Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)

The mighty destroyer born from the nuclear age facing off against a creature that has evolved from mass pollution? As soon as I heard the premise of Godzilla vs. Hedorah I was hoping to find it enjoyable. That optimism was rewarded, and this feels like a return to form for Godzilla after a couple of films that kept the focus squarely on fantastical antics and children's adventures (although those who know me will know that I also had lots and lots of fun with those).

There's still a small child at the heart of this. His name is Ken Yano (Hiroyuki Kawase) and he starts to figure out that a big problem needs a Godzilla-sized solution before almost anyone else, even his parents (Dr. Toru Yano, played by Akira Yamanouchi, and Toshie Yano, played by Toshie Kimura). Initially resembling a large tadpole, then something not entirely unlike an oversized blobfish, Hedorah causes some mayhem at sea before moving on to dry land and heading towards somewhere that could end up being a catastrophic setting for a giant monster battle.

One of only a handful of films to be directed by Yoshimitsu Banno, this is, quite frankly, a shot in the arm for the series that balances the lighter tone of the more recent instalments with a hint of the dread that was present throughout the very first Godzilla movie. The script, co-written by Banno and Takeshi Kimura (credited as Kaoru Mabuchi), paces everything perfectly, especially while Hedorah is an unknown danger. There's a real sense of menace, a few moments of major destruction, and people being completely flummoxed as they try to stop the entire country being flattened. Basically, everything you want and need from a Godzilla movie.

While Yamanouchi and Kimura are both fine in their roles, as are Toshio Shiba and Keiko Mari, it has to be said that young Kawase does wonderful work in a role that allows his innocent viewpoint to lighten the darkness of the tale (and this is a movie in which revellers start partying near Mount Fuji as a way to say goodbye to their world) without stealing scenes away from the big beasts due to battle one another. That is largely due to the script, but it helps that Kawase delivers a performance that lands right in a sweet spot. If you disagree with me, I encourage you to revisit some of the other child performances in various kaiju movies over the years.

This feels surprisingly fresh, considering how much it still manages to work through the checklist of things to see in a Godzilla movie, and maybe that's why Banno didn't get the support and reaction that he would have hoped for when it was initially released. It apparently got enough bums in seats, but reactions from many contemporary critics ranged from a shrug to strongly disliking it. That's a shame, I would have loved to see more Godzilla films from this director, but Banno essentially had the last laugh . . . proving to be a vital figure negotiating permission from Toho that would lead to the Monsterverse, finally giving us some American Godzilla movies that made good use of a well-defined and superbly-designed Big G.

9/10

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Destroy All Monsters (1968)

This is cinema. This is joy. This is a contender for the most deliriously fun kaiju movie of all time, although I am saying this with a number of other great films still to check out. Destroy All Monsters feels like a joyous celebration of a cornucopia of wonderful movie creations. Some may be critical of the fact that it doesn't really feel like a proper movie, but those people are simply not fans of joy.

All of the monsters on Earth have been housed peacefully in a location known as Monster Island. There are various safeguards in place, and the situation is being closely monitored. Everything changes when the monsters manage to overcome the safeguards though, heading off for a stomp and a stamp through some major cities. This is all down to a race of aliens who want to give Earth a major headache, and things will culminate with one other famous monster being brought along to join in with the fighting.

I have known people who are happiest when they are viewing films without having to think about reviewing them, mainly because they can just sit back and enjoy the film without thinking about how they will critique it after. I have never had that problem, but that's mainly due to the fact that sometimes I just put my critical faculties to one side. Some films need a lot of exploration, some need to be discussed in an ongoing conversation that brings up the positive and negative aspects, and some are just an absolute blast that should be viewed as an absolute blast. Destroy All Monsters falls into the latter category.

There are some human actors, of course, but they're even less consequential than usual. They do what they have to do, and move the plot forward, but this is all about Godzilla and co. Whether they are being shown just chilling out on Monster Island, smashing up some cityscapes, or fighting against a common enemy, they are as full of personality and life as they have been in any of their previous movie appearances. Nothing really matters, aside from the chance to spend time in the middle of all of these wonderful creations.

Ishirô Honda is the man at the helm once again, and he also helped to write the screenplay with Takeshi Kimura. You couldn't really ask for safer hands on the wheel, and they know exactly how to make use of all of the monsters without moving them too far away from how they have come to be viewed as the movies have progressed to more lighter and family-friendly fare. If you want fierce beasts then you'll need to look at other eras of these films. This is all about the cuteness, as far as I'm concerned.

I could easily watch this on a loop, and it sits up there with the very best kaiju movies. I am pretty sure that many will agree with me, but for those who don't like their creature features to be quite so wonderful and silly . . . there are dozens more to opt for instead.

9/10

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King Kong Escapes (1967)

This film is ridiculous, but if you think that's a bad thing then you're someone who hasn't ever watched anything like King Kong Escapes. The winning combination of writer Takeshi Kimura and director Ishirô Honda should be enough to get people excited about this, but there's also the fact that the plot involves both King Kong and a robot duplicate (Mechani-Kong). What more could you want?

This is where I'd usually put a plot summary, but King Kong and Mechani-Kong is really all you need to know. There's a villain named Doctor Who (Hideyo Amamoto), a secondary villain named Madame Piranha (Mie Hama), and something about valuable radioactive material being excavated. Basically . . . the clock just keeps ticking until we get to a finale that promises some worthwhile Kong vs. Kong action.

Although many of these movies look a bit silly and tame nowadays, King Kong Escapes was designed that way to appeal to younger viewers. It's a children's film co-produced by Toho and Rankin/Bass Productions, and you could easily imagine this working even better in traditional animation. The crudity feels even more endearing than it does in other kaiju movies I have watched recently, giving the whole film a feeling of playtime where the imagination is just as important as the actual visuals. Someone watched this at a very young age and thought it was the most magnificent thing they would ever see, which is the best thing about movies (in my view anyway).

Kimura's script is weak, but it at least tries to pace things well enough to keep younger viewers interested. Honda does well enough with the creatures, but there's nothing truly devastating or threatening here, considering the overall tone of the thing. People and places are put in jeopardy, as expected, but not in the full-on way we've seen elsewhere.

Amamoto and Hama are both great fun, and they're enjoyably obvious in their villainy in a way that keeps children able to know who they should be rooting for and against. The main goodies are played by Rhodes Reason and Linda Miller, but the real hero is King Kong, of course, and he is showcased like the star he is.

This pales in comparison to films like King Kong and Mighty Joe Young, it also pales in comparison to most of the other kaiju movies from this period, but it's a cute and entertaining bit of monkey melee madness for younger audiences (and those who can watch films while recapturing that feeling of being young at heart).

6/10

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The War Of The Gargantuas (1966)

It's giant destructive manbaby versus giant destructive manbaby in this latest kaiju movie to pass in front of my eyes, and I have to start this review by saying that this was a tough one to gain access to. Sadly, I had to settle for the dubbed version, although I like to think that either version is just as entertaining for anyone used to spending their time sourcing these movies before we didn't have the relatively easy access provided by the internet.

Two giant creatures start to cause panic throughout Tokyo when they attack monsters, boats, and one another as the cityscape looks ready to be devastated by them. One creature is brown in colour, one is green, and some people eventually figure out that the brown monster (which could be called a gargantua or a Frankenstein, depending on which version of the film you see). Our leads are one Dr. Paul Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) and Akemi Togawa (Kumi Mizuno), but this is yet again a film in which some giant creatures literally and metaphorically overshadow the main human characters.

Directed by Ishirô Honda, who also worked on the story with Takeshi Kimura, this serves as an enjoyable sequel to Frankenstein Conquers The World, but you don't necessarily have to have seen that film to understand this one. The past onscreen events are mentioned, and everything boils down to the fact that two giants (easily identified by colour) might cause parts of Japan to once again suffer at the hands of battling monsters.

Although Tamblyn seemed to be far from a helpful cast member, he does well enough in his role as the standard doctor/scientist so often at the heart of these movies. I've praised Mizuno almst every time I have mentioned her in reviews of other kaiju movies, and she's a welcome addition once again. While they may not be recognisable, buried under a fair amount of false hair and make-up, Haruo Nakajima and Yû Sekita also deserves a bit of praise for their performances as the titular monsters. While I often forget to mention the "man in the suit" when it comes to these movies, Nakajima is the name I should at least credit as often as Honda for the success of these films (having been responsible for bringing so many great creatures to life with his incognito performances).

Better than the movie that preceded it, although not up there with the absolute classics, this is a fun bit of silliness that moves from start to finish with decent pacing and enough of a twist on the familiar material to stop it from feeling like a carbon copy of many other films structured the same way.

7/10

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Frankenstein Conquers The World (1965)

I'm not sure that I really needed to watch this film at this time, although I saw it lumped in with a load of other Godzilla and kaiju movies (which I have been trying to make a priority for this year), but I'm still glad that I got around to it anyway. Not that I am saying it's a good film, but it's such an oddity that I'm glad I can now tell others that I actually experienced it. Feeling like more of a bizarre fever dream than a standard movie, Frankenstein Conquers The World (also known as Frankenstein Vs. Baragon) is something almost impossible to believe until you see it for yourself.

Opening with a sequence that mixes wartime intrigue with the discovery of the still-beating heart of Frankenstein’s creature, this is the tale of a young boy (played by Kôji Furuhata) who baffles the scientific community. Growing at an accelerated rate, as well as being resistant to radiation, the boy is named Frankenstein and observed by scientists who hope to stop him from becoming dangerous. He isn’t the only anomaly to arise though, and may actually be able to save people from a greater danger.

Directed by the great Ishirô Honda, and written by Takeshi Kimora (billed as Kaoru Mabuchi), this plays fast and loose with elements of the classic tale being referenced, which was in turn reworked by both John Meredyth Lucas and Shin’ichi Sekizawa, a before settling into a third act that delivers some very familiar fighting between giant figures.

While not anywhere close to the best of this kind of film, particularly when one of the mighty creations is just an overgrown boy wandering through the Japanese countryside, this is so consistently and wonderfully odd that most fans of kaiju movies should still find enough to enjoy. You do get a big beastie, you do get some destruction on a large scale, just not as large a scale as it is in other movies, and you get the usual arguments between military and medical personnel.

Nick Adams and Kumi Mizuno are two of the main figures who try to keep the situation under control, both doing fine in typically thankless roles as they fill time in between moments of spectacle, and Tadao Takashima and Yoshio Tsuchiya are perfectly acceptable as they also struggle to keep Japan safe from a new menace. Furuhata is the star, but he’s unable to make a major impact while his character is kept disappointingly grounded by a lack of any outstanding special moves or abilities (aside from his growth and regeneration).

At once kind of terrible and kind of brilliant at the same time, this is an admirable attempt to do something a bit different with a very familiar template. I will be unlikely to ever want to revisit it, but I am happy that my cinematic quest this year has allowed me to watch something so entertainingly bonkers.

6/10

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Gorath (1962)

Having been on this cinematic journey for some time now already, I can safely say that I seem to be prepared for everything that these films throw at me. There is either a stat creature/personality or some interesting creation allowed to cameo, there is always the potential for a large-scale catastrophe, and many of the actors are kept busy playing people I don’t really care about in between the tense set-pieces.

That causes me a problem, of course, as I struggle to write something in-depth about each of these films, and also struggle to write something that doesn’t feel just copied and pasted from previous reviews.

Gorath was a film that I had a lot of fun with, and I suspected I would enjoy it when I saw the main creature (one named Maguma, and it basically looks like a huge walrus). It also helped that I discovered quite early that Gorath is the name of a runaway star that is on a collision course with Earth. Gorath is smaller than our planet, but it has 6000 times the gravity. Viewers will remember this because it is stated at least half a dozen times in the first quarter of the movie, or so it seemed. After one spaceship is destroyed, another heads off on a brave quest to monitor the situation. Meanwhile, Earth scientists hatch a plan to move Earth just enough to avoid the star. What this will mean for the future of the planet is unknown, but it becomes more problematic when they wake up Maguma, who wanders around angrily for a few scenes.

With director Ishirô Honda once again at the helm here, and a script written by Takeshi Kimura (another familiar name to fans of this kind of fare), this is comfortable and enjoyable entertainment. The focus throughout remains on the impending disaster, with a small diversion when Maguma is woken up, and watching the plan be conceived and put into practice is surprisingly entertaining.

While the cast includes Ryô Ikebe, Yumi Shirikawa, Akira Kubo, Kumi Mizuno, and numerous others, none of them make much of an impression juxtaposed against the vastness and potential danger of our universe. Some extra drama, revolving around an astronaut with memory loss, feels like nothing more than an irritating delay in between the big planet-in-peril moments.

I may not rush to revisit this one, and it’s a shame that there wasn’t more screentime for the wonderfully goofy Maguma, but I enjoyed it while it was on. I am sure it won’t be a firm favourite for anyone, but it does enough to make it memorable and worth your time.

7/10

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The Mysterians (1957)

Another film in which the people of Earth could face potential destruction, starting with an encounter that endangers the whole of Japan, The Mysterians is an amusing, if lesser, film in the extensive selection falling under the Toho banner. Those who enjoy the output from the company will find enough to enjoy here, but it doesn't have a main monster to serve up as a big highlight.

The plot is quite simple, and quite absurd when you type it out in plain text. A group of aliens land on Earth, negotiating for an area of land and the right to marry human women. They live in a seemingly-indestructible dome, can also send out a giant robot to cause some carnage (the closest the movie comes to serving up a monster), and hope to find a way to continue their race after being poisoned and changed by the death of their home planet. It soon becomes obvious that the Mysterians have other plans though, and the people of Earth need to find out a way to stop them.

Developed from story idea to final film form by Jôjirô Okami, Shigeru Kayama, and Takeshi Kimura, names you will recognise from other Japanese sci-fi/monster movies from this era, this is silliness of the highest order. And when I say it's silliness I actually mean that it's complete bobbins. If you don' believe me then please just re-read the last paragraph. It's still fun though, and everyone onscreen shows the right level of stress and concern, all working under the sure and steady hand of director Ishirô Honda.

The cast is also full of familiar names/faces if you've been watching any other Toho films from this period. Akihiko Hirata, Momoko Kôchi, Takashi Shimura, and Kenji Sahara are no strangers to battling for the integrity of Japan, and the safety of the people, and the the same can be said for the likes of Yumi Shirakawa, Susumu Fujita, and Hisaya Itô, all helping to fill out the central cast. Yoshio Tsuchiya also deserves a mention, playing the vital role of "Leader of the Mysterians".

It's a shame that there aren't too many positives to single out here, although I am not saying that the film is actually bad. There just aren't any real treats, nothing in line with the kind of thrills and spectacle you can find in a number of the other movies in the same vein. The stomping robot feels like a poor substitute for some fantastical creature, the destruction feels relatively tame, and the Mysterians themselves are just depicted as people in various coloured suits (pretty much Power Rangers decades before they were a thing).

It's no surprise that this isn't mentioned much by film fans, and I doubt we will ever see the day when it gets a much-heralded restoration and revival. I liked it, and I have to stress that after seeming so dismissive of it, but I can't imagine anyone loving it. It's there, it's amusing and cute, and it's something to watch once and then almost immediately forget.

6/10

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Rodan (1956)

While it may feel like I am marking numbers off a bingo card just now, my quest to cover the films of Godzilla this year, as well as connected kaiju creations, has already been satisfying for making me watch the first appearances of creatures I have either seen already in other movies, or at least heard of. Getting to Rodan this week was a pleasant surprise, particularly because I wasn’t sure if every movie would already be locked into the same template I am quite familiar with.

There’s a disturbance in a small Japanese mining village, which should be enough to put everyone on their guard against potential giant monsters. Sure enough, there are soon giant monsters on the rampage. These take the shape of overgrown insect larvae, looking like a cross between a giant wood-louse and a giant bluebottle, but they are only a precursor to the main event. The main event is Rodan, in case the title didn’t make that clear. Not just one Rodan, but two, causing panic as they fly around and start to kill people. The military might have the firepower to stop them, or they may have to rely on the force of the local volcano to help re-affirm the status quo.

Putting things once again in the capable hands of Ishirô Honda, this is a creature feature that works almost as well as any of the other big touchstones in the kaiju cinematic timeline, thanks to more great design work and a way of delivering familiar beats without it all already feeling overdone and tired. Writers Takeshi Kimura and Takeo Murata have fun with the story, especially as the first batch of beasties puzzle everyone for a while before the Rodan attacks start to confuse the situation.

The cast of human actors once again play second fiddle to the kaiju stars, but Kenji Sahara does well in the role of Shigeru, a mining engineer who ends up stuck underground when the Rodan are about to hatch. He convincingly portrays memory loss and trauma until galvanized in time for the big final battle. Yumi Shirakwa is also a good onscreen presence, playing a woman named Kiyo, and the main figures of authority are well-played by Akihiko Harata (the expected scientist figuring out what this new enemy is) and Akio Kobori (a police detective).

If you like either of the other famous films in this vein then you should like this. I cannot imagine any kaiju fan hating it, although it suffers slightly in comparison to both Godzilla, which came before it, and Mothra, which arrived about five years after. Still, it is to be appreciated for adding another name to the “rogue’s gallery” as it is appreciated for what it delivers in terms of cinema.

8/10

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