Godzilla vs. Megalon.

Review #2558: Godzilla vs. Megalon.

Cast: 

Katsuhiko Sasaki (Inventor Goro Ibuki), Hiroyuki Kawase (Rokuro Ibuki), Yutaka Hayashi (Hiroshi Jinkawa), Robert Dunham (Emperor Antonio of Seatopia, Seatopian agent on motorcycle; Gorō Naya as Japanese voice of Antonio), Kotaro Tomita (Lead Seatopian Agent), Wolf Ohtsuki (Seatopian Agent), Gentaro Nakajima (Truck Driver), Sakyo Mikami (Truck Driver's Assistant), with Tsugutoshi Komada (Jet Jaguar), Shinji Takagi (Godzilla), Hideto Date (Megalon), and Kenpachiro Satsuma (Gigan) Directed by Jun Fukuda (#1668 - Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, #2070 - Son of Godzilla, #2525 - Godzilla vs. Gigan)

Review: 

Oh, poor Jun Fukuda. It's not easy making four Godzilla movies where the highlight is either a mediocre Son of Godzilla or one brimming with mockery amidst the use of stock footage. With this film, the 13th Godzilla movie, you've got a clash of ideas and ambitions all bubbling to the surface: All Monsters Attack (1969)'s original villain was going to be a giant mole cricket before a series of reworkings (one involving pairing it with other monsters under the command of hostile alien invaders) led to, well, a giant beetle. Now, you might wonder what the hell "Jet Jaguar" plays into it. Togo had a contest for kids in late 1972 that apparently resulted in a robot called Red Arone (apparently, it looked something like this). Shinichi Sekizawa did a few story ideas but did not have time to actually write a script, which fell to Fukuda to write the screenplay for a film that reportedly took just three weeks to shoot. As you probably would guess, extensive stock footage is utilized, whether that is films from nearly ten years ago with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) to others such as Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) and Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972). In some ways, this movie has been credited as giving the perception of kaiju movies as being a bit campy or comedic, with the 1976 American release by Cinema Shares having a poster featuring Godzilla and Megalon...fighting on the World Trade Center (because if one is going to straight up "spoof" the King Kong (1976) poster, you might as well go all the way, even if it reeks of hackery). It was also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000). It even had a primetime broadcast on NBC in 1977, albeit in a form that was cut to less than an hour. Thankfully, with the modern age, you can just watch the damn movie with subtitles like a normal person (Criterion or otherwise) *. Fukuda got one more Godzilla movie to do with Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974). 

I first saw footage of the film in what else but James Rolfe's "Godzilla-a-thon" years ago (the one that briefly recapped each movie up to 2004*), so I had an inkling of what was going to come. It sure is a shame about the "camp" label, mainly because that label always seems to be used for a tired argument very now and then about movies they want to find a longwinded way of just saying "silly"*. You'll never believe this: it's an 81 minute Godzilla movie with a few silly moments, a few familiar things, fairly forgettable humans (with one exception?) and a pretty bog-standard quality that reminds you that there are better movies out there. Look. you get to see a flying two-feet karate kick from Godzilla and a goofy robot that doesn't even change its expression with Jet Jaguar, a suddenly sentient being that can grow really really tall (I'm sure there is a measurement in feet or "meters", but Movie Night does not recognize the latter). The irony is that for all the interesting visuals (the bits not from 1970, anyway), I could not find one interesting thing to say about Saskai, Kawase, or Hiyashi (you think modern Godzilla movies have dodgy human characters? Watch this movie and get back to me). They are there, they show up, they remind you that even robots have more to really say than kid actors, and so on and so forth. It is delightfully preposterous in ways that are entirely easy to see coming: dudes wearing what appear to be a toga (Dunham, complete with some chest hair) dealing with an underground kingdom that send monsters rather than negotiate (we are past the part the military not mattering) and Godzilla (don't ask about the suit, at least they tried making it seem freshly new) basically taking longer than a superhero to show up in the film. But when it does get moving, there are some amusing parts that remind you that even a bad Godzilla movie (with one Emmerich-sized exception) can at least be an amusing time. Not a movie for serious analysis or fans of good films, but if you like watching Godzilla or. monster mashes, maybe you'll have a time worth noting.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

(Jet Jaguar's) song of the day!

*No, I will not budge on subtitles over dubs. I didn't give a shit who was doing the English dub of, say, The Boy and the Heron, so it is either original dub or nothing. You can also bookmark this and call me an idiot if I pull a hypocritical move.

*I love the old Cinemassacre. No comment on the AVGN Movie though.

*Unrelated, probably. You can call it a conspiracy theory, but I firmly believe that a good deal of critiques of horror movies with "misogyny!" is actually just folks looking for an easy punching bag because they don't have anything better to do with their time. And there is no "campy" horror, that's just "comedy-horror", so stop it!

For the purposes of having a reference of previous Godzilla movies, inquire here: 

The original 1954 classic and its decent 1955 sequel

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) - Godzilla fights King Kong to a relative draw.

Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) - Mothra joins the mash!

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) - A monster so important it made the title

Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) - Nick Adams in: Spaceman's Adventure

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) - Terrorists, lobsters, and more.

Son of Godzilla (1967) - A real family drama

Destroy All Monsters (1968) - Mash like it's 1999 in Monsterland

All Monsters Attack (1969) - Children and Minilla have to fight their own battles instead of Godzilla

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) - Trippy environmentally hip fun for the whole family

Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) - Godzilla towers and a clip show all in one

Godzilla vs. Gigan.

Review #2525: Godzilla vs. Gigan.

Cast: 

Hiroshi Ishikawa (Gengo Odaka), Tomoko Umeda (Machiko Shima), Yuriko Hishimi (Tomoko Tomoe), Mnoru Takashima (Shosaku Takasugi), Zan Fujita (Fumio Sudo), Toshiaki Nishizawa (Kubota, Secretary of World Children's Land), Kunio Murai (Takashi Shima), Gen Shimizu (the Commander of Defense Forces), Kuniko Ashihara (Mrs. Fudo), Zeko Nakamura (Priest), Akio Muto (Kadohisa), with Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Kenpachiro Satsuma (Gigan), Koetsu Omiya (Anguirus), and Kanta Ina (King Ghidorah) Directed by Jun Fukuda (#1668 - Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, #2070 - Son of Godzilla) 

Review: 

At this point, the Godzilla movies were appearing to be running on fumes. Sure, Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) was only a moderate success (hey, decent taste comes a bit later for others), but there was still the desire to try and make people all fine with another Godzilla movie by just...bringing back familiar aspects. You get King Ghidorah, a new monster with Gigan (with hooks and a saw) and, for whatever reason, a Godzilla Tower (as one does when trying to appeal to the kids, a park). Shinichi Sekizawa and Kaoru Mabuchi were each approached to do a draft with these requirements in mind, and it was Sekizawa's pitch that won out (apparently, Kimura's pitch involved a large-brain looking alien trying to subjugate the Earth and putting his form into a giant Inca statue). A majority of the soundtrack is recycled cues from previous films that had been composed by Akira Ifukube (even stuff that had been composed for a pavilion at Expo '70 is used). Stock footage from four of the previous films is used for select fight scenes (complete with color tinting), but you get a few new quirks: the monsters shed blood and in one instance, they communicate with each other (the Godzilla-Angurius sequence differs depending on which version you see, as the Japanese version [which translates to "Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan"] had speech bubbles like a comic book while the original English-dub [named Godzilla on Monster Island], had distorted growling). For such a familiar movie, it probably wasn't too much of a stretch to say that the movie was enough of a hit to keep the series going while Fukuda returned for one more of these films with Godzilla vs. Megalon in 1973, otherwise known as the one with Jet Jaguar.

Honestly, the bar for a Godzilla for me is a fairly generous one, because what's the point of just judging in comparing them to the 1954 movie over and over if you know that we are in period of Godzilla movies where "light fun" is the goal? Besides, this is a movie that just decides that King Ghidorah is alive when folks saw him killed three movies ago because, well, it's not 1999 like that other movie. I will say though that even if this is basically the equivalent of day-old chili, there are some amusing moments to be had here. I suppose it only makes sense that a group of aliens could come up with a children's park with Godzilla as the centerpiece (I wonder when Godzilla basically became the "defender of the planet" if people who had experienced Godzilla's terror had to just sit there and watch people go ga-ga for Godzilla*), but I probably would be a big sucker for a Godzilla park (it's real, apparently?) at any rate. Where was I? Oh, right, the movie: you've got these totally normal guys trying to get a tape back from a group of oddballs: a manga-drawing artist that stumbles onto a girl trying to get their brother back (who was being held by the park because, um, they needed his input) that had a hippie helping them out. Oh, and there's a woman who does karate in one scene. Did I mention that the aliens actually resemble cockroaches that go around disguising themselves as humans? The acting here (as comprised of by faces that most probably didn't see again in a movie) isn't anything too special aside from chuckles at the seeming randomness of their situation, with the cherry on top is their key part of the climax: they put up explosives onto an elevator, expecting the bad guys to shoot their weapons, because, wait for it: the elevator rings to reveal a large drawing. Aside from Godzilla (as played one last time by Haruo Nakajima) being lasered in the lower section and a few silly shots to introduce Gigan and Ghidorah (which look like toys), it mainly just comes off as an attempt at a highlights reel that has the one saving grace of being just 89 minutes long. As a whole, Fukuda was in a tough spot with cheap production values, and it is easy to send chuckles at the attempts to sell old clips as new, but there is at least some entertainment value to be had with its strange type of charm that shines enough to at least make the experience end up as not being a complete head-scratcher. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*This basically leads to a horrible thought - imagine if that Godzilla park was real, and a person invites someone that they didn't realize had seen destruction as a child and it basically gives them PTSD in front of all the children.

For the purposes of having a reference of previous Godzilla movies, inquire here: 

The original 1954 classic and its decent 1955 sequel

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) - Godzilla fights King Kong to a relative draw.

Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) - Mothra joins the mash!

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) - A monster so important it made the title

Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) - Nick Adams in: Spaceman's Adventure

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) - Terrorists, lobsters, and more.

Son of Godzilla (1967) - A real family drama

Destroy All Monsters (1968) - Mash like it's 1999 in Monsterland

All Monsters Attack (1969) - Children and Minilla have to fight their own battles instead of Godzilla

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) - Trippy environmentally hip fun for the whole family

Son of Godzilla.

Review #2070: Son of Godzilla.

Cast: 

Akira Kubo (Maki Goro), Tadao Takashima (Professor Kusumi), Bibari Maeda (Saeko Matsumiya), Akihiko Hirata (Fujisaki), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Furukawa), Kenji Sahara (Morio), Kenichiro Maruyama (Ozawa), Seishiro Kuno (Tashiro), with Hiroshi Sekita, Seiji Onaka, and Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), and Marchan the Dwarf (Minilla) Directed by Jun Fukuda (#1668 - Ebirah, Horror of the Deep)

 

Review: 

Obviously, you don't have to go in order to enjoy the history of Godzilla films, but I do find it curious at times to see just what is different from time to time in these creature features, particularly as it is soon to reach its 70th anniversary. It also just so happens that Son of Godzilla is the eighth feature film of the series, released in the first lengthy streak of the series in which there was a Godzilla film in all but two of the years between 1962 and 1975. It happens to be the second straight Godzilla film directed by Jun Fukuda, which yet again involves Godzilla found lurking on an island, but this time with a twist that would shift some of the next few films. Fukuda and his crew were thought to be suited for a lower budget than, say, Ishirō Honda; Honda and company (such as Eiji Tsuburaya) were busy with King Kong Escapes, which was released in the summer of 1967. Honda would return to direct the next two films in the series with Destroy All Monsters (1968) and All Monsters Attack (1969), which each happened to feature Godzilla...and his son, which is referred to as Minilla (minus the English dub, which went with Minya). Fukuda would not return to the director's chair of a Godzilla film until Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972).

The enjoyment of the film may very well depend on just how much you care about Godzilla, well, entering fatherhood (as suggested by producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, although obviously the screenplay was fleshed out by Shinichi Sekizawa...and a newcomer with Kazue Shiba). Of course, since this is an island feature, this comes out after some usual exposition about why one is there to begin with (weather expedition) and how one manages to create a baby Godzilla. 86 minutes sometimes can go pretty quickly when it is something you like or feel like a chore, and I think this one is just fine. I think it is a marked improvement on the aforementioned Ebirah film if only because it seems to actually hit the target is wants to set with rubber-suited folks that is at least seems to generate a worthy smile rather than mild feeling. Look, we've already gotten ourselves past the point where the films involved some sort of solemn attempt at monster-ravaging society and into "setting of the week" territory, so taking the feature on with the merits of "did it do something for me?" is what applies here. That said, the actors at least seem game to not just snooze the time away, which at least this time doesn't involve special island powders. If one thinks the actors seem like they are wishing to be anywhere else but on this film, well, that sums up how much you will find pretty much of a decent chunk of monster movies,  some being better than others (obviously). The folks seem on their element here in that semi-serious way where plot goes the way they go without bumbling loudness. I find the giant mantis and spiders an adequate enemy here, if only because I figure, well, they can't always be great giant monsters, so aiming a bit smaller is fine. Besides, when it comes to establishing a bully that would pick on an egg, sure, the mantis seems about right to build up Godzilla turning the tables on. Minilla as a whole is about on par with, well, other sons of monsters (how many can you name off the top of your head that don't involve Son of Kong?), which basically means you either go with the eccentricities (a braying noise-sorry, baby noises) or don't, and I fall on the side of engaging with it as if it means something beyond being used as a promo tool. The series turning a leaf isn't going to hurt unless they make a bad habit out of it, what can I say? The last sequence shows Godzilla and son now involved in snowy hibernation, complete with them huddling together after it looks like one will fall by the wayside in the snow. It is a nice little sequence for a film that as a whole is light without turning lightweight and useful without being unneeded. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Soviets, but a comedy this time.

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.

Review #1668: Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.

Cast: 

Akira Takarada (Yoshimura), Toru Watanabe (Ryota Kane), Toru Ibuki (Yata Kane), Chotaro Togin (Ichino), Hideo Sunazuka (Nita), Kumi Mizuno (Daiyo), Pair Bambi (the Shobijin), Jun Tazaki (Red Bamboo Commander), Akihiko Hirata (Red Bamboo Captain Ryuui), Hideyo Amamoto (Red Bamboo Captain Naval Officer), with Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla) and Hiroshi Sekita (Ebirah) Directed by Jun Fukuda.

Review: 

"All I can remember is that making GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER was like pouring two cups of water into one. I had to cut one sequence after another."

The funny thing to remember about Godzilla is that most of the movies end up with him fighting a big monster for perilous enjoyment, and they all build up to it in their own respective ways (i.e. cliché) that can lend for distinct movies. So far, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and Invasion of Astro-Monster have proven better in the first few of the Godzilla sequels, although obviously Godzilla vs. Mothra is also up there. Most of those films took place within military settings or within a city to build the set-up, which got considerably lighter after the first film. All is not quite what it seems with the island setting for this film. For one thing, the original working title was "Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah"; Rankin-Bass Productions, who was working on The King Kong Show (1966-1969) with Toei, rejected the idea, but Toho liked what they saw while replacing Kong with Godzilla. At any rate, Toho and Rankin-Bass would team up for King Kong Escapes (1967), which combined elements from the show alongside the spy genre as the second and last film that Toho made with the license on the character. Unlike other movies of the series, this movie was distributed in the States only on television, for which it was known as "Godzilla versus the Sea Monster". At helm for director is Jun Fukuda. Born in Japanese-occupied China, Fukuda studied in Japan with Japan Art University before serving in World War II. He was hired to work with Toho in 1951, where he would start as an assistant director. For the next ten years, he worked under directors on films such as So Young, So Bright (1955, directed by Toshio Sugie) and Rodan (1956, directed by Ishirō Honda) before getting his chance to direct in 1959 with Osorubeki hiasobi. He would do a variety of genres until his retirement in 1977 that ranged from action to comedy to science fiction. He was the third person to direct a Godzilla film and the first one to replace Ishiro Honda since Motoyoshi Oda helmed Godzilla Raids Again (1955). Over the next eight years, he would be tasked to direct four more Godzilla features from Son of Godzilla (1967) to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974). Over the course of his career with Godzilla, he would approach the films as action dramas, albeit ones that would be tightly filmed in budget and shooting. A modest man, Fukuda enjoyed working with the cast of this film (singling out Hirata and Mizuno), but he did not find any of the Godzilla be his favorites in his career. In one interview, he even was asked if there should have been any sequels to Godzilla in the first place, and he actually answered no (he also noted that he enjoyed making his comedy films more so than the monster movies), where even being sent a copy of the film he made by Toho was "like opening up an old wound."

For the first time in the series, Eiji Tsuburaya was not the director of special effects, since he shifted to supervisor; instead, it was Sadamasa Arikawa that served as special effects director, although he did not take kindly to the cheap demands by Toho, which Arikawa felt was because he could pushed around by them more so than with Tsuburaya (who had his own company and reputation by then). This was the fifth writing effort out of ten Godzilla features done by Shinichi Sekizawa. So instead of Godzilla rampaging the countryside of Japan, he is instead dormant for most of the movie on an island that also has Mothra in the distance in slumber while the focus is on a quartet of humans that are there after being shipwrecked by the title character (Ebirah; ebi incidentally is a shrimp prominent in Japanese cuisine) after looking for a missing brother...after losing a dance marathon contest that would've won a sailboat. Oh, and the island has a group of militants exploiting the land for a formula that keeps the crabby monster at bay. So...yeah, we are talking about a movie where Godzilla eventually fights a shrimp/crab that only seems to fight in the water and can be repelled by militants with a special island powder. I guess Mothra (making her fifth of six appearances in the original series, albeit with a somewhat deteriorating costume) fights Godzilla, in that it involves dust. Godzilla isn't exactly at the "Earth's defender" stage yet, merely placed in the "Well, I destroyed cities, but now I have shifted my interests to being my monster self, so muck off Mothra/Ebirah". Of the cast, Takarada, Hirata, Mizuno, Tazaki, and Nakajima are the most seasoned actors present in this film, and they are fine here, with Takarada and Hirata generally being the most interesting (although Mizuno makes impressions here and there, although the scene spent with Godzilla looking at her like Kong is a bit...weird). The others aren't boring, but the light pace mixed with its tone doesn't exactly make them quite interesting. I admire the scene where they think about their escape and about Godzilla "helping" them before they yell at him to jump off the soon-to-be exploding island; one could find it cynically amusing and ponder the fact that Godzilla lives on again to potentially "visit" another place in time only because someone told him to ump.

So yeah, one is really here to see what stuff will happen with Godzilla, for better or worse. Did I mention there is a condor fight? It actually is the worst fight scene of these films so far, mostly because one can't even see the fight clearly, and it seems appropriate that Godzilla fires it out of existence. Godzilla awakens in a sequence clearly meant to evoke other monsters: a lightning strike. I suppose it goes along with all the non-Godzilla aspects that make for a really cheesy pastiche of clichés, all of which start with comic bumbling and lead right into playing rock volleyball with Ebirah (the icing on the cake is a tribute shot to another movie with a character rubbing their nose...Godzilla, having just done a dance in the film before that). The pace is lighter, but it doesn't mean the movie moves any faster for enjoyment, particularly if one desires to see some interesting Godzilla action, and I suppose it could only set the stage for weirder entries in the series that will range from the offspring of Godzilla to a monster mash to children getting involved with the monsters - there were eight of these films made in the 1960s, and this was the fifth of those released.  If the music by Masaru Sato (a favorite of the director) is memorable for any reason, it is probably because the electric guitar manages to reverb like the James Bond theme, which can either be thought of as distinctive or distracting. In general, the movie acts as yet another cut into the burrowing decisions by Toho and others to shift Godzilla for children with a goal of doing it as fast and cheaply as possible. That isn't to say that Fukuda failed in brining in a new perspective with the film, because he does do a fine job here, but as a Godzilla movie it certainly does fall a bit flat in the lasting enjoyment department. If one can get through some filler to get to parts involving rubber suit monsters, you might have a time here, although the 87 minutes will either feel really short or tolerable enough to finish yet another Godzilla adventure. I can't give it a positive notice, because it doesn't exactly prove a triumph, but I can acknowledge it as a curiosity that may suit others in mind, five decades after the fact. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.