Godzilla vs. Biollante (4K UHD Review)

• Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
• Review Date: Mar 25, 2025
• Format: 4K Ultra HD
• 

Director

Kazuki Ōmori

Release Date(s)

1989 (March 18, 2025)

Studio(s)

Toho (The Criterion Collection – Spine #1254)

• Film/Program Grade: B
• Video Grade: A-
• Audio Grade: B+
• Extras Grade: B+

https://www.criterion.com/

Review

When producer Tomoyuki Tanaka rebooted Toho’s Godzilla franchise on its 30th anniversary with The Return of Godzilla (better known as Godzilla 1985 on this side of the Pacific), he made the crucial decision to jettison the bulk of the existing Shōwa era continuity (such as it was, anyway) in favor of making a direct sequel to the original film. That left Godzilla as the antagonist once again, with mankind reluctantly teaming up in order to defeat the kaiju menace—no more defending the Earth for this particular Big G. Yet as with the Shōwa series, that didn’t last very long, and the Heisei iteration of Godzilla would end up reluctantly (and sometimes inadvertently) defending the very people who were actively trying to destroy him, usually against menaces of an even more destructive sort. The Return of Godzilla’s sequel Godzilla vs. Biollante (aka Gojira vs. Biorante) kicked off the kaiju-on-kaiju mayhem by introducing one of the most unique monsters in the entire history of the franchise: Biollante, a human-plant-Godzilla hybrid.

A what? Well, that’s what you get when you crowdsource. Tanaka held another public contest in order to develop story ideas for the film, with the only stipulation being that Godzilla needed to face off against a second kaiju. When the cat’s away, dentists will play, and dentist turned part-time screenwriter Shinichiro Kobayashi was declared the winner. That left writer/director Kazuki Ōmori to flesh out Kobayashi’s basic story concept, and flesh it out he did. Biollante ended up becoming emblematic of the film as a whole: a hybrid of very different genetic materials, not all of which work and play well with each other. Ōmori wanted to break new ground, and break new ground he did, but ironically enough by blending together a few familiar elements from the Shōwa era into a hybrid of his own.

Godzilla vs. Biollante takes the ecological themes and grotesqueries of Godzilla vs. Hedorah, stirs in the corporate malfeasance of King Kong vs. Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Mothra, and then adds a generous dash of Jun Fukuda’s energetic spy movie antics from the later Shōwa films. Oh, and it plays all of that perfectly straight, too, without any of Shōwa screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa’s trademarked whimsy or Yoshimitsu Banno’s mad flights of fancy. The fact that Godzilla vs. Biollante works at all is a testament to the brash young Ōmori, who would go on to become a central figure for the rest of the Heisei run (unlike Banno, who remained permanently exiled by Toho after Godzilla vs. Hedorah, although he ended up having the last laugh in that regard). Godzilla vs. Biollante has some rough edges—including a few very rough edges—but it remains one of the most interesting films in the entire Heisei series. It’s always been a fan favorite, and with good reason. Still, those rough edges become abundantly clear in any attempt to summarize the overwrought plot of the film, which counterintuitively tends to make Godzilla vs. Biollante even less clear than it already is, but let’s give it a shot:

There are competing corporate interests and national interests in Godzilla vs. Biollante, with competing technologies involved as well. The only common thread between them is the cells recovered from Godzilla, which have proved scientifically useful in different ways. Dr. Genichiro Shiragami (Kōji Takahashi) has used them in cooperation with the Sardinian government in order to create a hardier form of plant that can survive in any conditions. At the same time, Kazuhito Kirishima (Kunihiko Mitamura) and Col. Goro Gondo (Toru Minegishi) of the Japan Self-Defense Forces are using them to create an Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria, with the primary hope of using it as a defense against Godzilla, but they’re not unaware of its geopolitical implications in the nuclear age. After the death of Dr. Shiragami’s daughter Erika (Yasuko Sawaguchi), he fuses her cells into the plant-Godzilla hybrid as a way of keeping her alive in one form or another, and that creates the path to Biollante. Meanwhile, Major Sho Kuroki (Masanobu Takashima) has taken over command of the Super-X2 on behalf of the JSDF. Oh, and in addition to all of the other corporate and nationalistic espionage going on, there’s also an American terrorist organization that’s after the Godzilla cells, and they threaten to detonate explosives in order to release Godzilla—thus creating a path to Godzilla. Meanwhile (again), Asuka Okochi (Yoshiko Tanaka) and psychic Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka) are caught in the middle.

Still with me? As with most things Godzilla, many of the specific details of the narrative don’t really matter that much. The one thing that should be clear from that description is that Ishirō Honda’s optimistic humanism has been replaced by pessimistic cynicism instead—mankind is unable to come together in order to defeat a crisis, and in an ironic twist, it’s up to Biollante to save the day. That’s another thing that Ōmori borrowed from Yoshimitsu Banno’s Godzilla vs. Hedorah, although in that case it’s Godzilla that steps up to do what mankind couldn’t. (To paraphrase Talking Heads, science won’t save you, money won’t save you, and even religion won’t save you.) While the JSDF is presented a bit more positively this time around, which was an inevitable consequence of the real JSDF cooperating with Toho on the production of the film, it still takes direct kaiju intervention in order to save the day. Since Godzilla remains the primary threat in Godzilla vs. Biollante, that leaves Biollante’s remaining human side as the only hope for mankind. But that’s really no hope at all; there’s a “whoever wins, we lose” aspect to the film that explains Dr. Shiragami’s fate at the end. Like Godzilla’s Dr. Serizawa before him, it seems that humanity is better off without him, a fact that he understands all too well:

“Godzilla and Biollante aren’t monsters. The real monsters are the humans who created them.”

The one area where Godzilla vs. Biollante unquestionably advances over the Shōwa era films and even over The Return of Godzilla is in terms of its visual effects. Kōichi Kawakita had officially taken over as the head of Toho’s effects department in 1988, replacing Eiji Tsuburaya’s replacement Teruyoshi Nakano, and he brought the art of tokusatsu to the next level. He maintained his predecessors’ high standards with miniature work while improving on the suit work, especially with the animatronic closeup Godzilla heads. He also created some of the best traveling mattes seen to date in a Toho film, which had always been something of a bane during the Shōwa era. There are some pretty impressive composites, especially the ones looking across Lake Ashinoko at Biollante, as well as the one where Miki faces off with Godzilla in the middle of the ocean. Kawakita did incorporate some CGI, not as a VFX element, but rather in generating the wire frame models of Godzilla seen on the computer screens. He was every bit the perfectionist, too, routinely tossing any footage that didn’t quite satisfy him. The results speak for themselves, and while the Lake Ashinoko stage of Biollante’s development may be a matter of taste, the final stage remains one of the most impressive opponents that Godzilla has ever faced.

Yet Godzilla vs. Biollante still succumbs to some of the other banes of the Shōwa era, like painfully bad English-language actors and even worse phonetic pronunciations of English dialogue by Japanese actors. It also took a huge step backward from Reijiro Koroku’s magnificent orchestral score for The Return of Godzilla with a tonally inconsistent score from Koichi Sugiyama that relies a bit too much on dated-sounding synthesizers. As a result, Godzilla vs. Biollante also makes heavy use of classic Akira Ifukube themes, and not just the Godzilla fanfare and march, either. That helps provide some gravity that Sugiyama’s score lacked. On the flip side, the film introduced recurring characters like Miki, and that established a continuity across the Heisei series that’s unlike anything else in the rest of the franchise. They’re not given much to do here, but it was still a baby step in an interesting direction (although the Millennium and Reiwa films have pretty much tossed out any such continuity whatsoever).

In the end, all of those inconsistent qualities are part and parcel with what Godzilla vs. Biollante represents as a whole. It’s a hybrid story that features a hybrid monster, accompanied by a hybrid soundtrack, that’s a hybrid of the best and the worst elements of the Heisei era. The fact that the best parts of this hybrid are strong enough to make the film a fan favorite despite any flaws is a testament to what Kazuki Ōmori, Shinichiro Kobayashi, and Kōichi Kawakita, and the rest of their cast and crew were able to accomplish. Godzilla fans are a forgiving lot, and we’re always willing to overlook issues with any given film in favor of the things that we love—after all, we’re talking about a G-fan here who has gone on record proclaiming that Godzilla vs. Hedorah is his personal favorite film in the entire franchise, so I’m not about to throw stones at anyone else. And even if I did, Godzilla would be there to defend you—perhaps a bit reluctantly, but Big G. is still ready to defend the faithful at a moment’s notice.

Cinematographer Yūdai Katō shot Godzilla vs. Biollante on 35mm film using spherical lenses, framed at 1.85:1 for its theatrical release. For this version, Toho scanned the original camera negative at 4K, with any optical work being scanned from the original dupe elements instead. It’s the same basic master that Toho used for their own UHD release in Japan, although there’s an interesting wrinkle in this case. Toho’s Godzilla masters have all been SDR only, but this Criterion version offers an HDR10 grade instead. Criterion isn’t in the habit of adding HDR grades to 4K SDR masters—they didn’t do that with either of their previous Seven Samurai or Godzilla releases, both of which utilized SDR masters provided by Toho. However, there’s a good reason why they did it in this case: Toho’s masters are all 10-bit color in BT.2020 color space instead of the Rec.709 of standard SDR. That doesn’t make a perceptible difference with black-and-white films like Seven Samurai and Godzilla, but it makes a big difference with a color film like Godzilla vs. Biollante.

UHDs with BT.2020 SDR can cause issues for displays that default to Rec. 709 for SDR material. Unless you manually switch over to BT.2020, the colors can look washed out, with flattened contrast. Yet once you do switch, the colors can be even richer than they are in standard SDR at Rec.709. In the case of the original Godzilla, Criterion was able to remaster the BT.2020 to Rec.709 without any issues. That’s not the case with Godzilla vs. Biollante, so Criterion’s solution was to encode the BT.2020 SDR within an HDR container. It’s the only way to get Wide Color Gamut of BT.2020 without potentially causing issues at the user’s end.

When comparing it to the Japanese UHD in SDR, there aren’t any visible differences. The colors look identical, and the contrast range is the same as well. The highlights aren’t any brighter, the blacks aren’t any deeper, and there’s no additional details hidden within any of the shadows. As an example, the shot at 11:05 is looking through a car window with Yoshiko Tanaka and Megumi Odaka sitting inside while Genichiro Shiragami stands outside the other window. Tanaka and Shiragami are both wearing layers of white, and there’s an awkward blend of bright sunlight and shadows over both of them. The sunlit and shadow areas aren’t resolved any differently in the two versions, and there’s no extra detail in any of the overlit whites. Both versions look identical. It’s worth pointing out that depending on how your display handles tone mapping with HDR content, Criterion’s version may look a bit darker than Toho’s, but that’s on the display, not the disc. On my JVC with frame-by-frame tone mapping, there was no real difference between the two.

Otherwise, there’s very little damage visible aside from a stray hair or two left over at the bottom edge of the frame. The optically-printed matte work demonstrates a noticeable loss in resolution compared to the surrounding material, which does make them stand out despite their relatively high quality, but there’s nothing to be done about that. Now, like most of Toho’s Godzilla masters, there has been some light grain reduction applied here. The original grain is still present, but it’s softer and smoother, akin to that of a high-quality 35mm print. In this case, it’s wasn’t too destructive to the detail in the image, but there are still signs of it when examined up close. From normal viewing distances, it looks fine. Regardless, it’s still a massive upgrade from any previous release in North America, so unless you’ve got the facility to add subtitles to Toho’s UHD, this version wins hands-down.

Audio is offered in Japanese 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, with both English and English SDH subtitles (more on that in a moment). Godzilla vs. Biollante was released theatrically in Dolby Stereo, so it was a four-channel mix matrixed into two. This is a relatively straightforward discrete encoding of those original four channels. Like Criterion’s recent 4K release of Thief, they’re calling it 5.0 since there’s no LFE—it’s really 5.0 in a 5.1 container. Although to get even more technical again, it’s really 4.0 in a 5.0 container in a 5.1 container, since it’s a mono surround channel split into two. Actually, all of the dialogue and many of the effects across the front soundstage are mono as well, with little directionality aside from the score. Effects like the explosions sound more expansive, but in a diffuse manner. The surrounds are limited to light ambience, although there’s a rare panning effect here and there like the Super-X2 flying past the viewer. Koichi Sugiyama’s score sounds a little muffled at times (the dated synthesizers don’t’ help), but to be fair it sounds the same way on the soundtrack album.

Regarding the subtitles, Criterion’s menu just has an On/Off toggle. It defaults to Off, but that’s really the standard English subtitles. Switching it to On selects the SDH subtitles instead. (Note that both tracks can be removed completely, but only by using the subtitle button on your remote control.)

Criterion’s 4K Ultra HD release of Godzilla vs. Biollante is a two-disc set that includes a Blu-ray with a 1080p copy of the film. There’s also a fold-out poster/booklet with an essay by Jim Cirronella on one side and some of Criterion’s new artwork on the reverse. The following extras are included:

DISC ONE: UHD

• Audio Commentary by Samm Deighan

DISC TWO: BD

• Audio Commentary by Samm Deighan
• The Making of Godzilla vs. Biollante (Upscaled SD – 49:00)
• Behind the Design (Upscaled SD – 3:01)
• Deleted Special Effects (HD – 6:45)
• TV Spots:
  • TV Spot 1 (HD – :19)
  • TV Spot 2 (HD – :19)
  • TV Spot 3 (HD – :19)
  • TV Spot 4 (HD – :19)
  • TV Spot 5 (HD – :19)
• Trailers:
  • Trailer 1 (Upscaled SD – 2:38)
  • Trailer 2 (HD – :12)
  • Trailer 3 (Upscaled SD & HD – :33)
  • Trailer 4 (HD – :43)
  • Trailer 5 (HD – 1:03)
  • Trailer 6 (HD – 2:03)
  • Trailer 7 (HD – 2:03)

Criterion has included a single newly-produced extra for this release of Godzilla vs. Biollante: a commentary by author and film historian Samm Deighan, who says that it’s one of her favorite films in the entire Godzilla franchise. She opens with a useful recap of the different eras in Godzilla history (including the overlap between the Shōwa and Heisei runs) and how the films evolved thematically and stylistically over the different eras. From there, she breaks down the story and themes of Godzilla vs. Biollante (in the former case, she does her best to find order in chaos) and discusses the careers of the cast and crew involved, with an emphasis on Kazuki Ōmori’s unique contributions to the Heisei films. She also provides plenty of technical detail about Kōichi Kawakita’s effects work in the film, including the designs of both Biollante and Godzilla, as well as the construction of the new suits. Deighan really brings the goods in this track, so do give it a listen.

The Making of Godzilla vs. Biollante is a featurette that was produced by Toho back in 1994, including an abundance of behind-the-scenes footage as well as interviews with Shinichiro Kobayashi, Kazuki Ōmori, Kōichi Kawakita, cinematographer Yūdai Katō, effects cinematographer Kenichi Eguchi, and more. It really is a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes footage, too, from the studio shoot to exterior work like the radio-controlled helicopters flying around the scale volcano (there’s a good reason why there were less wires visible this time around, although they still show up occasionally on the Super-X2 and Biollante’s tentacles). There’s also some priceless footage of the water work at Toho’s historic Big Pool, which was demolished after the production of Godzilla Final Wars in 2004. The Making of Godzilla vs. Biollante is way more interesting than the standard collection of retrospective interviews ever could have been, and it’s great that Toho has been willing to license it out overseas (they don’t always do that with their extras).

Speaking of which, Criterion has included a few other extras that are ported over from Toho. In addition to a collection of Trailers and TV Spots, there’s Behind the Design, which is a collection of short videos showing various maquettes and models from the design phase of Godzilla vs. Biollante. There’s also a compilation of Deleted Special Effects showcasing some shots that didn’t make it into the final cut, including some unused stop-motion animation. There’s still quite a bit from Toho that hasn’t been included here, like their Japanese language commentary with Kazuki Ōmori and Kōichi Kawakita; an interview with effects modeler Shinada Fuyuki; a compilation of audio used for in-theatre broadcasting between shows; five different Still Galleries; and the video program Godzilla vs. The Monster Army. There’s nothing significant missing from any other releases outside of Japan, though.

Criterion’s choice of Godzilla vs. Biollante as their second 4K Ultra HD Godzilla release is an interesting one considering that Toho has also released King Kong vs. Godzilla, Mothra vs. Godzilla, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Invasion of Astro-Monster, Destroy All Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Hedorah (and they’ve got Godzilla Raids Again, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, Terror of Mechagodzilla, The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, and Godzilla: Final Wars on the way via a boxed set that’s already sold out). It may be Criterion’s way of making it clear that they’re diversifying their portfolio by releasing the first Heisei film that they possibly could, since they previously had only licensed the Shōwa era films. Regardless, Godzilla vs. Biollante is indeed a fan favorite, so it was a good choice, and there are plenty of valuable extras here to keep a dedicated G-fan busy. Enjoy!

-Stephen Bjork

(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).