Film Scouts Diaries

1998 Cannes Film Festival Diaries
A Kaiju Goes to Cannes #1: Japanese Take Over England Alert!

by Hirama-Gon

The American Godzilla makes its debut on the last night of the Cannes Film Festival, which is why I packed my bandana and crawled the Pacific Ocean floor from the confines of Monster Island in search of this new monster. I hear this Godzilla has four legs and looks like a giant iguana, and there is considerable doubt about the radiation spitting thing.

Truly, if these facts are correct, some producer at Columbia TriStar decided to take on the old monster motto of, "If it ain't broke, go break it."

These are all rumors, started probably by a Godzilla loyalist. I can understand a loyalist's devotion to Godzilla, or more likely the memory of Godzilla. As any loyalist fan knows, Godzilla sort of suffered a nuclear meltdown in "Godzilla v. Destroyer," and left the King of the Monster label to his son, Minya (or Minirah). Not that death has ever meant anything in terms of actual dying, especially in the world of Godzilla where resurrection is as regular an activity as eating people whole.

So as I crawled into the Mediterranean floor, I lost my way and swept past Gibralter and, somehow, onto the Thames River in London. It was there where, while contemplating devouring a boat filled with tourists sailing on a weekend river cruise, that I heard the boat emcee complain wildly about how the Japanese planned to convert the old Ministry of Defense into a Marriot Hotel. In fact, the tour operator was practically lamenting about THOSE INVADING JAPANESE.

Perhaps someone forgot to tell the tour guide that it was just the Ministry of Defense building, which didn't do such a swell job of protecting London against the angry Gorgo, and not entire country colonization. Surely, the British should know what that is! Sort of like how India and China found little Britains popping up amongst the "native" population. At least the Indians and Chinese would have had an easier time staying at the Marriott Hotel as opposed to a British tea room.

But somehow, no one can seem to shake the horrible image of THOSE INVADING JAPANESE. I fear the monster population has something to do with this, and the world has been pretty lucky so far that none of the big foursome - Godzilla, Gamera, King Ghidarah or Rodan - have staged invasions on foreign soil. Still, there is undoubtedly this horrible fear of a Japanese invasion that humbles the British. Surely, it can't be the cars or the stereo systems or the sushi or the karaoke boxes.

It has to be the monsters.

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