Godzilla VS Gigan (1972)
Produced and Released by: Toho Co. Ltd.
Director: Jun Fukuda
By BakuryuuTyranno

Godzilla VS Gigan Review

Firstly, I should mention that plans for this movie were made immediately after the previous movie, which introduced Hedorah. While that movie was unique, it was aimed at a considerably younger audience than the previous G Movies. As a result, most of the audience didn’t like it, which resulted in the movies for the following years having a lower budget, which caused them to rely on more stock footage.

This movie begins with a cartoonist, Gengo, who is trying to get a company to buy his idea. Unfortunately, the company didn’t like the idea because it involved a monster made from people’s homework. Gengo tries to explain that homework is what the children are most afraid of. Understandably, this isn’t what the company wants. Gengo later tells his girlfriend, who is a black belt in karate, about this, and after that he leaves to find someone else who is interested in his ideas.

They don’t mention these people’s names often enough. Anyway, Gengo can’t have had much motivation to find out what kids were most scared of, since the kids he asked obviously weren’t being completely serious. In addition to this, it isn’t obvious that his girlfriend actually is his girlfriend, probably because there aren’t many scenes with these two people speaking to each other. Also on the subject of the girlfriend, I couldn’t find any place where someone said her name, either in the movie’s audio track or in the subtitles.

Next he tries to find employment in a theme park with a tower that is designed to resemble Godzilla, where his potential boss is interested in his ideas, but keeps mentioning peace in very abstract ways. In addition, he plans to make a miniature model of Monster Island and then blow up Monster Island because he thinks the monsters are not “peaceful”. Later, Gengo and his girlfriend have a conversation about his job at this theme park. Gengo doesn’t particularly want to work in the theme park because he doesn’t like that the director keeps talking about peace, but his girlfriend tells him he doesn’t have many other options.

One very strange thing about this is that Gengo isn’t really bothered that his potential boss intends to destroy Monster Island. Apart from the fact that that’s very weird for a theme park, if the monsters on Monster Island die, then when King Ghidorah returns, he will be unopposed. On another note, this is set before ‘Destroy All Monsters’ and this appears to be an earlier version of Monster Island, because monsters appear to be able to simply leave whenever they want to. It’s later mentioned that there is at least some kind of security but it’s not very effective. After this, the girlfriend vanishes from the movie for the next 30 minutes or so.

While walking to work the next day (presumably the next day), a girl runs into Gengo and drops something and then runs. Several employees from the theme park ask Gengo where the girl went and he tells them she left in another direction because he doesn’t trust them. Later he meets someone who is supposed to be the chairman, but isn’t only about seventeen years old. This slightly confuses Gengo but the boy doesn’t have any idea why Gengo is slightly confused. The director informed the chairman that the girl escaped. They are disappointed but still gives Gengo abstract answers when he asks about the girl and the tape.

After leaving, the girl returns and asks about the tape. Gengo still doesn’t trust her and a man appears and uses an object that is supposed to resemble a gun against Gengo’s back, so he isn’t able to stop the girl from searching for the tape, but Gengo doesn’t have the tape. Gengo eventually passes out from fear and wakes up at the home of these people. They introduce themselves. The girl is Machiko and the man is Shosaku. They explain that weird things are happening at the “Godzilla tower” and the theme park it’s in, because Machiko’s brother, Takeshi, was acting strange. Takeshi found out something about the organization, but what he wrote only said that the tape was the answer. The tape is in a locker, because Gengo didn’t know who to trust. After he retrieves it, he, Machiko and Shosaku play the tape but it only emits weird noises. The people in the “Godzilla tower” find out that the tape is being played. On Monster Island, monsters are disturbed by the sounds of the tape.

At this point, strange things are beginning to happen. There is obviously something odd about this organization and these tapes. They people in the organization, who are by now know to have some connection with a ‘Nebula Space Hunter M’ have strange technology. I don’t understand how the sounds of their tapes would be heard over on Monster Island though.

Takeshi is being held in “Godzilla tower” by these people and their tapes are still not explained. Anguirus begins to travel through the ocean to reach Japan because of the strange sounds being heard on Monster Island. Gengo, Machiko and Shosaku begin trying to find out more information on this organization. It appears that they are people who don’t accept donations with any strings attached, so that they can use the donations for exactly what they want. Some of the people come from the same city, so Gengo and Shosaku travel to that city.

Why didn’t Gengo mention that the theme park people wanted to destroy Monster Island? Wanting to destroy Monster Island is very strange in itself, and it’s strange that Gengo doesn’t consider this information to be worth mentioning.

While this is happening, Anguirus arrives at the coastline, gets shot at repeatedly with no effect and decided to leave, possibly because he was bored of people trying to cause actual harm to him. Gengo and Shosaku find out that the boy who is the chairman is actually dead. What makes things more confusing is that the boy, when he was alive, wasn’t very bright, but the chairman is. However, a photograph of the boy reveals that he is the chairman.

Footage from several Toho movies is used here and the military have everything shoot at Anguirus with no real effect. Anguirus finds out nothing from this and I don’t know why the scene was needed. At once point several vehicles turn on bright lights, which seems pointless. From that short distance, the soldiers shouldn’t need lights in order to see Anguirus.

Considerably later that day, or late another day, Gengo finds the room Takeshi is being held in. The theme park organization director enters the room so Gengo tries to cover up his reason for being there, saying that he wanted to know what they thought of his designs. The director gives him some cigarettes when he leaves, but they are really a tracking device, which in turn enables the people from the theme park organization to find the location of Gengo, Machiko and Shosaku. The girlfriend soon reappears and beats up the director and two people of his followers, despite the fact that the other two people have very strange guns, which they don’t get the opportunity to fire. The director and his followers are forced out of the apartment. The four people in the apartment later try to inform the police about this, but the police don’t believe them.

It isn’t surprising that the police didn’t believe them. This series of scenes is also the first time in ages where Gengo being a cartoonist had any meaning to anyone, and the first time in ages when the girlfriend actually appears. The plot is moving along faster at this point.

Left with no other option, these people have to infiltrate Godzilla tower. Gengo and his girlfriend enter the building. Two people in the building are going to kill Takeshi, but they end up getting beaten up. Gengo, Takeshi and the girlfriend try to leave, but they are held hostage by the director and more of the people working for him. They reveal themselves to be cockroach-like aliens from Nebula Space Hunter M. They then send a signal that causes King Ghidorah and Gigan to fly to Earth. It is also announced at some point around here that Godzilla and Anguirus have left Monster Land.

Many G movies have short fight scenes early on. This doesn’t have those scenes, unless you count Anguirus getting attacked by the military. However, shortly following the arrival of the space monsters is a 40-minute scene that begins with the space monsters trying to destroy everything in Tokyo. In addition, a crystal-like object transforms into Gigan. As this is happening, it is engulfed by flames. However, it explodes outwards many times within roughly five seconds. Gigan is a very strange monster, due to having a red visor thing placed over his eyes, having large claw-like arms with no hands, and having a circular saw attached to his torso. Gigan can also fly despite the fact that there’s no obvious indication as to how he can fly. Gigan is supposed to be able to fire a laser beam but it never happens in any movie, or in the Zone Fighter episode he was in.

King Ghidorah and Gigan begin to attack the city. For some reason it's taking the military ages to reach Tokyo. Before this happened, they had heard King Ghidorah while he was in space, but they didn’t know where he would land, so there should be at least some forces in Tokyo. Anyway, Mobil Oil explodes yet again and a few other things are blown apart before the military finally arrive. Shosaku and Machiko place a balloon with a rope attached to it near the Godzilla tower and send it upwards. The people being held hostage open the window and secure the rope to the building. They then begin to use the rope to escape. Some of the Nebula Space Hunter M aliens find out about this and shoot the rope, but by this time they can’t stop the hostages from escaping.

It seems weird that they would just leave the hostages where they could escape through a window. I don’t understand why the aliens made that mistake or even why the window wasn’t locked. King Ghidorah’s part of this scene was good, but some parts with Gigan weren’t that good. A couple of times he uses his circular saw and takes ages to cut into a building with it. At another point, they showed the view of Gigan’s feet from the lowest floor on a building and it was extremely obvious that the people in it were action figures.

Eventually, the military actually arrive. They begin their assault, attempting to kill Gigan and King Ghidorah with everything they have. Gigan gets knocked to the ground by an attack from one of the maser cannons. King Ghidorah continues to melt a few takes and other things while Gigan insists on hiding behind trees. After a few minutes of King Ghidorah blasting vehicles apart, Gigan continues his attack on the city. Eventually some fighter jets attack Gigan and he destroys them with his claw hands. Gengo and the other people with him are trying to convince the military to raid Godzilla tower around this point. Shortly after this, Godzilla and Anguirus arrive. King Ghidorah and Gigan are attempting to draw Godzilla closer to the Godzilla tower, so that I can use its weapons to kill Godzilla.

Due to the budget problems, a lot of this scene is just footage from the first movie King Ghidorah appeared in. Gigan has no kind of long-ranged attach, which results in many, many aircraft flying very close to him so that he can actually do something by destroying them. When he destroys the last aircraft it is seen falling into the ocean.

Although King Ghidorah is my second favorite kaiju, I definitely prefer movies with a few smaller fights closer to the start and then a larger fight scene at the end to having one gigantic monster attack/fight scene that is almost the entire second half of the movie. I noticed footage from Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Destroy All Monsters in the fight scene. There was probably also footage from ‘Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster’, but if there was, I didn’t notice it because I am not familiar with that movie. A few strange things happen during this fight scene and while there’s no reason to spoil this fight scene by explaining everything that happens… Gigan gets shot down almost every time he attempts to fly, and at one point Gigan kicked a rock and it ended up coming back to hit him.

Overall, it was a good movie, although it had a lot of stock footage, and I may be slightly biased because King Ghidorah is in it. Rodan is my favorite kaiju and I would definitely have preferred if he was in the fight scene instead of Anguirus. On a final note, one thing that is slightly worrying is that when Godzilla fights King Ghidorah, the time often switches between being day and being night.

BakuryuuTyranno