Godzilla - O Rei dos Monstros

Struggling manga artist Gengo (Hiroshi Ishikawa) whose children's stories involving homework and stern mother monsters are consistently rejected by editors takes a job with the company designing the new monster theme park World Children's Land. When Gengo finds an audio tape dropped by a young woman named Machiko (Tomoko Umeda), he stumbles into a conspiracy that suggests World Children's Land may be a front for more insidious purposes involving the monsters of Monster Island.

After the divisive reception to Godzilla vs. Hedorah (it's hard to know how well it did financially due to scarcity of sources on that point) producer Tomoyuki Tanaka sought to bring the Godzilla series back where he felt it needed to be. With Godzilla still seen very much as cheap kiddie fare at the time, Tanaka devised a premise he felt would entice people back while also being cost effective by brining back fan favorite King Ghidorah who would fight Godzilla along a new monster. Supposedly made for $1.2 million the film was allegedly better attended than Godzilla vs. Hedorah and made $20 million when factoring in foreign exports. Godzilla vs. Gigan is less ambitious than its predecessor and is visibly fighting against its kiddified status and budget, but assuming you can forgive the slow buildup and indulgence of stock footage it can be reasonably entertaining.

As with the previous few Godzilla movies, the human characters are more here out of obligation than for providing anything interesting and while there aren't any prominent child characters here that same feeling of childishness that many later Showa entries have seen is here in spirit. Gengo's bumbling and stupidly on the nose monster drawings based on "what kids hate" to an absurdly literal degree isn't as charming as it thinks it is, and the supporting cast aren't much more developed aside from being "hippie-ish" archetypes who are very Scooby-Doo like in their presence here. Given producer Tomoyuki Tanaka's hatred for Godzilla vs. Hedorah it's rather ironic that he not only recycles footage from that film, but also parts of the message as it is somewhat glanced over when the big "reveal" comes which is disguised with the subtlety of Snidely Whiplash or Dick Dastardly.

So how is the monster action at least? Half-good and half-assed. Starting off with the half-assed portion: the series continues its gratuitous use of stock footage with action scenes for Ghidorah lifted wholesale from Destroy All Monsters and Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster most prominently, and the movie does little to disguise it aside from cheaply applying a day-for night filter on it. It's pretty clear that the Ghidorah effects they have now aren't as mobile and dynamic as the early ones with the presence of older footage next to new footage exacerbating that point. With that said the climactic fight in World Children's Land that features Godzilla and Angilus/Angirus vs. Ghidorah and Gigan is pretty fun with Gigan a pretty visually interesting monster that looks like a mixture of a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica, praying mantis, and bird of prey and the fights have some pretty bloody impact scenes at points.

Godzilla vs. Gigan doesn't reach the Showa era's heyday but it doesn't exactly embarrass itself either (questionably suit quality at this point notwithstanding). Godzilla vs. Gigan is a comfortably middle of the road entry that while it has its annoying bits mostly gets those out of the way early enough that the ending is a pretty good time.

Second only to Godzilla vs Hedorah in terms of weirdness, this Goji flick sees a bunch of aliens trying to conquer the earth using a children's theme park as their base. No, seriously. The bizarre theme of the film also shows in several other ways. The human characters are a bit of an oddball crew. No brave explorers, psychics or secret agents this time. Just a budding manga artist (who comes up with monsters and plots so daft not even Toho could take him seriously), his karate champion girlfriend, a funky hippy and some others. The aliens are their usual ludicrous and badly-dressed selves (they wear orange two-pieces with pink shirts underneath. Heaven help us) and their whole earth conquest plan is utterly ridiculous, of course. Something about an answering machine that can summon two monsters from space, probably. Thing is, all the silliness seems right in place this time, as the whole movie doesn't take itself seriously.

Other good points include Anguillas being quite active, music by good ol' Akira Ifukube, and new baddie Gigan, who really is rather groovy.

But for all that, there's plenty to dislike as well. Godzilla himself looks terribly messy in this film. Small bits of rubber are litterally falling off him during the fight. The rubber suit was in pretty poor state, apparently. It ends up looking as if Goji's suffering from kaiju-dandruff of some kind. Then there's the disappointing use of stock footage a go-go, which looks very lazy in some scenes. The scene where Anguillas pops up at Sagami bay and then blatantly -runs away- from the puny millitary without even smashing up one single thing is really shameful (and is probably the reason why Anguillas is often regarded as a bit of a wuss). Finally, the only really serious flaw is that the big battle at the end has a poor structure. Godzilla takes a huge beating for about fifteen whole minutes, then somehow decides that enough is enough and begins to kick back with some help from Anguillas (who did fairly little so far). But just then, after a few good smacks, the two nasty monsters just turn tail and run away. Booh. It's doubly disappointing when you consider that a battle between four monsters, Godzilla and Anguillas on one side, and Gigan and Ghidora on the other, could have been so much more, especially with such cool-looking nasties.

So that leaves a bad aftertaste, but this is still an interestingly strange and silly kaiju movie that should please die-hards of the genre, or people looking for something hilariously odd. Worth watching once, just for it being so loveably off-the-wall, but you can find lots better if you want quality kaiju action.

The pinnacle of freakiness has to be the scenes where Godzilla and Anguillas -talk- to each other. Not only do we hear some utterly ludicrous distorted voices, but both kaiju are also pretty poor conversationalists (especially Anguillas). Wonder what they talk about when there aren't any big, nasty aliens around?

"Godzilla vs. Gigan" is perhaps the best of the 1970s Godzilla films that was aimed for children. It's definitely the most fun and enjoyable. Not as good as the first couple of Godzilla films, but better than others.

What I mostly like about "Godzilla vs. Gigan" is the lengthy and very entertaining four-way monster battle at the end. It's very fun to watch and I never get tired of it. Not to mention that this film was the one that brought Gigan to life, and Gigan is one of my top favorite monsters. King Ghidorah and Angilas, and of course, Godzilla, were great in this one also.

The music score is also very good. I love the dramatic music score that plays when it looks like Godzilla's going to be killed by the laser beams. Also, the drum score when Godzilla and Angilas are heading to fight the enemy is great.

Overall, a good fun Godzilla flick. I'd recommend it.

I'm a massive fan of kaiju movies so I come to these films predisposed to like them. I've seen most of the original GODZILLA series and am attempting to fill in a few blanks; one of those is GODZILLA VS. GIGAN, a late-entry instalment that pits Godzilla and his old foe Anguirus against new space-monster Gigan and an old enemy, King Ghidorah.

GODZILLA VS. GIGAN is plenty of fun from beginning to end, and the formula for that success lies in having a human interest story that's just as entertaining as the monster stuff. This time around, a group of environmentalists and employees investigate the mysterious owners of a new Godzilla theme park, soon uncovering some dark secrets which inevitably throw Japan into peril.

Godzilla is on good form in what is one of the grisliest of the series (who knew you'd end up seeing a Japanese blood spray in a children's film?). Anguirus is my favourite kaiju monster, purely because he isn't capable of much and it's kind of sweet to watch him getting beaten on so much, so seeing him here was a delight. Gigan proves a deadly foe - especially with that saw! - and King Ghidorah is, well, King Ghidorah. You can't go wrong with that combo, and inevitably GODZILLA VS. GIGAN turns out to be a colourful, action-packed romp.

Godzilla and a giant alien chicken. Great stuff. It's back to the very basic for Godzilla after many were disappointed by the previous effort (I loved it). It kind of throws away everything Godzilla started as. Now we have a fairly kid friendly film, in which aliens design an amusement park in the hopes of controlling some of the monsters from monster island. Because giant monsters are the greatest way to attract families away from their mundane lives. A manga artist uncovers this bizarre plot and soon the aliens release their own monster, Gigan. Fun fights and frolics abound, even if these movies are getting rather crowded.