Raiga: God of Monsters

Timely for the recent high-tech relaunch of the Godzilla franchise, SR Cinema is releasing a few Japanese-made parodies of the "kaiju" (giant monster) genre, done a decade ago by writer-director-producer Shinpei Hayashiya, working on the cheap with a mix of puppetry, people in bulky saurian suits, miniatures, and CGI, little of it convincing, or trying to be. 2009's Raiga: Monster From the Deep Sea is actually a followup to Reigo: The Deep-Sea Monster Vs. the Battleship Yamato," a 2006 mashup of Japanese-fantasy/anime cultural cliches. Raiga reveals a `new' monster, a lumbering Godzilla clone (so formidable he feeds on the monster from the first movie) with power to control lightning, who wades out of the ocean to stomp the city of Akusa. The Japanese military, well, toy tanks and planes (coordinated by just a few guys in a little room with a small laptop) repel Raiga, but later the monster returns. Human-interest subplots include dumb local widower Hajime and his three teen daughters trying to profit with Raiga T-shirts. There's a gratuitous shamisen recital, gratuitous global-warming reference, and gratuitous schoolgirl with inexplicable superpowers. Otaku types who enjoy this stuff will have a fun time; newbies and foreign-devil barbarians may find it deadening over the long haul. The SRS Cinema disc extras include a making-of featurette that is, unfortunately, in unsubtitled Japanese, but which still makes one appreciate the care that went into the film's giant-creature costume. (C. Cassady)