Purzel2205 wrote:Apparently there's also an English dub but like most Toho war movie dubs it hasn't been available since the VHS days and is even harder to find than any of the repressed American Godzilla dubs, even though I'm pretty sure it's a dub produced by Toho themselves.
Yeah, it was produced by Toho for its export version. Like most Toho dubs of this vintage, it was recorded in Hong Kong and the vocal cast is very similar to the one that later recorded
Godzilla vs. Gigan. I think its lack of availability owes more to the film's general obscurity in the west more than anything else. It was released on video several times in Europe during the '80s (the source of two distinct copies I have); there's definitely an anti-dubbing bias for movies of this nature/quality in America, which might be a reason why AnimEigo's Region 1 release didn't include it.
I bought a second copy of the dubbed version last year but haven't watched it. I've only seen it once, the better part of a decade ago now. My only remaining impressions are that it's relentlessly depressing, that Masaru Sato's score belies that (note the similarity between the opening theme and his Okinawa melody in
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla), and that overall it's not much like the tokusatsu war films Toho was churning out in the '60s and '70s (but, generally speaking, a superior film). I have a better appreciation for Kihachi Okamoto now so I'd like to revisit it, but with the world in such a grim situation at the moment I think I might wait.
