A new daikaiju eiga (Japanese giant monster movie) is about to make its world premiere next month: God of Clay (Japan-2009/2011; short [13 min.]; dir. Koichi Kawakita and Nobuaki Sugimoto).
God of Clay is a short film — the last to be produced at Toho’s studio facility “Toho Built”, before it was shut down due to inevitable changes in SFX technology from “old-school’ miniatures to CGI. Made by some of Japan’s greatest SFX monster-makers and produced by Marbling Fine Arts, the short film was a “labor of love”, using old-school 1960s-style monster film aesthetics by way of suitmation and miniature sets. Koichi Kawakita himself has been special effects director on many Godzilla films and Ultraman projects over the years.
According to SciFi Japan, God of Clay was adapted from a children’s picture book by author Masamoto Nasu (Children of the Paper Crane: The Story of Sadako Sasaki and Her Struggle With the A-Bomb Disease), and features an anti-war theme — appropriote for a film following in the great tradition of the original Gojira [Godzilla]. The story “revolves around a boy named Ken-chan whose parents are killed in WWII, and who creates a tiny clay god to punish those who profit from war. Fifty years later, Ken-chan has become president of an arms company – and his forgotten God Of Clay grows to enormous size, wreaking havoc and destruction until it confronts its maker.” (Source)
The World Premiere takes place on June 23 at the Bigfoot Crest Theater in Westwood, CA (near UCLA), as part of a double feature with the 1966 G-flick classic Godzilla vs the Sea Monster — Nankai no daiketto [trans. South Seas Giant Battle] (1966; dir. Jun Fukuda) [aka Ebirah, Horror of the Deep]. Go to the SciFi Japan website for more details.
- Source: SciFi Japan via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery.
- Photos via Dennis Bartok © 2011 Marbling Fine Arts
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