International Japanese Blu-Ray: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1 Viewer)

As promised in another thread in the domestic Blu-Ray section, I wanted to post my amateur reaction to the Toho Japanese import Blu-Ray of “King Kong vs. Godzilla” which I just received.

I approached the blu with some trepidation as the Japanese DVD release (which I pulled out for comparison) is a decidedly mixed affair. The DVD was way too bright – blacks bleached out to greys – matte and process shots not really presented well with blue matte lines around figures and creatures in many scenes – and, due to the destruction of any original materials for the sequences cut and/or truncated for the US release, the restoration of the uncut version often veers back and forth between semi-decent looking film quality and inferior film quality from a secondary source, as I recall a 16mm print. Many of the special effects sequences, such as the tribesmen attacking the giant octopus to save a mother and child trapped in a hut, looked awful – the foreground matted figures in action bleached out, faint, and surrounded by blue lines while the background look OK. The color is faint at times – the image often bleary even in the sections from the primary source.

I own the US blu-ray release of the film, but have not yet watched it for comparison.

The good news is that the Japanese blu-ray is often startlingly clearer and sharper than the DVD – colors really pop dramatically – and the image has much richer blacks and overall saturation. I see grain and the image, to my amateur eyes, seems film-like so I don’t think too much processing has been applied. I may have seen some edge enhancement – but my TV is by no means professionally calibrated – and the slightly jagged edges were on bright whites against dark backgrounds – my contrast levels may be too high – as may be my sharpness controls. My eyes may simply be wrong. The image quality for most of the film – those sections not inserted from the secondary source – blew the DVD out of the water. They've fixed in some way the matte line problems -- and inserted matted sections are no longer bleached out. The darker, richer quality of the image helps many sequences.

The sound quality seemed super (mono, 4.0 and 5.1 as far as I can tell from my set-up). I didn’t toggle through the various audio options to see if they ported over the isolated music-only soundtrack option from the DVD.

The insertions from the secondary source are still problematic – the drop in image quality is often quite dramatic – as a character walks across the room in a section taken from the secondary source the image will suddenly pop into focus with clear detail. They’ve matched the colors fairly well between the two sources for the transfer – but the differences in contrast, detail, and depth of the image are very dramatic. But, good news, the secondary source material looks much better to my eyes than it did on the DVD.

So I am absolutely, 100%, thrilled with this blu-ray. It is, for me, a huge improvement over the DVD. The design and artwork are also great -- the slipcase has the usual Toho "star-sparkle" feature that is quite nice. I haven't plowed through the menus and extras -- if anyone is curious I'll post more -- or others can add their findings. For now I just want to enjoy the film -- this is the best I've ever seen it.

I’d be curious to know what the professionals think!

Are there English subtitles? I had this on laserdisc and much prefer it to the American release of the film.

I also still have the LD! -- the DVD improves upon the LD -- and the Blu in my opinion greatly improves upon the DVD. But there are no English subtitles.

Just a quick P.S. : The blu-ray does indeed have an isolated stereo score-only track (no sound effects). The sound quality on this blu-ray is truly excellent to my ears overall.

old post i came across on ,did you ever compare it to the usa bluray ? what's the difference in versions and is there a quality difference ?

Update years later. The Blurays both US and Japanese were comparable...but !!!!! there is now a 4K UHD set of the restored version of the film available on disc from TOHO. Here is a link to Amazon Japan for the set:


I've ordered the set which is out of print at some other retailers -- and per Tim Lucas this is apparently a major upgrade. These are Tim's comments from the DVD Beaver feature on the best releases of 2023. He states, "An amazing set containing the newly remastered 4K, the new 4K remaster on Blu-ray (both of which are eye-popping, what entertainment is all about), and numerous extras including a 1990s-era manga adaptation of the story. When you hold this box in your hands, you can feel its value - in a way I haven't often experienced since the demise of LaserDisc."