Mothra

A Japanese giant monster film. Survivors are found on an island after a shipwreck. The island was used for nuclear tests years ago and nobody should be living there. An expedition is sent. A people lives on the island, and there are two small women; about twenty centimetres tall, and they sing together. A businessman on the expedition takes them. He brings them back to his country and puts them on stage, and the show is a great success. On the island an egg opens. From there the film is a journey. The creature crosses the sea first as a larva, enters a city, and the destruction begins. Then it spins a cocoon and changes. What the film is interested in is not the monster but the reason: Mothra is not attacking, it wants the two taken people back, and that is the cause of everything. The song of the two small women is at the centre; it became known in Japan apart from the film and the characters returned again and again in later pictures. The use of colour is rich for its time; the film chooses a fairy-tale tone rather than a dark disaster. Frankie Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi and Kyōko Kagawa are in the cast. The two small women are played by the twin singers known as The Peanuts. Ishirō Honda directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes classic Japanese creature films and model effects. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the narrative runs on fairy-tale logic and the effects are plainly visible today.