a.k.a. KYORYU – KAICHO NO DENSETSU / THE ‘LEGEND OF DINOSAURS’
Toei Co. Ltd [1977] 92′
country: Japan
director: JUNJI KURATA
cast: TSUNEHIKO WATASE, NOBIKO SAWA,
cast: SHOTARO HAYASHI, TOMOKO KIYOSHIMA
Many many years ago, in a time long since passed when Blockbuster Video had more to offer its humble customers than the multiple copies of the latest Hollywood garbage, I stumbled upon a curious and forbidden film. The offending video had a rather crude drawing of a large Plesiosaurus [with an abnormally proportioned head] toting a woman about by the leg. In the background was an exploding volcano and, high above it, a flying reptile of some kind. The title on the video box read LEGEND OF THE DINOSAURS, and I knew right away that I had to see it.
I was very young at the time, no older than five or six and, as it tended to at the time, parental discretion won out over my naive curiosity. For years I ran the gamut of other available dinosaur classics; THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT [1975], THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT [1977], THE LAST DINOSAUR [1977], THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER [1977... feeling a trend?], DINOSAURUS! [1960], and THE LAND UNKNOWN [1957] along with the entirety of available GAMERA offerings. But my interests kept turning back to the mysterious film with the blue box. That my parents refused to allow me to see it must have meant that there were goodies within well worth seeing – so my childish mind concluded, at least.
