Movie Night, Japanese-Style!

Yoshinobu Kaneko. Photo by Brett Homenick.

On Saturday, July 6, I attended a special event with guests Kazuki Omori and Yoshinobu Kaneko.

Kaneko-san would be best known in the U.S. as the young boy in King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) who begs his mother to go see Godzilla, only to be told that they're not going to the zoo. He stars in the title role of the Toei fantasy/action film Watari, Ninja Boy (1966) and co-stars as Blue Shadow in the Toei TV series Red Shadow (1967-68) and the movie spin-off Ninja Scope (1969). He also can be seen in episode 15 of Ultraman (1966-67), among numerous other TV and film appearances.

I had a fun time talking about King Kong vs. Godzilla with Kaneko, especially about the differences between the his mother's line in the U.S. and Japanese versions. He was interested to learn that his mother says "zoo" in the American version. Of course, given that he was a young boy at the time, he has few memories of the shoot. But it was fun chatting with him about his acting career when he was a child.

Kazuki Omori. Photo by Brett Homenick.

The other guest on hand was none other than Heisei Godzilla series screenwriter and director Kazuki Omori. Most folks around Omori-san seemed more interested in discussing various American films instead of Godzilla movies. The discussion of The Godfather Part III was especially amusing, given Omori-san's reactions to Al Pacino's scenery-chewing in the film. 

Overall, it was a very fun night with friendly people. I didn't expect to stay around as long as I did, but it was so much fun that I was in no hurry to leave. Let's do it again soon!