A group of U.F.O. experts are assembled on a rooftop awaiting the signal from space, but it has been half an hour and there's still no sign of extreterrestrial life in the skies. The head of the group blames this on the presence of a researcher, Naoko Shindo (Yuriko Hoshi) whose agnosticism on the subject he believes has put them off appearing - but suddenly the cry goes up: something is out there. Shooting stars? Perhaps, but one of them is a meteorite that crashlands in the Japanese countryside. Could anything be inside it? And what is the connection to tonight's assassination attempt on the visiting Princess Salno (Akiko Wakabayashi)?
For a swift follow up to the moneymaking hit Godzilla vs Mothra earlier that year, a new monster was ordered and Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Many of the same team who had made the previous film such a success, including writer Shinichi Sekizawa and director Ishirô Honda, were reassembled for an effort that tried to go one better than simply having two giant monsters battling it out and had four of the big guys pitted against each other, although as it turned out, some needed more persuading than others.
In fact, considering this was a monster movie Honda and his cohorts definitely made you wait around for the creatures to feature. In the first hour we are awarded brief glimpses of the stars as they awaken or begin wreaking their havoc, but it's not until the last third that the destruction and wrangling really let loose. It can be quite frustrating to see, say, Rodan break out of his volcano or Godzilla surface from the ocean only to cut away at the crucial moment, just as you were expecting the mayhem to really get underway. There are compensations, however.
They arrive in the shape of an extremely over-involved plot that has the Princess we saw jumping out of a plane before it was blown up at the start of the movie reappear as a tomboyish prophet of doom. Claiming to hail from Venus, no less. Nobody believes her, but when Naoko's detective brother (Yosuke Natsuke) catches her photograph on the newspaper he recgonises her - but unfortunately so do the team of assassins who are out to bump her off for good. As Detective Shindo was supposed to be her bodyguard in the first place, he takes it upon himself to save the amnesiac Princess; however, Mothra's twin Princess assistants are in town for a television appearance and heed the apocalyptic warnings as all too likely.
The trappings of the Mothra movies are as charming as ever, but where this instalment really scores is in its humour. When the monsters finally get around to fighting there are hilarious scenes of Godzilla and Rodan effectively playing a game of tennis with a huge boulder, one heading, the other punching. Mothra is the one saying "Guys! Can't we all just get along?!" and persuading them to team up against the rampaging Ghidorah, with an endearingly ridiculous sequence of debate between the titans. Politics is the theme this time around, and how puttting aside differences to solve problems is the best course of action, but it's not laboured and the film can equally as easily be appreciated as a straight ahead monster bash. Eventually. Music by Akira Ifikube.
This was the first Godzilla movie I ever saw (on a TV double-bill with Destroy All Monsters) and I've loved it ever since. GMK: All-Monsters Attack is kind of a subtly disguised remake. You forgot to mention, in this movie Godzilla apparently swears in monster language! All we hear is one of the fairies saying: "Goodness, Godzilla, what language!"
Posted by:
Graeme Clark
Date:
26 Mar 2008
I noticed in the version I saw that Godzilla and Rodan are called "bastards!" by the detective for being so difficult with Mothra!
Posted by:
Andrew Pragasam
Date:
27 Mar 2008
We finally got to hear Godzilla talk in Godzilla vs. Gigan - which could've been livened up with some gratuitous swearing. Actually, you've seen Godzilla: Final Wars, so you know that the New York scene (where a cop tangles with some Superfly reject from the 70s) takes the award for most profane exchange in a Godzilla flick.
Posted by:
Graeme Clark
Date:
27 Mar 2008
Well, there's no excuse for that kind of language, I'm sure you'll agree. We don't all think it's clever to swear, Godzilla!
Posted by:
Butch Elliot
Date:
28 Mar 2008
I'm curious why writers on this site think so highly of Godzilla movies. Surely their childish plots and cheesy f/x show movie-making at its worst? Even the American remake was better.
Posted by:
Graeme Clark
Date:
28 Mar 2008
Childish plots and cheesy FX? You say that like it's a bad thing! Certainly Godzilla movies can be taken on a kitsch level, and that's no bad thing in itself, but they do have running themes that attempt to tackle the big issues, OK, not always successfully but their sincerity is what makes them endearing. And their spectacle is what makes them fun.
You can watch them on the level of Pro Wrestling, or you can enjoy the variety that an apparently limited idea can bring out. Movie making at its worst? Not even close! (Although I did quite enjoy the American Godzilla, it's a different beast really).
If you're genuinely curious, try a subtitled version of the original Godzilla movie (without Raymond Burr). You'll find that behind all the stomping of model buildings it's struggling with some harrowing issues that affected Japan in the post-war years. Seriously!
Posted by:
Stephanie Anderson
Date:
14 Jun 2011
The special effects for this are acrually better than the effects in many of the films. Better than the ones in Godzilla vs. Gigan, for sure, and my own Kaiju film.
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