Daikyojû Gappa

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.

Just wanted to comment on some of the other statements made by people on this board. First,yes the special effects do not look like todays..but I for one like the pre-CGI effects. The special effects people had to be much more inventive and creative in the pre CGI days. This movie doesn't have the great effects of some of the old monster movies such as the Ray Harryhausen(which are better than any CGI in my opinion)features and the Godzilla films,but it still makes pretty good use of miniature sets. Great movie for young kids or us older people who still remember what it was like watching these films as a child. I love watching these movies for nostalgic purposes as well. Sure it can be cheesy to some..but if you watch these films in the context that they were meant to be viewed..they can be very entertaining and enjoyable.

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.

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")

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 !!!