While I was generally impressed by the company's effort on Godzilla vs. Biollante, their release for The Return of Godzilla is extremely disappointing. In fact, it's a pretty poor title all around, as the video and audio tracks are pretty flawed while it boasts almost no extras at all.

This disc has a pretty lackluster video presentation nearly across the board, with its only saving grace being the relatively good source material that Universe had available, as there are no signs of print damage through out the movie. Unfortunately, the colors aren't nearly as distinct as they could have been on this release, lacking a vibrant array that the format is capable of. Its biggest sin, though, is simply the horrible compression techniques that Universe subjected the video track too, which adds tons of artifacting (pixelation) and makes the image very soft without a sharp level of detail to it. This is made worse due to the fact that this disc is not Anamorphic, meaning that Universe wasted space compressing the black borders of the image. However, at least the movie is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

This DVD has two different audio tracks on it, including the original Japanese and one that is dubbed into Cantonese. Unfortunately, this DVD presents the audio in a mono format, losing out on the original stereo presentation of the production; something which is instantly noticeable during the various military strikes, as the explosions and other sound effects sound very flat without the additional channel support.

As for the subtitles, this disc comes with three different variations, all of which apply to the Japanese track. The first two are in Chinese, traditional and simplified, while the third features English subtitles that are accompanied by traditional Chinese subtitles as well. Sadly, the accuracy of the subtitles is pretty sub par, as one would expect from a region 3 release. They are good enough that one can follow the movie, although there are a couple of moments where the meaning is completely lost, such as the translator confusing "active sonar" as he translates it to "missiles", which is very confusing in relation to Godzilla as one could imagine.

On a side note, this disc has mixed up the display for its audio tracks, as the Japanese is the Cantonese one and vice-a-versa. This is all correct according to their menu, of course, so it's really only going to be noticed by people messing with the audio tracks via a drop down menu on a computer or if their DVD player lists the actual language tracks on its own menu.

The only extra on this disc is the trailer to Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989), which sadly is dubbed into Cantonese and has unremovable Chinese and English subtitles.

Bottom line, this is a pretty lackluster DVD, and it can only really be suggested to those who are desperate for a way to watch the Japanese version of this 1984 Godzilla film, and have a way to play region 3 discs. Thankfully, though, this DVD is extremely cheap at $8-12, so at least one won't have much to lose on it.