10 Films That Were Totally Changed For Foreign Audiences

1. American Godzilla

The poster boy for films that were irrevocably, radically changed between their original and foreign release, the legacy of Godzilla, King Of The Monsters! was reflected in this year's update of the monster movie classic. Japanese actor Ken Watanabe refused to refer to the towering lizard by the American corruption of his name, but the title he was born with, called out in terror by Asian fishermen and newscasters - Gojira! Released in 1954, the original Japanese debut of the titular kaiju was a pretty serious, po-faced allegory for the nuclear devastation the country had suffered towards the end of World War II. And it featured a guy in a rubber suit smashing things! The trail of destruction left in the prehistoric beast's wake very consciously evokes the horrors the country had recently witnessed first hand, in real life, and civilian characters in the film go further to make that connection explicit through their dialogue, comparing it to the last time Tokyo was ravaged by an untenable foe. Despite mixed reviews it was a huge hit in its native country, with Gojira ultimately grossing 152 million Yen ($2.25 million), making it the second most-viewed film in the series to this day. Clearly some hotshot Hollywood producers saw gold in them there hills, latching onto this new Japanese craze for giant monster movies - which had already made the leap to America with B-movies like Them!, enormous ants and all - and in 1955 the original film was screened in predominantly Asian neighbourhoods in the US. In order to make the film palatable to American audiences, however, Jewell Enterprises re-edited, cut out and reshot a good portion of the film - basically anything that involved any Japanese people. Godzilla, King Of The Monsters! instead became a cheap genre flick starring Canadian actor Raymond Burr as an American reporter covering the monster's activities, who would explain the action without the need to dub over a bunch of Japanese actors' dialogue. Weirdly, this version was also popular when re-released in Japan, the cinema verite style of Burr's reporter narrating the footage making it appear like a TV documentary. One about a giant lizard, and one totally different from the film depicting the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but still.