Dogora (1964)

Another week, another Japanese sci-fi creature feature directed by the very capable Ishirô Honda. Dogora is a film about a giant space jellyfish creature, basically, but it’s a canny mix of monster movie and crime flick, managing to deliver a more interesting cast of characters than many of the other films it falls in line with.

You do get the space jellyfish creature, and it causes some confusion throughout the film, so at least this isn’t like some of the other Toho Studios films that simply add a monster into the final act. While some people are trying to figure out just what is going on, other people are more interested in diamond robberies. There’s an Inspector (Yôsuke Natsuki) after the criminals, a mysterious figure named Mark Jackson (Robert Dunham, billed as Dan Yuma) also taking a keen interest, and, of course, the robbers themselves. Surprisingly, the titular creature is also interested in diamonds, due to the carbon content it needs to devour.

Based on a story by Jôjirô Okami, with Shin'ichi Sekizawa back on screenplay duties, this is a very enjoyable genre blend that manages to let things unfold without doing a disservice to either of the main story strands. It may not have any major crash bang wallop moments, but the monstrous threat still looms large above our worried humans, and there’s enough damage caused to show what could happen if things get out of control. At the risk of repeating myself, Honda could direct these films in his sleep by now, and I don’t think I need to spend too much time here heaping more praise upon him.

Natsuki and Dunham are both very enjoyable in their roles, and they are featured enough to actually stay clear in my memory after the film has ended, but you also get Nobuo Nakamura as the standard scientist, Hiroshi Koizumi as a bonus secondary scientist, and Yôko Fujiyama as an assistant who obviously keeps herself in the middle of the conversations that deliver the required exposition. The gangsters are also good value, although I won’t name any of those performers here (they feel like one criminal unit, despite one or two having a specialist skillset).

Perhaps not as memorable as so many others, Dogora is a really fun film that I ended up enjoying a lot. I am not sure if that puts me in the minority, but I am sure that I could happily sit and rewatch this again already.

8/10

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Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

Here we are again, wandering around in the land of kaiju, and if I already know what I am letting myself in for then there are millions of people in the world who can write about these movies much better than I do. But this is my review, documenting my journey through this wild and weird cinematic “zoo”, and I will continue to do the best I can.

This time around we have another giant egg, something turned into a money-making attraction by another opportunistic businessman, but people are once again warned off by two small fairies (the Shonijin, played here again by Emi Itô and Yumi Itô). As the title would suggest, Mothra appears, but it becomes a potential ally to the human race when an angry Godzilla re-awakens.

With Ishirô Honda back in the director’s chair, and writer Shin’ichi Sekizawa once again on the screenplay duties, this is familiar and hugely entertaining fare from people who could surely do this in their sleep. The plot and characters are perfectly fine, with everything put together well, and every viewer knows that it’s all building up to the titular confrontation. Mothra remains a wonderful creation, Godzilla is (for most people) the most lovable giant lizard to ever stomp on buildings, vehicles, and fleeing people, and the action is fun and inventive when it becomes the focus of the third act.

The human cast members all do fine, but I will always remember the two Itô sisters ahead of anyone else. You do get perfectly fine turns from Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi, Hiroshi Koizumi, and others though, especially as our leads butt heads with the businessmen who want to value their own wealth over the interests of the people around them.

It’s also worth noting here that Mothra vs. Godzilla takes some time to specifically comment on the consequences of nuclear testing. The danger of nuclear power is obviously inherent in every Godzilla movie, considering the legacy of Big G, but the issues raised here somehow feel a bit more fresh and relevant, a reminder that it is not a problem consigned to a now-closed chapter of history.

I have omitted a few details here, hoping to keep a pleasant surprise or two in store for anyone else who may decide to finally watch this for the first time, but I highly recommend this as a superficially silly creature feature that, like so many other films of this ilk, manages to deliver fun action moments, as well as some thought-provoking musings on wielding power and working together for the greater good of the human race.

8/10

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Mothra (1961)

Okay, first of all, I need to apologise. In making 2024 a year of Godzilla on the blog, I soon realised that I wanted to cover every connected kaiju film. It's a task as momentous as the creatures themselves, and I have already missed out some key movies I wanted to cover on the journey. So there will be a little bit of backtracking before we move further forward. And this is my resource for planning the rest of the year (or however long it takes to cover the movies I want to review here) - https://www.tohokingdom.com/genre_movie_lists/kaiju_listing.htm - and any input, especially from those who know much more than I do, is always welcome.

Go ahead and make all the jokes you want (particularly if you are already envisioning the size of the giant bulb you would need to lure away a giant moth), but Mothra holds up very well today as another fantastic Japanese kaiju film. Based on a book by Shin'chirô Nakamura, it's the tale of greedy and exploitative individuals who bring the titular beast upon their heads when they fail to heed warnings against uprooting two tiny young women from their island home. These "twin fairies" aka Shobijin (played by Yumi Itô and Emi Itô) don't lash out at their captors, but they make everyone aware that the situation will lead to dire consequences. Those dire consequences start off in the form of a giant egg, which hatches a giant caterpillar, which eventually builds a cocoon and prepares to become, as you may have surmised already, Mothra.

Another film from the kaiju master, AKA Ishirô Honda, Mothra is everything you want from this kind of film. The screenplay, by Shin'ichi Sekizawa, mixes the usual messaging with a good smattering of atmosphere throughout the first half before delivering the fun spectacle in the second half. It somehow manages to deliver the goods without feeling like a lazy retread, thanks to the use of the Shobijin, and Mothra makes a hell of an impact in both main, destructive, incarnations.

The cast make much less of an impact, although both Yumi and Emi Itô are delightful every time they appear onscreen. Jerry Itô is the evil capitalist, Clark Nelson, Hiroshi Koizumi plays Dr Shin'ichi Chûjô, someone who might come up with whatever plan is needed to deal with/placate Mothra, and Kyôko Kagawa is a photographer named Michi Hanamura. They all get one or two decent moments, but the film always steps up a notch when showing us either the Shobijin or Mothra.

I don't have much more to say. Although I was familiar with the titular beast, I'd only ever seen the modern Mothra in the American "monsterverse" movies, which is a different, but beautiful, visual feast. Finally seeing the original creature in the original film was a real treat, and I was smiling from start to finish as the pieces of the plot were moved into place, paving the way for the expected third act of panic and large-scale catastrophe. Mothra deserves to remain such a beloved film (and I know it is, considering how many friends of mine are fans of it) so I encourage others to avoid delaying a viewing of it for as long as I did.

9/10

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Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

And here we are at the second full Godzilla movie, and me realising why I haven’t before attempted to watch and review so many of these movies in a particular space of time. So many of them work to a very familiar pattern, and the affection for them stems from knowing what you are going to get.

Godzilla is back, of course, but this time they’re not alone. A giant creature, Anguirus, is also on the prowl, which sets the scene for an eventual fight between the two gigantic beasties. But even if the fight leads to the end of one monster, one will still need to be dealt with by some puny humans.

Takeo Murata returns as a main writer, joined this time by Shigeaka Hidaka, apparently adapting a novel, “The Volcano Monsters”, into something that serves as a very important second star vehicle for a character who would become the most famous, and celebrated, kaiju in cinema. The human side of things isn’t quite as involving as it was in the first film, but there is a good enough blend of melodrama and stomping action.

Director Motoyoshi Oda knows what is needed, and delivers. There’s already a slightly lighter tone to the unfolding events, but the threat remains impressively rendered, in terms of destruction and the knock-on effect it has on the people who find their everyday routines completely disrupted, to say the least.

The cast includes Hiroshi Koizumi and Minoru Chiaki, as a pair of pilots who prove integral to the efforts undertaken to defeat Godzilla, and Setsuko Wakayama, as a young woman named Hidemi who feels like a covalent bond between those two. But everyone coming to this already knows who the real star is.

Not as good as the original movie, and very few of them are, but an excellent development of the franchise, interestingly showing the monster madness impacting lives and livelihoods in equal measure (something that would develop in interesting ways throughout subsequent decades).

If this review seems much shorter, and even less substantial, than usual, it probably is. As much as I am looking forward to fully exploring the Godzilla filmography (at long last), it would be easy to summarize most of them with the same few sentences. I will keep trying my best though, for what that is worth. 

7/10

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