Frankenstein Contra o Mundo

As a fan of the genre. I had the opportunity recently view this film. As a child I remembered watching this film during the days of "Afternoon Movie Theater" I believe that it was called at Channel 7? It was known as "Frankenstein Conquers the World" and it was quite entertaining. I was young and things of that nature would entertain me. Anyway, back to my review. The movie starts out with a very eerie tone accompanied by very chilling and memorable music, thanks to maestro of music, Akira Ifukube. I believe the score of this music was excellent which I believe help or even save the movie at times. The audience is presented with a World War II torn Germany who gives up Frankenstein's heart to the Japanese. After it's arrival in Japan for experiments, Hiroshima is destroyed by a A-bomb and shifts to present day in Japan. Helps the movie in the fact that gives off enough background information. Anyhow, the Frankestein's heart was supposedly eaten by a young boy who survived the destruction of Hiroshima. Scientist's find the boy for further experiments after he has committed criminal activities (eating dogs, rabbits, etc..)for his survival. The boy grows in a rapid pace and has to be placed in a larger cell for his own protection. He escapes and hides in the forest and hills of Japan. The second monster introduced and first appearance ever in the Kaiju genre is the ever popular, Baragon. He does his monster destruction and eventually meets up the overgrown and poorly designed Frankestein. Of course this is main attraction of this film. The fight scenes are pretty kool and enjoyable. I don't ever remember seeing two monsters going at it as much as this movie, maybe the exception of Baragon and Godzilla in "GMK: Giant Monsters All Out Attack". Sufficed it to say, Frankenstein wins out and kills Baragon surrounded by a forest of fire. I happen to watch the Japanese version where the Giant Octopus appears and engages in combat with Frankestein and eventually fell off the cliff, taking its entangled prey with him into the sea. A prequel to "The War of the Gargantuas"!! Although I've seen the "Americanized" version of this film with the ending deleted, an earthquake type scene. With the flames in the background, the land would open up and engulf both Baragon and Frankenstein to the bottom of the earth. I still prefer the Japanese version. Overall, very underrated and entertaining film. But, believe me, the score of the film is what gives an added punch. More like, destruction, despair and sadness with a touch of domination. If you're a fan of the Japanese Sci-Fi genre, I would view this one.

The legend of Frankenstein and his various adventures have been covered to a crazy degree over the years but right here we have horror legends Toho take a stab at it. Sadly it appears they weren't told very much before they wrote the screenplay.

Assisted once again by a US studio (Which has always been to their detriment) this tells the story of a young boy who is discovered and found to be growing at an incredible rate. Before they know it he's grown disastrously large and broken free of his constraints, just at the same time as a giant monster has appeared on a rampage as well.

You can immediately tell that it's a Toho film, from the sfx to the one bit of score they keep using or mildly remixing. Several of the usual faces are also present including Takashi Shimura who has a blink and you'll miss it role.

The storyline is actually more competently done than many of these Toho monster films but in its place the sfx are a tad worse. The creature effects and that of our Frankenstein are fine, but every once in a while you'll spot something so bad it should have got someones butt fired (I'm looking at you shifty Boar and awful Horse).

What drew the most ire from me were certain logistical issues. For example Frankenstein is of course the name of the Scientist who created the monster not the name of the monster itself. As the boy grows the clothes grow (Hulk style) and various other little things that bothered me more than they perhaps should.

It's more Toho monster cheese, if you like that stuff this will likely appeal otherwise you'll probably scratch your head in amazement just how ridiculous it all is.

The Good:

Fairly well made stuff

The Bad:

Takashi Shimura is wasted

Frequent logistical flaws

Some really poor sfx

This movie seems like a silly project on paper but the eventual movie is nevertheless still quite fun to watch.

This movie is a Japanese attempt to blend in the Frankenstein creature with the Japanese monster movie-genre. It's like Frankenstein meets Gojira, only the creature in this movie is named Baragon, who looks like a giant armadillo, or of course better said a guy in a rubber suits that looks like a giant armadillo.

It's all quite silly of course but yet the movie works on a certain level of entertainment. You could basically say that this movie is just as good and fun to watch as basically any other Japanese monster movie from about the same time period.

You could tell that in the first halve of the movie they somewhat tried to remain faithful to the Frankenstein movie. They also tried to give the character a heart and let him struggle with the same emotions and difficulties the character has always struggled with in the Mary Shelley novel and all of the Frankenstein movies and tried to make the movie somewhat intelligent and scientific. It's not like it ever works out well enough or becomes believable but this is mostly because they did not go all the way with it. After all, it seemed more important for them to make a monster movie, so here we have a Frankenstein creature that suddenly starts to grow 4 times his normal size and battles Baragon, a prehistoric creature from the depths of the Earth, who has been awakened by oil drillers.

Therefore the lovers of these Japanese monster movies will be the ones to most likely enjoy this movie. It all builds up to its obvious ending, in which the Frankenstein creature battles the man in the rubber suit. The fight is literally laughable to watch but this is of course also part of the charm of movies such as this one.

It's all pretty silly but it was fun to watch!

6/10

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A weird film with Nazis storming Dr. Frankenstein's lab and taking the heart of Frankenstein's monster to Hiroshima in 1945. What could happen but the Hiroshima blast. 20 years later eats the radioactive heart and literally becomes Frankenstein's monster. He eats a dog, a classroom bunny, and lots of garbage. He then starts growing and growing intill he is a 100 foot tall caveman Frankenstein and deuls with this bunny-eared dinosaur named Baragon in a fight to the death. Weird and very Japanese.

This is one of the more entertaining (and yet still bonkers) Toho monster rallies and at some points you can actually feel your grip on sanity beginning to weaken. Like many Frankenstein movies you do feel a certain amount of sympathy for the monster (not Baragon though, who looks like he escaped from a toy shop) and actually wish he would deliver a massive ass-kicking to the immaculately dressed, white gloved troops who are shooting at him. Baragon spitting feathers and the pig-on-rails scenes alone are worth the admission price. The sheer lunacy of this movie even exceeds that of King Kong Lives! Sadly the best scene is missing: the one in which Nick Adams' agent persuaded him to turn up for this particular engagement.