Ataragon

This movie succeeds where many typical Japanese monster movies fail. The plot is thick and evolves into some sort of spy story about a renegade, long lost naval officer, whose daughter is in the custody of his former commanding officer who -in turn- has kept silent about him for 20 years. On top of that, some mysterious submarine empire wants to conquer earth, and demands that said lost officer be handed over, in addition to the latter's brainchild, a powerful submarine. The renegade is now assembling his submarine on a remote island with a garrison of left over soldiers & natives, hoping to win WWII in the 60's. Such submarine ( the 60'ish version of GOTENGO in final wars, again coming in the 70's Tsuburaya production "I-zenborg" ) is the last hope for humankind. The plot -as said- is unexpectedly solid, a cut above most monster movies, and adds drama and spy story in a credible fashion. Of course that's from the Godzilla crew, so we have to adjust our expectations period & genre-wise. Trademarks abound, EG the submarine invaders look like the "savages" on the Mothra island: they just wave spears & dance around pseudo-Egyptian monuments.Overall a cut above the usual man-in-suit smashing cartonbox miniatures movie and without too many bond movie cloned moments.

I remember seeing this movie as a preteen-ager at a drive-in in the early-mid 1960's. I watched it again years later on DVD and still found it entertaining. I would consider it a Japanese retelling of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

An eccentric ultra-patriotic World War II Japanese naval genius has built a super sub in secret to restore the glory of the World War II Japanese Empire. However a new enemy has now emerged; an aggressive underwater kingdom called Mu and it's giant monster god.

This is a good movie with a decent plot and some very attractive Japanese women! The bikini shot of Akemi Kita early in the movie definitely wins the award for "The Best Bikini in a Japanese Movie". The Captain's daughter and the Mu Empress definitely rate a 9+ on the "hotness" scale as well. ;)

This movie is classic TOHO made during the heyday of Japanese science fiction. Although the special effects doesn't stand up to today's standards, for it's time they were above average. I remember watching this movie as a kid and being mesmerized by it. The musical score is very good as well.

The American release DVD quality is excellent. It is dubbed in English and about 89 minutes long. The colors are rich and vibrant. A very good presentation for this very good movie.

Definitely worth a look. I recommend it.

Nothing particularly special, so don't have a lot to say, but it wasn't a bad watch. It involves another group of non-humans threatening to take over the world, there's some slow-moving parts in the first half, and there's a bit monster too (but you don't see it much).

It was directed by Ishiro Honda, who directed a number of classic early Godzilla films, including the original. He was always reliable when it came to non-Godzilla science-fiction/horror/adventure films, even if they don't quite live up to Godzilla, the gold standard.

The credits weren't translated but I could still tell the music was done by Akira Ifukube, who is as the main composer behind the Godzilla music for many years. It sounds pretty similar here, almost like Ifukube kept brushing up against familiar Godzilla themes, but I guess what's not really broken shouldn't be fixed too much.

This is a great kaiju movie from Toho Studios. Right off the beginning of this film, we see an already intriguing scene when a scientist gets kidnapped by a creature from under the sea. The suspense builds when the creatures reveal themselves to be habitants of the Undersea Kingdom of Mu, and that they have come to Earth to reclaim its land (of course the Earth people do not accept that, so it's the super-submarine Atragon to the rescue). The scenes where it show the origin and the places of the Mu Kingdom are very entertaining. We actually get to see what the Mu Kingdom looks like. The scene where the Mu people sing and dance and worship is a real charmer. For this movie, the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya are spectacular and the screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa is exciting, spellbinding, and full of suspense and drama. The plot is solid and perfect and Ishiro Honda's directing is superb. The music by Akira Ifukube is excellent and fantastic. The main title music is full of melody and harmony and is probably my favorite Akira Ifukube music score. And, virtually everybody is in this movie: Tadao Takashima, Yoko Fujiyama, Yu Fujiki, Ken Uehara, Jun Tazaki, Kenji Sahara, Hiroshi Koizumi, Yoshifumi Tajima, Akihiko Hirata, Eisei Amamoto, and Susumu Fujita.

The scenes where the Earth humans and the Mu people battle each other is inspiring. Manda, the giant sea serpent, is an awesome-looking monster. He is the protector of the Mu Kingdom. From the sounds of the worships, Manda seemed to be a powerful creature. However, he is actually pretty weak since he hardly put up a descent battle with Atragon, and he appeared only briefly throughout the entire movie. That was a disappointment - more scenes of Manda would have made this an even better feature. But overall, this film is a great one from Toho.

Grade B+

ATRAGON (1963, aka KAITEI GUNKAN) is a fun, fast paced sci-fi action thriller by the Japanese makers and stars of the Godzilla series. It seems the undersea kingdom of Mu wants to reclaim their rule on Earth. It's up to a plucky cheesecake photographer (Tadao Takashima) and a self-exiled WW2 Japanese Naval officer (Jun Tazaki) to stop them. There are laps of logic, which kind of add to the fun, and some well staged sequences. Film gets especially silly when the undersea Mu empire sends the Japanese Government an 8mm film explaining Mu's history and plans. This little film has optical titles, a narration, the works. Does this undersea kingdom have a film production unit complete with a film processing lab? Giddy fun here. ]