And cut! Godzilla has invented his own fighting style and a black belt in judo
When Godzilla destroys Tokyo and beats up other gigantic monsters in his first twelve film appearances, Haruo Nakajima is in costume. Haruo Nakajima made film history by inventing the monster as a monster and being tougher than any other film actor.
With a primal scream, the gigantic radioactive lizard Godzilla pounces on his opponent. The iconic scream pierces the human race to the core, but the three-headed dragon King Ghidorah doesn't care. Because King Ghidorah has other things to worry about. Godzilla has grabbed him by the neck, twists in, breaks his balance with his hips, grabs a neck over his shoulder, finishes the twist and Ghidorah lies on his back on the floor.
Everyone who knows anything about judo knows: that was an Osotogari (大外刈), one of the 40 classic throws of judo.
The reason why a radioactive dinosaur mutant can pull off a perfect judo throw with a three-headed dragon is because of one name: Haruo Nakajima.
Haruo Nakajima: Badass
When Haruo Nakajima steps onto the set of the film, which was only known as "Project G" at the time, he has no idea that he is about to make film history. The 25-year-old stuntman does not know what awaits him, only that he may play an important role in a still secret film by director Ishirō Honda. On set, where filming is yet to begin, he is told that he is here to try on a costume.
Source: greatbigstory.com
It weighs 100 kilos and is sealed almost airtight. The actor in the costume carries the entire weight of the costume, moves around in it and is then supposed to act. The giant lizard in front of Nakajima has a name: Gojira (ゴジラ), later known in the West as Godzilla.
Nakajima and his colleague Katsumi Tezuka climb into the monster made of wood, metal, foam and an early version of latex. It's hot and stuffy in the costume. Tezuka stomps off. After three metres, he gives up. Too hot, too stuffy, too demanding. But director Honda would have been okay with that, because he also knows that the monster's job in his film will be a tough one. Special effects supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya did his best to make the suit flexible, light and comfortable, but he stretched the guns at "100 kilos and almost airtight".
Nakajima is unimpressed. He trusts his directors and his production men. In an interview years later, he would say: "I knew they wouldn't put anything on me that I couldn't manage."
Nakajima walks ten metres and gets the job.
He is Godzilla.
Source: weirdmovies.fr
Nakajima is not just a stuntman and actor, however, but a man who likes to take things to the extreme. Honda says "play a giant lizard that devastates everything and spews radioactive flames"? Nakajima goes to the zoo and studies the movements of large animals. For months. The man can barely walk in costume, but he will act in it and deliver a believable performance, even if it kills him.
And it will almost kill him in costume over the course of his twelve films. Multiple times.
The perils of the job
Godzilla is a dangerous role. Nakajima learns this time and time again. He never lasts longer than ten minutes in the costume, no matter how well the costume designers manage to ventilate it. Because every time the designers make things easier for him, Nakajima improves his performance. The suit becomes lighter? Nakajima moves faster. Ventilation built in? Nakajima starts lifting things up on the set and throwing them at his opponents.
He stands in the spotlight. Film cameras in the 1950s are not particularly good in poor lighting conditions. The sets are therefore lit with all available spotlights. One day, the man in the costume takes a thermometer to his workplace. It reads 60 degrees Celsius. No matter how hot it gets in his costume, Nakajima never complains for the rest of his life.
Source: hollywoodreporter.com
In general, Nakajima never complains. He also doesn't get sick and he doesn't want to know anything about injury breaks. For 24 years.
Shortly after I was offered the role, I realised that it was possible to replace all the workers on the film and actors. But it wasn't possible to replace me. I also realised that no one on set could do their job if I was ill. That filled me with great pride.
Over the years, Nakajima is almost drowned several times. Having served in the Japanese navy, he is a good diver. The problems soon become apparent: the costume is partly made of foam. Foam absorbs water and makes the costume heavier. The costume is not waterproof and is pulled through a pool on a sled. The stream of water almost rips Nakajima's breathing apparatus out of his mouth. He has no way of communicating with the outside world. If he loses his small oxygen cylinder, he is dead. But Nakajima ignores all this and does all the stunts in the water himself.
Then he is set on fire. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. Once, when he's playing Varan rather than Godzilla for once, a model lorry explodes underneath him, burning his belly and crotch area. Nakajima is not complaining. The injury never healed properly. Even when a model rocket explodes in the area of Godzilla's face in a scene from "Godzilla vs. Mothra" (1964), Nakajima never complains.
He goes on the counterattack, sweating and burning in his costume at 60 degrees.
Judo plus tail
If you can take a punch, you can dish it out. Anyone who can still act in a 100-kilo costume at 60 degrees with a burning suit can dish it out like no other. Because even when Nakajima is flailing through model cities with his arms above his head - otherwise the proportions of the radioactive giant lizard would not have been correct, of course - without hardly seeing anything, he fights and pays attention to form.
I wanted the director to think I was immortal!
Nakajima has trained in judo all his life and proudly wears a black belt. That's why Godzilla fights like a judoka during the Nakajima era. Godzilla gets close to his opponent, grabs and throws. But he also throws a few punches, sometimes a blow with his tail and the radioactive flame breath.
This is no coincidence. Not only is Haruo Nakajima a judoka and the only one who can move in the Godzilla costume, but from the second film, "Godzilla Raids Again", he is allowed to choreograph the fight scenes himself. Honda and Tsubaraya often simply write "fight" in the script and leave the rest to the man in the suit and his opponents. After all, no one knows better than him which movements work how well and at what speed.
But Haruo Nakajima is not satisfied with just messing around and performing judo in a semi-convincing manner. He has studied judo, he has studied large animals, he leads Godzilla. He soon combines the movements he has learnt with those seen in the zoo and those prescribed by the costume. Over the course of his 24 years in the costume, Nakajima created a fighting style for which he is still admired today by the men in the Godzilla costume.
No matter how crazy the plot of the film is, one thing is certain: Godzilla is on the rampage. Godzilla is the king of monsters.
And in his skin, Haruo Nakajima, a slight Japanese man with an iron will, has written film history. <p
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