[HorrorScience] Godzilla's Revenge (1969)

Reading time: 7 minutes

Qualification

Gojira-Minira-Gabara: Ōru Kaijū Daishingeki

Year

1969

Duration

69 minutes

Director

Ishiro Honda

Repat

Tomonori Yazaki, Kenji Sahara, Eisei Amamoto, Hidemi Ito, Junichi Ito, Sachio Sakai, Kazuo Suzuki, Little Man Machan, Haruo Nakajima, Yasuhiko Kakuko, Yukiko Mori, Yoshito Miyata

Script

Shinichi Sekizawa

Today I am going to talk about the tenth episode of the classic Godzilla stage (known as Showa).

If we recap a little we will see that most of the Godzilla movies (and other Toho monsters) were directed by Ishiro Honda. Behind him, Jun Fukuda He was the director who made the most films of the Showa period.

Honda and Fukuda are two totally different people in more ways than one and it shows in many of their films. Honda began the saga in a masterful way and despite some stumbles (King Kong VS Godzilla) maintained a fairly high (or decent) level within the Godzilla saga. Fukuda arrived when decadence had already taken hold of the Japanese saurian and did what he could, but the budget (ever shrinking) and the obligation to attract children to fill the cinemas and keep them away from the turtle Gamera, marked his films irremediably.

Honda returned to lead Destroy All Monsters, the film before this, where he brought together almost all of Toho's monsters to make a very striking feature film (although worse than some of his other works) and after that, the director decided to make this film, designed for a children's audience.

Gojira-Minira-Gabara: Ōru Kaijū Daishingeki, known in Spanish as monster island and in English like All Monsters Attack either Godzilla's Revenge It is the result of your idea about make a movie where the monsters are something imaginary and the low-budget policies that were followed at that time in the Godzilla series.

The story begins by showing us our protagonist, a boy named Ichiro, who is harassed by some of his companions while on his way home. Ichiro's parents work late, so the only adult who is responsible for him is a somewhat eccentric neighbor who works creating toys.

[HorrorScience] Godzilla's Revenge (1969) — Ichiro bothered by the other children

Ichiro likes to live adventures, but many of them are frustrated by the appearance of the children who harass him, which causes him to take refuge in his house and prefer to imagine yourself on monster island, where Godzilla and company live, to be able to talk to Minilla, Godzilla's son (who now seems to have the ability to change size and talk like people). Minilla tells Ichiro that his father wants to teach him to be brave, but that he is not capable of being brave, because he is afraid of a giant monster called Gabara. Ichiro is also afraid of one of the children who bothers him, so both have to learn to be brave.

At the same time, we are told that the police are searching the neighborhood for some thieves, who have gone to hide in an abandoned building where Ichiro coincidentally goes to play from time to time. On one of these excursions to the building, the boy will find the driver's license of one of the thieves, which will cause them to want to kidnap him to recover it.

Will Minilla and Godzilla's teachings be of any use to little Ichiro?

We are facing the worst Godzilla movie ever made and anyone who sees the thirty that make up the saga will agree, because even the other bad films are not so regrettable, no matter how hard they try.

Let's go in parts, the idea of making a film for children is not surprising (the series had been infantilized for years) but from there to making a film about a child who travels to the imaginary world of Monster Island and talks with the son of Godzilla who gives him advice that helps him confront some bank robbers, I think there is a part.

One thing is that they want to show the life of a child neglected by his parents, who has to work more hours than necessary and that this child lets his imagination fly as an escape valve and the other is to include plots such as that of the bank robbers or take advantage of the excuse of the child's imagination to include all the possible stock scenes and thus save a lot of money.

The movie is short but that doesn't stop it from practically all the monster scenes come from previous ones, mostly Godzilla VS The Sea Monster, Godzilla's son, King Kong Escapes and Destroy All Monsters. The use of footage from other films is so blatant that they didn't even care to show scenes from movies where Godzilla had a different suit, thus causing the monster to change its appearance from one scene to the next. The only new monster scenes we will see are those that have to do with the Gabara and those of Ichiro talking to Minilla.

So, considering that the part about the boy's problems is pretty absurd and that almost all of the monster scenes come from other movies, what's good about this movie? Well, practically nothing, I don't even think it has a moral, because when Ichiro faces his fears (just as Minilla teaches him) he then acts like a jerk to satisfy the kids who were bothering him.

The only thing that can make this movie better is not having seen the previous movies., because at least then it will seem like the monster scenes are new, but it would still be one of the worst Godzilla movies. I don't even think young children would appreciate this movie, and I think it would be much better for them to watch Godzilla's son.

Curiosities about the film:

El título de la película se cambió en occidente para tratar de atraer al público. También se cambiaron los carteles para mostrar más monstruos, haciendo creer que esta película sería similar a Destroy All Monsters.
Al igual que pasó con muchas películas de esta saga, en su lanzamiento americano se alteró parte de la película. Uno de los cambios más significativos de esta película fue sustituir la música japonesa que sonaba en los créditos del comienzo, por una totalmente diferente un tanto psicodélica que, personalmente, me gusta bastante más.
Esta película fue la primera de la saga que tuvo menos de 2 millones de espectadores en Japón, donde vendió solo un millón y medio de tickets (un millón menos que la película anterior).
El principal responsable de los efectos especiales de la saga Godzilla (y creador de ultraman) Eiji Tsuburaya estaba enfermo cuando se empezó a rodar esta película, de manera que el propio Ishiro Honda tuvo que ayudar con los efectos especiales. Poco después de terminarse la película, Tsuburaya murió.