks as Tower Bridge. For aficionados of the genre, this is splendid stuff." - DVD Choices, July 2016

ISBN: 9780786499632

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 280g

212 pages