Gappa, le descendant de Godzilla

If you like the Japanese Godzilla movies of the 60s and {especially}the 70s made by Toho Studios, than you're probably like this effort, a not totally successful but fun attempt by Shockiku Studios to get in on the act.

King Kong obviously inspired the early section of the film,but oddly enough the film mostly bases it's plot on the British 1961 monster movie Gorgo {itself a Godzilla imitation},with a baby monster captured by humans and it's angry parent wrecking havoc to get him back. However,unlike Gorgo's one vengeful parent,here we have both mum and dad monsters attacking poor Japan {one wonders why anyone still bothers to live there in these films,since it's always being destroyed by giant monster year after year}.

The film lacks the polish of the Toho films,with the miniatures lacking in detail and some rather drab photography and poor editing. Music is mediocre although the two songs {only in the subtitled version}are memorable for the wrong reasons. However,the family Gappa are uniquely weird monsters,the action is pretty continuous after the first half an hour and the final reunion scene involving the monsters is touching. There are some amusing touches which gently mock the genre. Feminists be warned though-the end scene where the human heroine realises her role in life will probably offend you greatly!

Hardly a classic of monster movies but silly and entertaining anyway. A good one to introduce young kids to the genre.

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

I was visiting this movie approximately in 1972, when communist allow us to see two or three Japanese "sci-fi" movies. In that time it has been for me something new, I've been a small boy, but I feel it is not good. But it has been from my lovely sci-fi section and now I bought a DVD and look at it with pleasure. There is so much mistakes... For example the rocket propulsion of that giant lizards, the fire from their mouths when they destroyed all military technology - tanks and aircraft, their bullet, bomb and rocket proof skin. The monsters can fly, walk and float under see, just one problem they have - they don't like high-frequency sound, so army can thrust their from the lake under Fuji. On the island, where from are the monsters are living the natives which are waiting tens generations for Japanese liberators, but almost all know the Japanese language! The end is beautiful and very sentimental - first and last time you can see a giant monster to cry:-)

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!

Move over Dr Strangelove; "Monster from a Prehistoric Planet" is the new satire in town. Okay, maybe my sarcasm is unjustified, Japanese satire is either too high brow for me or gets completely lost in translation. And its perfectly easy to loose anything in the atrocious dubbing kaiju films get plastered with.

If I'm kind I have to call it a parody of King Kong; as the film deals with an expedition force, who are trying to find exotic animals for a new theme park, stumbling across a mysterious island where the indigenous tribe (who look strangely similar to Japanese with coal on their faces) worship a god called Gappa. The expedition take a baby Gappa back to Japan, with the parents in hot pursuit. Cue the miniatures.

With the hideously handled love side story and the hilariously sentimental finale, I can only assume that this film was intended as tongue in cheek fare, and the satire label certainly confirms this. This aside however, the film is terrific by the standards of the time, with incredible amounts of destruction and very little time to breathe in between. Whether I'm missing the supposed hard-hitting social satire I don't really care; "Monster from a Prehistoric Planet" is a wonderfully extravagant example of monster films done properly, with a plot that doesn't dither amount and action that moves back to Japan pretty swiftly and doesn't let up from then on. The clichés are all over the place but this is hardly an issue, intentional or otherwise. Certainly, a kaiju film trying its hand at satire would be expected to be about as subtle as a ton of bricks, and with this in mind the film could have turned out a hell of a lot worse.

(To the elite, "Monster from a Prehistoric Planet" has a special appeal. The Gappas are the very same monsters that menaced Kryten and Rimmer on wax world in series 4 of Red Dwarf; and as Kryten observed, you've probably seen more convincing dinosaurs in a packet of "wheatie flakes")