Shinkaijû Reigô

While the special effects are not ILM quality, they are better than in many similar indie films. It is not, however, the special effects that drive the film, but the characters. Stylistically, most of the film is straightforward in its presentation, but the the film rides above a standard kaiju effort when it draws upon the conventions of kabuki theater.

First off this film has a lot of heart and you could tell they tried as best as they could with what little they were offered on this budget. I think the best part of the film is the script. The design of Reigo is awesome. The CGI is definitely my least favorite part though. Overall I didn't think this movie was bad but it's not going to be the talk of the town. I decided not to take points away for the CGI because I feel like this film did the best they could with what little money they had for the CGI. The other things about this film exceeded my expectations. If you're a dedicated Kaiju fan then check this film out but if you're just a casual fan this might not be the film for you. Overall I enjoyed my time watching this movie.

In this low-budget daikaiju adventure, ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy, including the battleship Yamato, face off against a number of monstrous sea-beasts including the titular aquatic 'dragon'. At this level of production, the old suit-mation techniques and miniatures look better than CGI. Most of the images of the Reigo and its entourage are blurry or supersaturated (when clear, the creature usually looks like a toy although the 'eye shots' are quite effective), and the animation of the ocean surface and of the various ships in the flotilla is not much better. There are couple effective images of the Yamato but for the most part the rendering of the ships looks more like a videogame than a 'feature film'. The scenes onboard the Yamato are generally unconvincing (you get the impression that a crew of three men can fire the battleship's 18 inch guns) and the actor playing the young 'Captain' needed a hair-cut before donning a navel uniform (as did the lead actor, Taiyo Sugiura). The cryptic and overly-long kabuki-themed epilogue was lost on me. Made by independent filmmaker (and kaiju fan) Shinpei Hayashiya, the cast includes Susumu Kurobe and Yukijiro Hotaru, both of whom have appeared in Godzilla films (Kurobe as far back as the first Ghidorah film in 1964). All in all, Reigo is one step below 'The Asylum' direct to cable sci-fi/monster films, but if you are willing to sit through one of those, you may enjoy this bargain-bin tribute to classic daikaiju films.

No, not PS2, PSOne special effects! The actors are playing it serious, so doesn't seem they were trying to go "The Asylum" route , but why oh why didn't they go with suitmation/model ships? As is, there's no way to take this movie seriously.

It's hard to hate this movie, yet it's difficult to sit through it. This might have worked as a super campy low budget Godzilla rip-off, but the movie plays it completely straight and tries to be a dramatic war movie. It can't keep up with this pretense with it's ultra-cheap sets and abysmal CGI effects. The plot is actually not bad, neither is the pacing and the performances, but it feels like an amateur movie pretending to be a blockbuster. This works great for the Asylum Mockbusters, but these have one vital ingredient, they are self-aware. Can't really recommend this to anyone.