Title: Godzilla Vs. Gigan
Director: Jun FukudaReleased: 1972
Starring: Hiroshi Ishikawa, Yuriko Hisimi, Minoru Takashima, Tomoko Umeda, Toshiaki Nishizawa, Zan Fujita, Kunio Murai, Haruo Nakajima
Plot: Aliens disguising themselves as the creators of the
peace-themed theme park Children’s Land have kidnapped a top scientist as part
of their plan to take over the world. To ensure their plan goes through they
also lure the monsters Gigan and King Ghidorah to Earth via two “Action Signal
Tapes” which also lure Godzilla and Anguirus to the park and into a climatic
showdown to decide the fate of Earth.
Review: Time now for another of
my favourites, though like so many of films in the series the final film would
be very different from the original plans for this film which originally
started as a direct sequel to “Godzilla Vs. Hedorah”, a plan soon scrapped
after producer Tomoyuki Tanaka saw the results of that film, so much so that he
told director Yoshimitsu Banno that he had “ruined Godzilla” and subsequently banned
him from directing another Toho film again. With this in mind Banno was
unquestionably keen to get the series back on track and had planned to do this
with a script titled “Godzilla Vs. the Space Monsters: Earth Defence Directive”
which would include six monsters (a feat not attempted since the fantastic “Destroy
All Monsters”) and would have marked the first appearance of both Gigan and
Megalon alongside a third monster called Majin Tuol who would face off against
Godzilla, Rodan and Varan. This film would however never make it out of the
planning stages, despite an attempt to rework it into a new film titled “The
Return of King Ghidorah” the plans would ultimately fall through due to
budgeting issues.
Toho Studios never being one to waste a good idea would ultimately salvage parts of that script with this film being the end result, while Megalon would go on to get his own film with the woeful “Godzilla Vs. Megalon”. This film however being greeted with more mixed results with some of the fan base finding issue with some of the more random plot choices which included Godzilla and Anguirus talking. An idea which was either bad or really bad depending on if your watching the original version (speech bubbles) or the dubbed version (questionable voice acting) and while this only happens twice in the film it still irked a lot of fans, even though it would be miles better than the whole Godzilla flying insanity in “Godzilla Vs. Hedorah”.
At this point of the Showa era
the Godzilla franchise had firmly settled into its template of monster sized
smackdowns as Godzilla faced off against a roster of monsters as the defender
of Earth and here it certainly in this respect it doesn’t disappoint as not
only does the film feature four of my all-time favourite monsters, especially
with Anguirus who honestly they have yet to beat though both Gigan and Mecha-King
Ghidorah would come close. This matchup is only added to by the fact that this
is one of Godzilla’s toughest fights to date even with the backup he receives
from Anguirus.
It is as I mentioned in my previous review
noteworthy for also being one of the bloodiest as the film shows a level of
violence I’ve come to expect more from the “Gamera” series than Godzilla, but
while a lot of these scene are savage to watch, they thankfully never darken
the general tone of the film. This increase in gore though would be due to
Taruyoshi Nakano taking over from special effects legend Eiji Tsuburaya who had
been strongly opposed to exposing younger viewers to graphic images. Nakano
might have been stepping into big shoes when he took over from Tsuburaya
following his death but the special effects standard really doesn’t dip here,
even though Nakano was forced to work with a reduced budget, which was ultimately
worked around by through the extensive use of stock footage from the previous
films which while it might raise grumbles from some of the fans but honestly I
didn’t really notice it.
Outside of the monster fun, the
plotline is pretty simple with Cartoonist Gengo (Ishikawa) being hired as a
concept artist for the theme park only to soon suspect that his new employers
are not quite what they seem which being a Godzilla movie they aren’t and in
this case Giant shape shifting cockroaches. At the same time of all the alien
species which have featured in the series, they are hardly the most involved in
their plot seeing how they leave it down to Gigan and King Ghidorah to do most
of the work while they hide out in their Godzilla shaped tower complete with a
powerful laser cannon. It only makes sense then that their plan is also one of
the easiest to foil seeing how they are essentially beaten by a drawing.
Embodying the Showa era this film is a lot of film and the monster fight scenes more than carry the film and serves as one of the better examples of the era, despite being sandwiched between two of the weakest entries. True it might increase the violence and more notably the gore (both things which would be toned down again in the films which followed) but this film still has the same fun nature which defined the films of the Showa era even though it was one of the last films to be made in this era.
Next Time: Godzilla Vs. Biollante - With "The Return of Godzilla" having ushered in the Heisei era along with it a darker vision of Godzilla. Here he is no longer the protector of Earth but instead closer to the monstrous beast he originally was. Now in the second film of the era Godzilla finds himself facing off against his largest opponent to date aswell as one of the few female monsters in the Toho catalogue, the gigantic plant monster Biollante
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