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A close friend of Akira Kurosawa and also his assistant director, Ishiro Honda moonlighted by directing silly but enjoyable sci-fi genre pictures like Godzilla (1954), often borrowing Kurosawa’s prestigious actors for his campy, disreputable projects. In his 1961 Mothra, Takashi Shimura, star of Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952) and The Seven Samurai (1954), plays a hard-boiled Perry White–like editor who’s pushing his reporters to get the big scoop. It seems that a Japanese vessel has landed its men on an uncharted South Seas island hit by post-atomic-bomb radioactivity. In addition to native people, this island sports a set of cute Thumbelina-sized female twins and a giant egg containing . . . what? When the mini-twins are kidnapped and made a novelty show-biz act back in Tokyo (think Carl Denham returning to New York with King Kong), the egg explodes and a gargantuan larva comes swimming toward Japan’s capital to bring the girls home. MOTHRA!! The larva evolves into a flying moth, and poor Tokyo crumbles under the onslaught. Although a bit of a Godzilla retread, the film is insectious fun. In Japanese with English subtitles. (101 minutes)