Chikyû kogeki meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan (1972)

Director:

Jun Fukuda

Writers:

Takeshi Kimura (story)
Shinichi Sekizawa (writer)

Release Date:

August 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Space Monsters War With Godzilla For The Earth!

Plot:

A man begins to suspect that something is wrong about his employers; meanwhile, Godzilla and Anguirus are alerted to something strange going on.

Plot Keywords:

Alien | King Ghidorah | Radar | Laser Beam | Insect

Cast

Hiroshi Ishikawa	...	Gengo Kotaka
Yuriko Hishimi	...	Tomoko Tomoe
Minoru Takashima	...	Shosaku Takasugi
Tomoko Umeda	...	Machiko Shima
Toshiaki Nishizawa	...	Kubota, Head of Children's Land
Zan Fujita	...	Fumio Sudo
Kunio Murai	...	Takashi Shima
Gen Shimizu	...	Commander of Defense Forces
Kurayoshi Nakamura	...	Priest (as Zeko Nakamura)
Kuniko Ashihara	...	Middle-Aged Woman
Akio Murata	...	Editor of Comics Magazine
Noritake Saito	...	Henchman
Yasuhiko Saijo	...	Henchman
Naoya Kusakawa	...	Henchman
Wataru Omae	...	Henchman

Also Known As:

Earth Assault Order: Godzilla vs. Gigan
Godzilla on Monster Island
Godzilla vs. Gigan
The Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan
War of the Monsters

MPAA:

Rated PG for sci-fi monster violence and some language.

Runtime:

89 min | Germany:80 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:G (original rating) | Australia:PG | UK:PG | West Germany:12 (nf) | USA:PG

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

This was the first film in which Godzilla actually drew blood. It first happens during the big battle later in the film when Gigan flies over past Godzilla and swipes his shoulder, and later, when Gigan repeatedly strikes a severely weakened Godzilla in his forehead.

Goofs:

Continuity: Due to stock footage from earlier movies being used, the sky often changes from day to night.

Quotes:

Tomoko Tomoe: [after giving Gengo a new job location] Now what's the matter?
Gengo Kotaka: [mutters] You're hard, bitch.
Tomoko Tomoe: What was that? Can you please say that again?
Gengo Kotaka: Oh no I won't. Not with you being a black belt in karate.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Gojira: Fainaru uôzu (2004)

Soundtrack:

Yuke! Yuke! Gojira

Pleasingly surreal, decently action-packed, but a bit flawed nonetheless

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?