A podcast seeking entertainment and enlightenment through tokusatsu. Origin Story: After vacationing on the Monsterland Resort, professional writer/raging nerd Nathan Marchand got a job as the curator of the Vault containing the films about Monster Island’s many kaiju residents. Now he and his intrepid producer, Jimmy From NASA (who miraculously survived the infamous War in Space), record a bi-weekly podcast critically and academically examining each of the films in the prestigious Vault with one to four guest hosts chosen from Monster Island’s many tourists. Philosophy: Kaiju and/or tokusatsu fans will tell you these genres are undeniably fun. What’s often missed, though, are the deeper meanings below the sensational surface. Meanings entrenched in the story’s original historical and cultural context. That’s why this podcast believes in film appreciation. What’s that? It’s studying a movie’s script, direction, cinematography, and other aspects of filmmaking. It’s learning how and why it was created since movies aren’t made in a vacuum. This is especially true with foreign films. Non-native audiences are separated by both time and culture with them...
https://monsterislandfilmvault.podbean.com
Episode 21: ‘Matango’ (Mini-Analysis)
Hello, kaiju lovers!
An artsy Japanese horror film about mushrooms based on a British short story?
That’s sounds insane enough to work!
Despite getting slapped with the schlocky English title, “Attack of the Mushroom People,” Matango ranks as one of director Ishiro Honda’s greatest achievements in tokustasu filmmaking. Screenwriter Takeshi Kimura considered it to be his magnum opus. It’s a story replete with subtlety and symbolism, an indictment of Japan’s newfound opulence and decadence in the early 1960s, and it’s as relevant now for any audience as it was back then. It’s such an important film, Nathan and his intrepid producer, Jimmy From NASA, interview the only scientist on Monster Island’s who’s brave and/or crazy enough to study the Matango—with frightening results!
Featuring Daniel DiManna as the voice of Dr. Dante Dourif.
Episode image created by Michael Hamilton. Check out his podcast, The Kaiju Groupie.
This is meant to supplement this episode of Kaijuvision Radio: Episode 45: Matango (Attack of the Mushroom People) (1963) (Westernization and Globalization)
We’d like to give a shout-out to our Patreon patrons Travis Alexander and Michael Hamilton (cohosts of Kaiju Weekly); Danny DiManna (Godzilla Novelization Project); elizilla13; and Chris Cooke (host of One Cross Radio)! Thanks for your support!
You, too, can support us on Patreon!
This episode is approved by the Monster Island Board of Directors.
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© 2020 Nathan Marchand & Moonlighting Ninjas Media
Bibliography/Further Reading:
- “Attack of the Mushroom People: Ishiro Honda’s Matango William Hope Hodgson’s ‘The Voice in the Night’” by Anthony Camara (Monsters and Monstrosity from the Fin de Siécle to the Millennium, edited by Sharla Hutchinson and Rebecca A. Brown)
- “The history and current state of drug abuse in Japan” by Kiyoshi Wada (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Jan 2011, vol. 1216, no. 1, p 62-72)
- Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godzisewski
- “Ishiro Honda-thon Ep. 5: Matango (1963) Review” by Adam Noyes (AN Productions) (YouTube)
- Kaijuvision Radio, “Episode 8: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)”
- “Methamphetamine Solution: Drugs and the Reconstruction of Nation in Postwar Japan” by Miriam Kingsburg (The Journal of Asian Studies, Feb. 2013, vol. 72, no. 1, p. 141-162)
- Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda by Peter H. Brothers
The post Episode 21: ‘Matango’ (Mini-Analysis) appeared first on The Monster Island Film Vault.