Sperhauk was nice enough to give me his old dvd set of the Diamajin trilogy. It's a Japanese series that is more Fantasy than Science Fiction but it's got a giant monster so I'm bending my SFS rules a bit. Daimajin is the first film, followed by The Return Of Diamajin and The Wrath Of Daimajin. The whole trilogy was released by Daiei Motion Picture Company April through December 1966. The same company also produced the Gamera films. Sperhauk upgraded his set when he found the BluRay for 12 bucks. A nice deal, huh. It's normally about 20 bucks on Amazon and that's still an ok deal for three movies. There are 3 editions of the trilogy in the US, plus a single disc of two of the US releases. ADV has two sets, the 2002 non-anamorphic in which all three of the movies are 2.35:1 widescreen and the 2005 anamorphic edition which has two of the movies at 2.35:1 and TWOD cropped to 1.85:1. Mill Creek Entertainment put out the current BlueRay set and Image put out a single disc of the original AIP versions of Majin, the Monster of Terror and The Return of Giant Majin, both of which are cropped to 1.33:1. I don't think I have seen the AIP versions. I did have a copy of some Video Dakaiju VHS tapes from sometime in the mid 1990's. These dvds are much nicer. Another nice thing? All three movies have scores by Akira Ifukube. If you don't know who he is? Shame on you.
Daimajin, like all the movies in the trilogy, is set in Fuedal Japan. Some villagers are observing the Daimajin rituals when the evil Chamberlain takes over. They kill the current Lord and his wife but the children escape. They are raised in secret and the Chamberlain rules with an iron thumb. The son grows to 18 and the people have had enough. The area is ripe for rebellion, all they need is the spark, which is provided when the Chamberlain tries to destroy the statue of Daimaijin. The best they can do is drive a spike in it's head. It rises up and puts the slaughter on the Chamberlain and his goons. Lord Juno and the villagers are restored to their lands. In all the movies the giant guardian only rises up in the last 15 or so minutes of the movie. You've got to wait for some monster action.
The Return Of Daimajin is set in another area. The statue of Maijin lives on an island and the locals worship there. A couple of peaceful villages are near the island. One gets taken over by an Evil Warlord. Like there are any other kind? The EW has his eyes on the next village and he blows up the statue of their god. He even tosses the village's big bell into the sea. Eventually Maijin comes calling and the Evil Warlord tries blowing him up. That doesn't work as well as it did on the statue and the EW gets squished. Maijin is tall, his feet flat, his body heavy. Aaahhh! There is some collateral damage to the buildings too but because of the time period the buildings aren't all that big.
The Wrath OF Diamajin has another Evil Warlord is planning to conquer the local area. He's capturing men from the local villages and turning them into slaves. He's forcing them to build him a nice big fortress. Some kids from a village travel into the forbidden mountain area to try to save their imprisoned dads. Maijin wakes, kicks the Evil Warlord's new fortress apart, then stabs the EW with a giant sword. Maijin can even stand up to canon fire. The village goes back to normal after the Maijin disapperars.
All in all a nice bunch of films. I've seen thems several times and have continued to enjoy them.
I'm watching the 2 disc 2012 Criterion DVD set of Godzilla today. Instead of just watching the 2 movies I'm listening to the David Kalat commentary on the two movies that come in the set. One is the original 1954 Japanese film and the other is the 1956 US version. The dvd is packed with some nice features. Here is the list from the Criterion site:
New high-definition digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
New high-definition digital restoration of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the original (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Audio commentary for both movies by film historian David Kalat
New interviews with actors Akira Takarada and Haruo Nakajima and special effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai
Interview with legendary Godzilla score composer Akira Ifukube
Featurette detailing Godzilla’s photographic effects, introduced by special effects director Koichi Kawakita and special effects photographer Motoyoshi Tomioka
New interview with Japanese-film critic Tadao Sato
The Unluckiest Dragon, an illustrated audio essay featuring historian Greg Pflugfelder describing the tragic fate of the fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryu Maru, a real-life event that inspired Godzilla
Trailers for Godzilla and Godzilla, King of the Monsters
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic J. Hoberman.
Kalat's commentaries are rather chatty and personal but they have a lot of information and history on the films. The interviews and featurettes are good. You can learn more about the Lucky Dragon #5 and their encounter with the H-Bomb. The interview with Tadao Sato helps remind us of the importance of the original Godzilla film and the big guy's relevance today. I haven't read the essay yet. For those that like the big guy from Japan, or want to learn more about him, the set is a nice addition to your sf collection. Well worth picking up.
Gamera Vs Zigra is a 1971 Japanese monster movie that was released in Japan as Gamera versus Deep Sea Monster Zigra. It's the 7th Gamera movie in the original series of 8. It was one of the 5 Gamera movies that were released by Sandy Frank and that version was used in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. As the movie opens a spaceship attacks the moonbase. There are some mighty explosions. The spaceship heads for earth where it beams a rowboat up to the ship. It contains a couple of annoying kids, especially that Helen, and the kid's fathers. The humans meet a woman who looks Japanese and a shark like monster on a shelf. The aliens explain that they are a superior race that have damaged their planet so well they have to move out. The earth looks like the perfect spot for them to settle. Oceans aren't too polluted and the humans will make good slaves and snacks. She uses her fancy spaceship to show off the power of Zigra by creating an earthquake. The fathers react and they are frozen with a snap of the aliens gal's fingers. The kids escape, taking their fathers, and return to earth. Gamera shows up and makes sure they get safely to land. The Zigra creature sends the woman after them with orders to kill those kids. The military attacks the spaceship but they are destroyed easily. The alien gal is on earth and looking for the kids. They easily outwit her and she gets captured by the authorities. They find out she's really a gal from the moonbase. She was put under hypnotic control by the Zigra creature. She helps them fight back. Gamera battles the spaceship which transforms into a giant version of the shark creature. Now we got some giant monster on monster action going. Gamera is disabled by the giant Zirga's
creatures ray and falls into the ocean. Like McGill from Man In A Suitcase Gamera gets knocked out at least once an episode. You don't want to have your hero be too great, so it makes sense to knock Gamera
out once in a while to make him seem more human. The fathers use their bathyscaph, with the annoying kids as stowaways, to attempt to wake Gamera and get him back into action. They are captured by giant monster Zigra before they can follow through on their plan. Luckily a handy bolt of lightning zaps the giant turtle and Gamera is back in the battle. The giant monsters fight until Zigra is a giant pile of ash. The movie looks the best I have ever seen it but that doesn't help what might be the dumbest of the Gamera movies. Especially when you watch the Sandy Frank version. The original Japanese movie is a bit better than that but those kids are annoying in any language. Like most older US versions of Japanese movies, the characters, especially those annoying kids, talk a lot more than they do in the original Japanese version. There isn't much good to be said about the script, definately dumbed down for the kids. The monster fights are mostly ok. The miniature scenery isn't too bad. Not a favorite, even after seeing it many times on MST3K.
There is a huge 9 year gap from the last movie to the 8th in the series. Gamera The Super Monster came out in 1980 and it would be the last of the Gamera films for 15 more years. It's a pretty sad mess of which the Wikipedia says a third of it's 92 minute length is made up of stock footage from previous Gamera movies. There are only 2 minutes of new Gamera footage. The movie even borrows the shape of the alien spaceship from the Empire's battleship that flies across the screen at the start of the first Star Wars movie. You can see it in the poster. That ship is filled with aliens who are attacking the earth with monsters. Gamera gets to fight all his old foes in that stock footage. There are some good aliens on the earth. That's them below. The characters pop in and out of their costumes with some fancy arm waving. The
one lady has a petshop which is where she meets the kid who has a connection to Gamera. The good aliens, the kid and Gamera eventually beat the invaders. Poor Gamera has to blow himself up to destroy their spaceship. It's sad that the series has come to an end with such a poor entry. The Daiei Motion Picture Company had gone bankrupt and been bought by another company. I guess they were trying to get some monster money. It didn't work and there weren't any more Gamera movies until the 1995 reboot. Like the previous these are more for the monster fan and even those guys aren't buying them all.
Gamera Vs Guiron is the 5th Gamera film in the original series of 8 from Daiei. It was released in Japan in March 1969 as Gamera vs. Devil Monster Guiron and a bit later as Attack Of The Monsters in the US. It was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Two young boys are watching the stars one night and they see a spaceship. The next morning they find the ship and climb aboard. After touching the controls the ship takes off and flies into space. They nearly hit a meteor but Gamera just happens by at the right time and helps them. He seems to be trying to stop them but the ship flies on and shortly lands on a planet. The boys leave the ship and see a Gyaos flying around. Another monster comes out of a secret hiding spot and attacks it. The boys meet the only two people left on the planet, those girls in tight fitting space suits, who tell them that the monster is Guiron and he's their last defense against the invading Gyaos race. The aliens live on a planet that revolves around our sun, exactly opposite our own Earth. The planet is dying on top of being attacked by the space Gyaos. The gals learn about Gamera and we see some clips from previous Gamera movies. The
boys brains tell the alien gals about how Gamera saves children. As it so often turns out the beautiful alien chicks turn out to be brain eaters. They plan to feed on the boys brains to gain their knowledge. They even have a fancy glass box to hold the boy still while they shave his head and cut his skull open. Luckily Gamera turns up and interrupts the process. The gals send Guiron after him. Gamera is defeated and knocked into a lake. The boys escape and are soon recaptured. The boys manage to release Guiron from his electronic controls. He attacks the girls ship and one of the girls is hurt. Rather than try to help the other gal kills her. Gamera recovers from his aquatic nap and attacks Guiron. There's a bit of a monster fight, some running about, followed by more monster action. The giant turtle, with the help of the boys, slices Guiron in two and the second alien gal is killed. The boys fly home in the ship which is held in Gamera's jaws. What a guy that turtle is, huh.
Gamera Vs Jiger was released in Japan March 1970 under the title Gamera versus Giant Demon Beast Jiger. It was released in the US as Gamera Vs Monster X. People are preparing for Expo70, the 1970 World's Fair, and one of the things going on display is a giant statue found on Wester Island. The local natives call it The Devil's Whistle and try to stop it's removal. No one ever listens to local natives so the statue gets pulled out of the ground by a team of helicopters. Gamera shows up and tries to stop it but they fire on him. Jiger shows up soon after and he and Gamera fight. Jiger shoots arrows out his tusks and they incapacitate Gamera for a while. Jiger goes looking for The Devil's Whistle and there's plenty of destruction as he plows his way through a ship and then the city of Osaka. The army fights back but it's a loosing battle. Jiger has a death ray, one that eats the flesh off of soldiers and vanishes building. It's also got a stinger that lays an egg in Gamera who turns an awful color and falls into the water. The two boys who play the leads have to take a mini-submarine to Gamera to save him. Inside Gamera they fight, and kill, a baby Jiger with static from their radio. Upon returning to the surface they tell the scientists of this new weapon and the scientists set up speakers to keep mama Jiger in one place. The boys have to return to Gamera's innards to attach cables to his heart so they can jump start the giant turtle. Revived Gamera takes up with Jiger and they battle to the death. I bet you know who comes out ok at the end, huh.
Both are fun enough to get a laugh from and there's a bit of destruction and monster on monster battle action. Neither are great but the Japanese versions are better than the US dubbed versions by far. GVG scores a 3.7 on the IMDb but it's a bit better than that. I'm sure it's mostly caused by the poorly dubbed US version. GVJ does better at 5.7. I thought I enjoyed GVJ better than GVG but I haven't seen the US version of GVJ as often as I had the US version of GVG which I'd seen repeatedly on MST3K. Again these are more for the monster movie fan.
Latitude Zerois a 1969 Toho film called 緯度0大作戦 Ido zero daisakusen. It was directed by Ishirō Honda with music by Akira Ifukube. Special effects were by Eiji Tsuburaya who would pass away, shortly after the film was made, at age 69. The story was written by Ted Sherdeman and his script is based on his 1941 radio serial Latitude Zero. Ted wrote the 1954 giant ant movie Them! and several other movies I haven't seen. He wrote plenty of episodes for TV, shows that I might actually have seen, like Wagon Train, Hazel and The Flying Nun.There was additional dialog by Warren Lewis and Shinichi Sekizawa. It was a co-production between Toho and National General Pictures of the US. It was shot in Japan and in English. The Japanese actors have to speak English the best they could and they don't get too many lines. The Japanese version is the dubbed one this time. The US version is 16 minutes longer than the 89 minute Japanese version. Both versions are in the 2 disc Tokyo Shock dvd set which seems to be out of print already. There is a third dvd stuck in the package. It's got a bunch of trailers for movies that Tokyo Shock has out.
Joseph Cotten, Cesar Romero, Akira Takarada, Masumi Okada, Richard Jaeckel, Patricia Medina, and Akihiko Hirata are the main characters. Richard, Akira and Masumi are in a bathysphere doing research on ocean currents when an undersea volcano causes their tether to snap. They are rescued by Joseph Cotton, who like Captain Nemo before him, has a fancy ass submarine and a secret undersea base. He's been collecting scientists of the world to create a thinking man's utopia. Turns out Joseph is 204 years old and his mortal enemy Cesar Romero is a year younger. They've been battling for over a century. Cesar has his own secret base where he experiments on things like grafting eagle wings onto lions and creating human size rats and bat men. He's a real dick but Patricia likes him until he stabs her to death accidentally near the end of the movie. In real life Patricia was married to Joseph Cotten at the time the movie was made.
Cesar steals a scientist and his daughter, that's them with the bat men, and takes them to his base at Blood Rock. Cesar wants the doctor's immunization formula and he'll torture them for it. As a reward for failing Caser puts the brain of his submarine's captain into the flying lion. All she wanted to do was serve him and get a bit of a jump now and then; now she's a flying lion. When she gets the chance she destroys Cesar and his sub. There's plenty of story between the opening scenes and the end of the movie and it ends with the good guys pretty much ok. Akira and Masumi decide to stay at Latitude Zero with Joseph and that hot doctor lady played by Linda Haynes. Richard heads back to the outside world. No one believes him of course, his pictures are all ruined, but someone deposited a bunch of diamonds in his bamk so he'll be ok. I would have stayed. I've been in the outside world and it sure can suck. It's not a great movie but this mix of western and eastern film making proves to be fairly entertaining. I give it higher points for being quite goofy. The ships, props, serts and costumes are all great and/or silly. They had a larger budget than some of the other Japanese monster movies of the time and it shows. It's worth a look but it might be harder than usual to see it. That's the movie biz.
My second feature this morning is the 1970 Toho production Gezora, Ganime, Kamoeba: Decisive Battle! Giant Monsters of the South Seas ゲゾラ・ガニメ・カメーバ 決戦! 南海の大怪獣 Gezora Ganime Kameba Kessen! Nankai no Kaijuu. It's called Space Amoeba on the Tokyo Shock dvd that's out in the US where it's also known as Yog: Monster From Space. It's directed by Ishiro Honda and has music by Akira Ifukube. A space probe gets a sparkly blue space critter on it and the thing directs the ship back to earth. There it takes over a cuttle fish which grows to enormous size. It can attack ships, it's that big. It attacks an island and the people there fight back. They burn it and drive it into the sea where it dies. The space blob isn't done though and it takes over a rock crab and grows really large fairly quickly. The people it attacks lure it into a pit and blow it up. The space amoeba escapes once again and this time takes over two more monsters. The humans notice the creature is sensative to sound waves and they break the space amoeba's control long enough to kill them by triggering a volcano. Even with all that it's not one of my favorites. It's totally watchable but there are more fun ones. Everything is a repeat of what you'd seen in dozens of other movies from the same place. More for the fan of the giant monster flic.
The War of the Gargantuasis a 1966 Toho film that was released in Japan as Frankenstein's Monsters: Sanda versus Gaira フランケンシュタインの怪獣 サンダ対ガイラ Furankenshutain no Kaijū: Sanda tai Gaira. It's sort of a sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World. Ishiro Honda directs and co-wrote the script with Takeshi Kimura. Eiji Tsuburaya heads up the special effects team and Akira Ifukube creates the music. I have a copy on dvd from Classic Media. It comes in that 2 movie pack with Rodan. As the movie opens a small ship is attacked by a giant octopus. The attack is interupted by a giant ape like critter who saves the men from the octopus. Then the giant ape critter sinks the ship. One surviving man is questioned by the police who just don't believe him. Russ Tamblyn and Kumi Mizuno are scientists. That's them below on the left. They were taking care of a baby gargantua 5 years earlier but it escaped. The authorities think it's now grown up and attacking ships in the sea. Russ and Kumi don't think that's the case and they try to find the one that escaped.
Soon enough they do find out that there are two of the critters. The brown one is the one they raised 5 years earlier and it doesn't attack people. We find out the green gargantua is the man eater when he snacks on some tourists. The brown gargantua pulls a tree out of the ground and beats the green guy with it. The scientists try to keep the army from attacking the brown gargantua but the army isn't listening. They feel they need to kill both creatures. The giant monsters get into Tokyo and there's a good bit of damage to the city as the brown and green guys battle it out. Not Godzilla level but still pretty good. The army pitches in and gets buildings tossed on them for their troubles. When the two monsters get into Tokyo Bay the army bombs them. That causes an underwater volcano to open. It sucks them out of sight. Here's a picture of the two guys who played the monsters. Haruo Nakajima played the green guy and Yu Sekida played the brown guy. I'm not sure which guy is which. Then there's a couple of pictures of Eiji Tsuburaya on the set coaching the monsters in the upcoming scenes.
Another movie that was fairly entertaining but not great. The monster costumes just aren't that convincing and they're probably the worst thing in the movie. Packing the movie with Rodan makes the dvd set worth having. Of course that's mostly for Rodan. TWOTG is presented in both the 88 minute Japanese version and the 92 minute US version.
The US edition of King Kong Escapes is all there is on the Universal dvd of the movie. I'm not sure why they I hadn't bothered to go find a Japanese version of the 1967 movie called King Kong's Counterattack キングコングの逆襲 or Kingu Kongu no Gyakushū. The Japanese version is 104 minutes and the US version is 96 minutes. Honda, Tsurburaya and Ifukubi all worked on the film. It was co-produced by Rankin-Bass who had a Saturday morning cartoon call The King Kong Show. I couldn't remember if I had seen it but this clip on YouTube reminds me that I had. Here's the US trailer for King Kong Escapes.
White haired Dr Hu has found some of the highly rare and highly radioactive Element X underground at the North Pole. He develops a mechanical King Kong to dig it out. It collapses from the radiation. When the doctor hears about the real King Kong living on Mondo Island he captures it and ships it to the North Pole. His hynotism didn't work as well as he hoped it would and King Kong escapes. Bet you saw that coming, huh. King Kong heads right to Tokyo for some reason. The Dr follows thinking he can catch Kong again. He pits his mechanical Kong against the real thing. There's some smashing and bashing and near by buildings all fall down. The beast from Mondo Island proves to be tougher than he looks. He holds his own with Mecha-Kong who eventually gets shut down. The evil Dr gets drowned while trying to escape in his ship. Kong return home to Mondo Island. The sets and the props and the scenerey are pretty good but the King Kong costume is so poor. They managed to re-use it for some other kaiju tv shows anyway. The crazy Dr Hu is the most entertaining character in the movie. He's a scumbag who kills anyone who opposed his plan. Nice see see him deep 6'd. Not my favorite of the Toho monster movies but it's still mostly fun to watch.
Atragon is a 1963 Toho picture about a super submarine and the lost continent of Mu. It's called 海底軍艦, Kaitei Gunkan or Undersea Warship in Japan. It's based on a series of Japanese adventure novels. It's directed by Ishirō Honda, written by Shinichi Sekizawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya and music by Akira Ifukube. The Mu empire has existed under the sea for the last 12,000 years. They have built a large and somewhat advanced society that now has designs on the surface world. A Japanese WWII Captain has been building his own super powered submarine in an isolated location since the end of the war. He wants to use it to restore the Japanese Empire. We follow some reports, police and spys around as mysterious things happen. The Captain's sub is revealed about the time the MU intentions become known and they use it to attack Mu. There's lots of destruction both on the surface and in the undersea kingdom. There's even a large dragon monster that looks pretty neat. The Muians have some dancing and singing along with colorful costumes and great big sets. The model work is pretty nice, which is amazing since the movie had three months from the time the script was turned in and the movie was released. They had to create everything and get it on film in a huge hurry and you can't tell for the most part. I'm watching the Tokyo Shock dvd that came out several years ago. I also have a fan subtitled widescreen version that came from Video Dakaiju. Before the TS dvd that was all you could get. The Tokyo Shock dvd has a nice widescreen print, Japanese and English audio and English subtitles. There's a commentary by chief assistant director Koji Kajita and a trailer. For some reason I've not liked this movie as much as I do some of the other Toho science fiction movies. I don't find the characters that likeable but it's still watchable and entertaining for the most part.
Now Matango is one of the Toho movies that is a favorite. This 1963 film is called マタンゴin Japan and is also known as Matango, Fungus of Terror or Attack of the Mushroom People. I had a bootleg vhs tape, then a bootleg dvd and finally I bought the Tokyo Shock dvd. It's directed by Ishirō Honda, written by Takeshi Kimura and the effects are by Eiji Tsuburaya with music by Sabeo Bekku. The screenplay is based on a William Hope Hodgson story called The Voice in the Night. We start the movie with a guy in a psych ward telling some doctors about the sailing trip where all his friends died. They were sailing and their boat is damaged during a storm. A few days later the boat drifts near an island and they go ashore. They explore the island and it's a really pretty place. They find a deserted ship that's covered with fungus. Maybe they can clean it up and sail away. They work a bit to clean it up and find some food. That food doesn't last too long. Strange things happen and tempers flare. They start fighting amongst themselves. Some start eating the mushrooms on the island and at first they're fine. Later they turn into mushroom people like the crew from the ship they found. It's pretty dark and bleak and highly entertaining. There's some nice scenery and the sets are great. Not everyone's cup of tea but worth seeing. The mushroom people are pretty goofy and they translate to toys well.
The 1961 Toho film Mothra, モスラ or Mosura,is on my tv this morning. I hadn't seen it in a while, at least since I picked up that Toho Collection 3 movie dvd set in 2009. I might have forgotten if I watched it between then and now, I've seen it so many times I've lost count. It's the first appearance of the giant but rather unattractive larva that would grow into the beautiful but deadly Mothra. There would be 14 more movies, some tv work and plenty of video games. Not to mention toys. All those toys. The 1961 movie is directed by Ishirō Honda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya and screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa. They'd work together on several more movies. The movie opens with a ship struggling to stay afloat in a bad storm. They are near Infant Island when they go down. Someone rescues them and since the area is home to Atom Bomb tests by the fictitious Rolisican government they are sent to see some doctors and scientists. Oddly they suffer no radiation and appear healthy. They mention some natives gave them some berries. The scientists are puzzled since the islands there are supposed to be uninhabited.
A joint Japanese and Rolisican expedition of scientists heads for the island. On board is a greedy and crooked Rolisican man named Nelson. When the Mothra girls are discovered they pass along the message that they don't want any atomic testing on their island. The group agrees and leaves. Nelson returns and kidnaps the Mothra girls. Angered, the natives attack but his gang has machine guns and they escape with the girls. Nelson plans to put the Mothra girls on display for cash and in their first preformance the girls sing the Mothra song and alll those Humba humbas cause the Mothra egg to hatch. The larva leaves Infant Island and swims for Tokyo> Some damage ensues, at least until the larva cocoons up in the ruins of the Tokyo Tower and becomes a butterfly. Things get too hot for Nelson and he heads for his homeland with Mothra flying not too far behind. Massive damage to the Rolisican city of New Kirk follows. Eventually the girls and Mothra are united and they head back for their island paradise. I suppose the only people who benefit from giant monsters are the people who get the contracts to rebuild the damaged buildings. It's a highly entertaining movie, lots of different things going on, plenty of great scenery and beautiful colors with a healthy bit of collateral damage. Nice music too. It's one of my favorite of the Japanese monster movies.
Next up is 妖星ゴラス Yosei Gorasuor Calamity Star Gorath. The 1962 movie was called Gorath in the US and the company that released The Human Vapor released this on a double bill. They went out of business in 1969 and another company bought the films to show on tv. I haven't seen the US version that I know of. I have a dvdr I made from the Video Dakaiju VHS tape that I bought several years back. Neither version has a dvd release in the US, other than bootlegs.
The Japanese space program sends a manned space ship to Saturn but before it arrives at the ringed planet it gets sent to investigate the fiery planet Gorath. The planet has a mass that makes it really heavy and it's also on a collision course with the Earth. The space ship is caught in the pull of Gorath's gravity and plunges into the surface of the planet. Everyone is sad for a while but they carry on and a second ship is sent to Gorath to investigate. On earth the scientists are building a series of giant rocket engines in the south pole to push the Earth out of Gorath's path. The space ship returns. Even though it's a straight up science fiction story we can't be too long without a monster. A giant walrus attacks the rocket engine site but it's soon killed. That walrus attack is the only scene that gets cut for the US version. The Earth gets saved and the people plan to rebuild an even better Tokyo. Sounds like someone's getting a nicer, fatter building contract than they thought they were. It's a fairly decent SF film that you might not be able to take too seriously but I still find it entertaining. There's a lot of space stuff, action on the ground and near death for the whole world. Someday maybe it will turn up in the US and I can get a copy. You can find it as a bootleg on the internet if you go looking.
Battle In Outer Space is a 1959 Japanese movie from Toho Studios. It was released in Japan as 宇宙大戦争 Uchū Daisensō or literally The Great Space War. I've got a copy that came in a three movie package called the Toho Collection which also contains copies of Mothra and The H-Man. It comes with both a Japanese version and an English version of the film. They run the same length. I had a bootleg from Video DaKaiju before I got the Toho Collection. I'm keeping it for the different translation. BIOS was directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, and the music was written by composer Akira Ifukube. These men are like the ancient gods of Japanese monster and science fiction cinema. It's a nice simple plot, some aliens are attacking the earth from their base on the Moon. First the space station is blown up by some space fighters, then the Earth is attacked with plenty of buildings getting damaged. The Earthmen band together and create a powerful weapon to take the battle to the moon. It's a big fight and many die but the aliens are finally beaten. There's plenty of action in space, on the Earth, and on the Moon. There's a few slow moments and some goofy science but for the most part it's a fun and entertaining film with pretty good effects. It's a nice widescreen print that's so clear you can see many of the wires that hold things up. It doesn't bother me, the story is still fun to watch.
The Human Vapor is a 1960 film that was released there under the title ガス人間第一号Gasu Ningen dai Ichigo or Gas Person No. 1. I'm highly entertained by the way they title movies in Japan. Was there going to be a gas person no. 2? I didn't even have a copy until last week. I couldn't remember having seen it before and it's not listed on my list of movies watched. I had to borrow a bootleg dvd and make a copy for me to have. It's not out here in the US on dvd. There was a VHS tape ages ago which is where the version I watched comes from. The US version is re-edited, it moves a mid-movie interview with Mizuno, the Human Vapor, to the start of the film. This turns the whole first half of the movie into a flashback. In either version the police arrive and the movie continues in real time until the end. It's directed by Ishiro Honda and the effects were done by Eiji Tsuburaya. Mizuno takes part in an experiment that turns him into vapor. He can turn solid byhis own will. He wasn't expecting that and the doctor who tells him he wasn't his first bad accident but hey, he did survive and the others didn't. Mizuno kills the doctor and you can see why. He might have been better off going to the cops and turning the doctor in but he wasn't thinking that and the deed is done. At least he didn't leave any fingerprints. Mizuno has a deep passion for a Kabuki dancer. He steals millions of Yen from banks so he can fund a preformance of her art. The police arrest the dancer because she passes money from the banks that were robbed. They eventally figure it out that it's not her and they use her to try to trap the HV. But what can they do against a guy who can turn into smoke or mist. Turns out not much. They try shooting him but he's vapor. It's kind of a sad story with little good happening to everyone around Mizune after he turns to smoke. The movie ends with Mizune narrating that he can't die and he has to be vapor for all eternity. Too bad this isn't out in the US, it would be nice to see a good widescreen version. I should order up a Video Dakaiju catalog and see if they have the Japanese version sometime.
I'm back to watching all the Toho monster and SF movies that I didn't get to when I was on that Godzilla binge some time ago. I was so drunk on the big G that I forgot when it was. Luckily I have a blog, and a spreadsheet, to keep track of my memory. Now if only I wasn't too lazy to open that file. I have the Classic Media version of Rodan which comes in a two pack with War Of The Gargantuas. They both come with Japanese and US versions. I also have a Video Dakaiju fansub vhs tape that I copied to a DVDR. It looks pretty poor compared to the CM dvd but I'm keeping it for the different translation.
Sora no Daikaijū Radon空の大怪獣 ラドン or Radon, Giant Monster From The Sky came out in December 1956 and it not only introduced a new monster to the kaiju scene but it did it in color for the first time. There's no Godzilla but don't worry the two will tear up some scenery later. In the US the movie was called Rodan! The Flying Monster when the King Brothers first released it in August of 1957, later it was shortened to Rodan! It was directed by Ishirô Honda who directed some of the better kaiju movies. The special effects are done by Eiji Tsuburaya, a guy who did some of the better Japanese monster film effects. The Japanese version runs about 82 minutes and the US version runs 72-74 minutes.
The beginning of the movie has become my favorite part of the film. I enjoy the day to day of the miners going down into the coal mine near their small village. A couple of men get into a fight starting their shift. The fight gets broken up, they get yelled at and sent off to work. Everything goes along well and then there's a call to the office. One of the shafts is flooded and two men are missing. Shigeru, an engineer, goes down the tunnel with a couple of other men. They find one of the men, dead, floating in the black water. First they think it was murder. The dead man was one of the two guys fighting that morning. His opponent is missing and believed to be in the tunnel. They bring the body out and that creates quite the hub bub amongst the villagers. That evening a small monster appears and there's a lot of running around and gun shooting. More of the creatures appear and people are killed. Scientists, press and police all show up. The little critters are identified as some sort of prehistoric bug. Shigeru gets trapped in the mine and finds a giant egg. Rodan pops out and Shigeru escapes but looses his memory. He's found, all confused. Before he can regain his memory, and warn people about the giant monster, Rodan makes his appearance. The city is attacked by Rodan who is joined by a second creature. Both escape but the military find them on Mount Aso. The militay bombs a volcano into existence. The eruption catches one beast and knocks it into the fiery lava. The other tries to escape, but weakened, it gives up and falls into the lava with the first one. The humans watch as the creatures burn, shrieking and twisting in the molten material. The military are all business but the scientists and miners are sort of sad. I understand. It is kind of sad watching them die like that but there is little room for monsters on the earth. Especially people eatin' monsters. Sometimes it's hard being a monster and I can't help rooting for them. I wouldn't like them so much if they were real.
Here are a few tall posters.
Here's the trailer.
Here are some lobby cards.
A movie well worth a look, even for those less inclined to watch a monster movie. The earliest batch of Toho movies are some of the better ones but I might be biased. I enjoy it as much as my favorite Godzilla films. I enjoy the production and the characters. It moves along fairly briskly and it's nice and short.
The Japanese title of The Mysterians is Chikyū Bōeigun地球防衛軍 or literally Earth Defense Force. It's a 1957 film which Americans saw in 1959. It's directed byIshirô Honda and the special effects are done by Eiji Tsuburaya. While it doesn't have any kaiju monsters in it there's a giant robot which is the handy work of some invading aliens. Those pesky space visitors would become a recurring theme at Toho as they continued to make Science Fiction films over the years. People seem to like 'em. I know I do. That's the Tokyo Shock dvd that came out in 2005. It has a nice print with a Japanese language audio track and a new English audio track. It doesn't have the original US dub version because Toho doesn't own that anymore. I also have a Video DaKaiju VHS tape bootleg that I transfered to DVDR a while back. It doesn't look that great but like Rodan it has different subtitles.
The aliens come from the now gone 5th planet in our solar system. One earth scientist calls it Mysteroid. When it was destroyed a long time ago, some of the inhabitents escaped to live on Mars. They are having fertility problems and some of their citizens are born deformed. They need some gals to help build back their race. They aren't satisfied to pick up some local ladies at a bar like any other traveller, no, they want some specific gals and they have already kidnapped three of them. What dicks, huh. That causes a stink. The aliens have a giant robot that they use to trash some buildings and stuff to show how tough their science is. They don't expect their request to be ignored. Sadly they don't get their way. The earth men fight back, over and over, until the enemy is defeated.
I find most of the movie entertaining and occasionally kind of exciting. There are a lot of characters and they all have some bit of story. There are explosions and buildings get shredded. The battle scenes in the last half of the movie go on a bit long at times. The costumes and the sets of the invaders are pretty colorful, very manga influenced. The giant Moguera robot is kind of cool in a clunky retro way. The aliens have style, it's just goofy style. I picked up this dvd a little while after it came out and I've watched it a few times. I'm sure I'll watch it a few more times. There's a sequel called Battle In Outer Space which I'll get to in a couple of weeks. I'm going through these chronologically which I haven't done before.
