[Horrorscience] Mothra VS Godzilla (1964)

Reading time: 7 minutes

Qualification

Tai Gojira Mosura

Year

1964

Duration

88 minutes

Director

Ishiro Honda

Distribution

Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi, Kenji Sahara, Hiroshi Koizumi, Yu Fujiki, Emi Ito, Yumi Ito, Yoshifumi Tajima, Jun Tazaki, Haruo Nakajima, Katsumi Tezuka

Script

Shinichi Sekizawa

We resume the Godzilla film saga after the commercial success it was King Kong VS Godzilla despite being a ridiculous film and much room for improvement. But money is king and after lining their pockets like they had never done before, Toho's directors saw clearly that what people liked was not that Godzilla was a terrifying creature that represented atomic terror as in his first movie, but rather an evil monster that fought against other existing monsters for general entertainment.

Having used the most famous Western monster in its previous film, it didn't take long for Toho to choose the radioactive saurian's new rival: the giant Moth (or Butterfly).

That monster had already starred his own movie years ago so Toho did not have to worry about introducing it into the film or fighting to buy the rights from another company, plus the butterfly was the total counterpoint to Godzilla, as it was kind and apparently fragile, in addition to being (supposedly) the favorite monster of Japanese girls.

Ishiro Honda would return to direct this film, which has many names (each one more strange) since despite being originally called Tai Gojira Mosura (Mothra VS Godzilla) has been known by such stupid titles as Godzilla Vs The Thing (in the United States) and Godzilla vs. the monsters (Spanish title) to finish things off, it has also been named as Godzilla VS Mothra, which can lead to confusion with Godzilla Vs Mothra Battle For the Earth of 1992.

The film begins when a fearsome tornado devastates a coastal area where some industries were being built, and a journalist (Ichiro Sakai) and a photographer (Junko Nakanishi) are in the area to report on what happened. Shortly after a huge object will appear drifting in the sea, a kind of enormous multicolored egg that is quickly washed ashore and bought legally by a local businessman (Kumayama) who plans to set up a business around it, with the help of his partner Torahata, which means that Professor Miura cannot study the egg or discover what is hidden inside.

[Horrorscience] Mothra VS Godzilla (1964) — The gigantic egg

While both businessmen meet to talk about their business plans (which include a theme park with the egg as the main attraction) two little women appear, who turn out to be fairy messengers from Mothra, who They beg both men to return the egg to the sea., which belongs to Mothra and its place is on Infant Island, where he was before the storm threw him into the sea. The first reaction of both men is to try to kidnap the fairies to earn even more money, but they manage to flee and talk to Ichiro, Junko and Professor Miura to ask them to help return the egg to the sea.

To all this, do you remember the industrial zone destroyed by the storm? Well, it is now ready to start construction again, or that's what it seems since the ground begins to shake and the radioactivity markers confirm what many feared (and we expected) the appearance of Godzilla (one of the most curious of the entire classic saga). The giant monster begins to destroy everything it finds and the military's plans (despite being quite good and elaborate) do not seem to have any effect on it.

Ichiro, Junko and Professor Miura will fly to Infant Island to ask the locals to wake up Mothra, since she is the only one who can fight Godzilla and save Japan. However, the natives do not feel much appreciation for them, as they consider them responsible for the atomic tests that devastated the island years ago and condemned them to a life of continuous subsistence. However, the little fairies talk to Mothra, who decides to use her last strength to fight Godzilla and thus defend the giant egg.

And that's how we get to the key point of the movie, when Mothra fights Godzilla until her last breath, which gives us some of the most curious and fun scenes in the entire series, like when Mothra drags Godzilla by her tail. Unfortunately, the butterfly is injured and ends up dying just a few meters from its egg, which leaves Godzilla completely free to destroy everything he catches. Will the army manage to defeat Godzilla? What is hidden inside Mothra's egg?

Mothra Vs Godzilla makes us almost forget the nonsense King Kong Vs Godzilla, since it is a much more balanced and better made film in all aspects (even the actors exaggerate less, and look how the Japanese like to exaggerate). The film seems to be an almost perfect fusion of the original Mothra film and some of the first Godzilla films, giving scenes of destruction and preserving the message of the butterfly film.

The critical point of view against the society corrupted by money and the lack of scruples that humans show to get more was key in Mothra (1961) and it is again in this film, although somewhat reduced (fortunately) thanks to the interference of Godzilla. Criticism of the atomic bombs and the tests in the Pacific also continues, from the resentment of the people of Infant Island.

The special effects are far above what has been seen in King Kong VS Godzilla and they are beginning to approach the quality of the first films (where black and white helped hide deficiencies). In short, the film takes the best and most representative of both monsters and it gives us a mix of quite high quality, whose only drawback is the rhythm, which seems a bit slow to me at times.

Curiosities about this movie:

This film was the first in the Godzilla series to not end up mutilated and cut in its Western versions, in which only a few small scenes of American soldiers were added at a specific point in the film.
This is the last film of the classic Godzilla period where the monster is shown as a totally evil being and as the main antagonist of the film.
In the American poster for the film, Mothra was “censored” to provoke greater expectation (or perhaps they considered that a butterfly was not scary at all). This poster was used in many other countries, including Spain.
El título americano Godzilla Vs The Thing se usó para tratar de engañar a la gente haciéndoles pensar que el monstruo de esta película está relacionado con el de The Thing From Another World (1951) algo completamente absurdo y estúpido.