Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Steineded How sad is this?

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Julian R. White One of the best Kaiju movies that doesn't feature Godzilla, Rodan has a special place in my heart. I first saw it with my Grandfather when I was a young kid who already saw it when he was younger. The ending is a real tear jerker too, something that is not common at all with monster films. It really broke my heart. The best part of the film is that it's not only Rodan, nor his mate (a second Rodan) that is terrorizing the city, you also have the massive caterpillar monsters, called the Meganula or Meganuera or something. They seem to do more damage to the humans while Rodan spends most of his time destroying cities just by flying over them. It's a great film, one of the best in my opinion, I love it.

Hitchcoc When I was in fourth grade (around 1957), I had seen ads for this movie on television. I cut out a movie ad from the newspaper, and put it on my wall. There was no way I could see the movie because we would have had to go to the big city. I was surprised when I finally viewed it late at night, many years later. It's not a bad film There is a good deal of suspense, A romantic plot. A man falsely accused of murder. And some pretty neat monsters. Now, Pterosaurs weren't all that big, not like this, but these are mutants from messing with nuclear material. The movie has a nice pacing to it. When we get to the destruction scenes, we don't feel like they just threw all that at us like they did in future films (all those Godzilla versus whatever films). There is a kinship between the monsters (a mated pair) that would be a fact in the animal kingdom. The most creative thing is that the Rodans use the hurricane force of their enormous wings to level the city. I may just watch this again.

capkronos For its U.S. release, this early daikaijū (made just a few years after the original GODZILLA and the first Japanese monster movie filmed in color) had a silly narrated prologue and stock footage of atomic blasts added to the beginning, was shortened by over ten minutes, had a new music score added and was, of course, dubbed into English. Some of the familiar voices you'll hear in this version are Keye Luke, Paul Frees and a young George Takei of "Star Trek" fame. In addition, a special effects company worked on removing numerous wires that were clearly visible during many of the fx shots (though some still remain even in the 'cleaned up' version). The title of the monster itself was changed from "Radon" (a contraction of pteRAnoDON; a large flying reptile of the late Cretaceous period) to "Rodan;" possibly so there'd be no confusion between it and the atomic element of the same name.At the Osaki mines in the small town of Kitamatsu, workers are exploring unsafe depths no man has explored before in their search for coal. After part of the underground tunnel floods, a worker is found dead. And then three search party members looking for another missing man are found horribly mutilated themselves. This is followed by a massive earthquakes and landslides, as the mining company have seriously screwed up the land stability in the area. Well actually, they've managed to open up some underground world where monsters has safely resided ever since the prehistoric age. The first thing to come out of the rubble are a bunch of large caterpillar-looking bugs with pinchers and claws, which also cause a massive cave-in that only our hero - safety engineer Shigeru Kawamura (Kenji Sahara) - survives, albeit with a bad case of amnesia. But the big bugs are only the beginning...Soon after the uproar in Kitamatsu, aircraft all over the globe are being destroyed mid-air and entire villages are leveled by something too fast to make out with the naked eye. That thing is Rodan, a giant flying lizard who hatched from an egg after the cave-in and can reach supersonic speeds. Technically, "Rodan" isn't the name for the monster per se, but the (fictional) name for this particular species of the pteranodon that's much larger, much more powerful and much MUCH faster. And there are actually TWO of them in this movie: the male and its female mate. The Rodan couple's rampage includes killing a honeymooning couple at a volcano, making numerous fighter jets blow up, knocking over a huge bridge and using their wings to cause tornado- like winds that blow over cars, trees, telephone poles, buses, trains and even entire large buildings. The military is called in with their tanks and missiles for the surprisingly solemn (and actually kind of sad) ending.Modern audiences may laugh at the special effects (just as audiences 50 years from now will likely laugh at and mock the special effects from the 2014 GODZILLA) but, for the time this was made, the fx are actually top notch. The creatures are well-designed and have some personality to them and the miniature models are quite well done, too. Eiji Tsuburaya and Akira Watanabe's work compares favorably to most other 50s sci- fi flicks. Though the action is slow to get started, you're compensated with destruction and explosions galore at the finale; highlighted by the destruction of the entire city of Sasebo. As is customary with Japanese monster movies of the 50s and 60s, this was designed as a cautionary parable, both to the dangers of messing with the environment and to the horrors of war. The latter is made evident during the closing bit of narration, which pointedly references the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Rodan never got another solo starring vehicle after this one, but did make appearances (usually as a good monster and an ally of Godzilla) in some other earlier kaiju flicks like GHIDRAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER (1964), MONSTER ZERO (1965) and DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968). In 1993, the monster was brought back for GODZILLA VS. MECHAGOZILLA II and later factored into GODZILLA: FINAL WARS (2004).

Aaron1375 Not quite up to Godzilla or some of the other Toho monsters, Rodan is still a rather cool creature created by said company. Rodan basically a type of flying dinosaur though much different than the most known one a pteradactyl. No this one is a bit more bird like in both its looks and the way it lives. The film starts out with a small town overrun by giant caterpillar type bugs. It soon is discovered that there is a giant flying dinosaur that can cause a lot of damage as it flies the skies, destroying buildings and such and knocking airplanes out of the sky. However, wait there is more! It is soon discovered that there may be more to worry about than the one Rodan creature! The film is rather good and I enjoyed it as a child and it is to me anyway, a better film than Mothra. I never liked Mothra and I never understood the appeal of the giant moth. Rodan is a bit more exciting to watch as it flies at supersonic speeds through the air. There is also a good deal of mystery of this movie as it builds up to what is causing the town so much grief. First, revealing the strange bugs, then revealing Rodan who makes the bugs not look quite so big anymore. The ending is typical for this type of movie as there is always some unique and different way for them to dispatch of said beastie which is probably why so many of us hated the pedestrian way fake Godzilla was killed in the U.S. version of "Godzilla".