Japanese 'Rex' takes on 'Jurassic Park'
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from July 1993.
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But this time, unlike Godzilla, some of the beasts are downright cute and huggable.
Looking something like a leathery teddy bear, a baby tyrannosaurus called "Rex" hit the big screens in Japan two weeks before "Jurassic Park" set an opening weekend record here on July 17-18.
Banks, hotels, and even the subway system have piggybacked promotions onto the nationwide dinosaur boom. The Tokyo subway's summer "stamp rally" features dinosaur ink stamps that kids collect in special books as they travel from station to station.
The prehistoric creatures also are the stars of at least 20 exhibitions opening across Japan over the next few weeks, and stare menacingly from countless magazine covers.
Unlike the man-munching behemoths in "Jurassic Park," the gently cooing "Rex" is a kinder, gentler dinosaur - one that would rather relate to people than eat them.
"He seems so nice," seven-year-old Ai Sasaki said of Rex on her way in to see the film with her parents. "I'm glad he's not scary." "Rex is a cute dinosaur," says Masako Yanaka, a publicist for Shochiku Company, which produced and distributed the film. "The idea is the exact opposite of 'Jurassic Park." The film bears striking resemblance to an earlier Spielberg box-office winner, "E.T." Carlo Rambaldi, the special-effects guru who designed "E.T.," also created the grinning T-Rex toddler.
The plot may ring a bell with Americans: A young girl finds and raises an ugly but lovable creature and is horrified when grownups want to take it away for scientific experiments. All is resolved when the creature goes back whence it came.
Shochiku says it expects a total take of at least $20 million - a hit by Japanese standards. The movie also has produced a mountain of spinoff Rex goodies, including styrofoam eggs stuffed with candy treats and a plush likeness of the cuddly carnivore.
Most Japanese moviegoers, nonetheless, are bypassing Rex's cutesy appeal for an encounter with the less amiable dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park." For its opening, hundreds of people lined up at downtown Tokyo theaters to catch the first show at 6:20 a.m.
