Kaiju Fever: Atragon (1963)

Here's a Sci-fi Tokusatsu film directed by the great Ishiro Honda and starring a bunch of Godzilla regulars. It's not much of Kaiju film itself, but it does feature the giant Dragon-like sea serpent Manda (who would go on to appear in the Godzilla film series) albeit rather scarcely. The films focus instead is on the flying super submarine Gotengo and is very story driven and light on the action.
The plot concerns the lost underwater Mu empire who resurface and threaten to overtake the world, with the only hope of stopping them being the super submarine Gotengo. It deals with themes of Nationalism and Patriotism, I particularly liked the Captain Jinguji character who at first refuses the use Gotengo to help the world purely because it was built to restore the Japanese Empire.
Overall I really enjoyed this and thought it was a solid movie, it may not have that much action but the story was still really well executed.
***1/2

James Bond in review part 1 (1962 - 1971)

This was meant to be done before the release of Spectre, but it wasn't cause reasons, anyway I've decided to post my thoughts on all the James Bond Movies, this first part deals with all of  Sean Connery's films (and the one George Lazenby).

Dr. No (1962)

The film that started it all, creating some of the well known tropes that can be seen throughout the rest of the James Bond series and  popularising the spy thriller genre in general. The film itself is pretty decent but nothing standout, these days, it just feels like a standard spy thriller despite being the one to first to utilize a lot of the genre conventions. Dr No. himself is quite interesting and has some nice dialogue exchanges with Bond, he has a nice slow reveal too and there's a particularly good earlier scene where we can only hear is voice that is certainly effective. All in all, it's a well made solid start for the franchise. ***

From Russia With Love (1963)

 From Russia with Love marks the first appearance of Blofeld (kind of), Q, a credits sequence at the start and a few other tropes in the James Bond series. It also already breaks from the standard formula set by the first film and is one of the few films where the climax isn't set in the villain's lair/base. It has a great opening sequence that introduces the henchman  Donald 'Red' Grant who has a great presence and ends up having a good face off with bond. Although, we mustn't forget Rosa Klebb who is a rather fun villain herself. Overall, the film is really good and much better than Dr No, with an interesting narrative and decent action. Oh and don't forget the gypsy girl fight. ***1/2