The Paradise Island Story (1957)

[KaijusHunter]

At the end of WW2, a group of Japanese vessels are attacked in the South Seas. Nine soldiers wash ashore on a volcanic island, filled with tropical vegetation, blue oases and a tribe of natives. Romance, diamond-hunting, musical numbers and tragedy fill this rarely-before-seen war-themed comedy film, shot in glorious color and with special effects helmed by Eiji Tsuburaya.



Based on a play, this movie isn't widely known among lovers of the tokusatsu genre, due to its sheer unavailability on the home video market and the scanty coverage it received in the English-speaking world. As far as I can tell, only Stuart Galbraith IV talked about it in his book The Toho Studios Story. It did, however, receive an international title, which begs the question on if it was going to be distributed abroad.

Released a month after Rodan, it predates Mothra and King Kong vs. Godzilla on many aspects. The natives are very reminiscent of the ones from Infant Island, while their rituals and clothing greatly resemble those from Faro Island's inhabitants. Yuji Koseki, who scored Mothra, is in charge of the music and delivers a wondrous soundtrack, on par with his work on the 1961 film.

The cast is also great. To only cite a few, Kenji Sahara, Ichiro Arishima, Akira Takarada and Seizaburo Kawazu. Most of them play goofballs, while the more serious Miyasaka, played by Kenji Sahara, falls in love with Paroma, a female native, to the great displeasure of the village's elder.

I strongly encourage you to check it out.

[MaxRebo320]

Is J.D. Lees going to write an article in the next issue of G-Fan shitting his pants over "cancel culture" canceling this movie? Just kidding, the guy doesn't even watch any Toho movies that don't involve monsters.

Anyways, it looks like a delightful film just going by your description and skimming through it, though I'd like to wait for subtitles before watching it. And I do believe it is a film the Cult Japan Subtitle Fund hopes to fund a translation for. In the meantime, I do recommend 1964's You Can Succeed, Too, which is sort of their attempt at making an MGM-style musical. It's got plenty of faces Kaiju fans will be familiar with and is just a lot of fun. And it has subs!

[LSD Jellyfish]

Really cool! Thanks for sharing!

[Omegazilla]

Seems pretty neat. Gonna have to look further into this.