Red Bamboo
Is the Red Bamboo group supposed to be communist?
shareThe Red Bamboo was based off the Red Army led by Mao from China
shareInteresting. I thought they were supposed to be Nazi-like as indicated by the gray uniforms and similar salute. I could definitely seem them being based around the Red Army, especially with the similar names.
It's also kind of interesting how the film explicitly states that they were getting their orders from elsewhere, yet the organization never again shows up in the series.
From Japans point of view at the time, communist China was their enemy at the time. I believe the orders were coming from mainland China in the movie
shareOkay, that makes sense now. Red Bamboo itself is wiped out, but one of the world governments was enabling the organization and the film can't say which. I guess it makes sense now how they would have access to jets and no one would pick them up on radar. It's probably an unspoken implication that the island is in Chinese waters or just outside.
The commander barked out orders with a similar delivery to how Nazi officers are often depicted in American movies, but I realized after my post last night that it was probably the result of the English dub. Disregarding the odd salute, the Red Army seems like a much more likely parallel.
The original plot for this movie was going to be a King Kong movie rather than another Godzilla flick. But they had copyright or trademark problems at the time, so Godzilla became a late substitution. Thats why Godzilla gets revived by lightning and also why he takes a liking to the woman in the movie. A few years later, they finally got to make a King Kong film and it was King Kong Escapes. Both films had a rogue terrorist army. In that one, the terrorists are supposed to be North Korean and their lair is in the North Pole. In this one, their lair is on the island in between China and Japan. The Nazi's aren't depicted as enemies in the Japanese culture unlike in American movies
shareFrom what I understand, RKO (Kong's owners) wanted Ishiro Honda to direct and Toho wanted Jun Fukuda to direct. Eventually, Fukuda directed this film and Honda got Escapes. The scene where Godzilla throws a giant boulder at Ebirah definitely looks more like it was written for Kong.
When Toho replaced a monster in one of their movies, they pretty much just crossed out the original monster's name and wrote the new one in. It's like in Destroy All Monsters where Gorosaurus suddenly had Baragon's burrowing ability.