Gappa, le descendant de Godzilla

My youngest picked this one out...after a couple of weeks of sitting through subtitled movies that he couldn't read through fast enough...

He said, "Dad, I want a monster movie that will make me laugh" and laugh my seven year old did. It was a cute movie with a cute trio of monsters. Couple that with a high-powered business man who flies off the handle for absolutely no reason and you've got Japanese monster GOLD, baby! Look for the same special effects as in the early Godzilla movies and the same dead subplots...but, the quality of this picture makes it fun to watch and make fun of...for example, they are inside a cave...where does the light come from? The "night" shots obviously shot in broad noon with a filter. Hilarious!

Long thought to be missing but.......here it is. (Apologies to the Ramones.)

This was a late comer to the U.S. video ranks because its script was hard to change to make it more 'American.' Japanese satire would be lost on anyone without a significant knowledge of the country. Most would see this as just another dude in a rubber suit burning Tokyo again.

The monster itself was a bit different. Like Godzilla and Rodan hybridized. The usual happens. Military comes...fails...but this guy knows the secret.

I have a Japanese video copy. It's the original version. But the DVD release was necessary. And the racist tag line never existed.

Nikkatsu Studio was one of the six largest movie studio in Japan at the time this movie was made, but due to the proliferation of TV sets, Japanese movie industry was in a steady economic decline. Kaijyu or giant monster movies were about the only franchise that were still making good money, and Nikkatsu made an attempt to jump in to this genre with this movie.

A Japanese expedition to the south pacific island unwittingly stumble onto a newly hatched baby triphibian reptile which the natives call "Gappa", and brings it back to Japan. A greedy publishing magnate, and an amusement park promoter notices a good thing when he sees one and decides to display the baby at his park. This didn't sit well with the parents of the baby reptile, and they show up in Japan to claim their kid. Rest is stereotypical giant monster mayhem.

This movie as far as I know is the only movie that features a complete family of giant monsters or "Kaijyu" ever to be shown together. It's also a first Triphibian monster that can walk, breathe underwater, and fly. The story is bit derivative where I can see little pieces off of Gorgo, Mothra, Godzilla, King Kong etc. and not very original, but the special effects in this movie is surprisingly good for a studio's first attempt. Gappa is not just an mindless monster, but actually seems to have intelligence behind their actions. This lowers the tension of the monster's character as an engine of destruction, and the movie carries on with bit of a bore, but the overall production is good, and ranks as an average giant monster movie. You get to see a very young Yoko Yamamoto playing the star in this movie. She's still acting after nearly 50 years since this movie was made, and amazingly, still beautiful in her roles.

A group of intrepid explorers is sent on an expedition to find exotic animals (and people) for a new theme park to be built by a magazine tycoon who also happens to publishes Playmate Magazine. Soon, the group lands on an island in the South Pacific, where they discover an isolated tribe of natives who worship a mysterious God named Gappa. When the land is ruptured by an earthquake, the explorers come upon a cavern containing a reptilian egg. They take it back to a Japanese research center, where the creature hatches and is studied by a group of not too bright scientists. Unfortunately, the parental Gappas show up to claim their newborn lizard, trashing most of Tokyo in the process.

I had a great time watching this piece of nonsense. Just about everything in this film is a complete riot. After a somewhat slow first half, the action is almost non-stop and there's plenty of stupendous dialog to keep you entertained. The production values consist mostly of hilariously cheap-looking scale models, the story and the acting are ridiculous and most of the characters are empty-headed idiots, especially for a group of scientists. The monster, Gappa, is a kind of bird-lizard, basically a ridiculous looking over-sized chicken. When it flies, it sounds like an airplane, but that's probably the result of a slip-up in the sound effects, because the creature gets attacked by fighter planes a couple of times.

Made by the Nikkatsu Studios to make a late cash-in on the success of Godzilla- and many other monster movies and - what I understand - it was also meant as a kind of satire on the monster movie craze. Well, that aspect of the film was a bit lost on me, or probably got lost in time or translation, but then, I'm hardly an expert on Japanese old-school kaiju-flicks.

Camera Obscura --- 6/10

If the plot seems a bit derivative, it was meant to. This was Nikkatsu studios first and only monster flick. It was produced strictly to cash-in at the height of the genre. The writers knew it had all been done before, so they took those cliches, and satirized them. Like the greedy entrepreneur, responsible for drawing the monster's parents to look for their baby. I like the extra touches, like the mother carrying an octopus in her mouth, (while stomping buildings) to feed her young. The effect scenes were shot at Eiji Tsuburaya's newly formed independent studio, which was producing the first UltraMan series at the time. Surprisingly, this film holds up very well, passing the test of time. Besides, these monsters show up only in one film. How many kaiju can you say that about ? This is also one of the few Japanese movies commercially available on video, widescreen and subtitled. Two appendages up !!!