[HorrorScience] The Son of Godzilla (1967)

Reading time: 7 minutes

Qualification

Kaijū-tō no Kessen Gojira no Musuko

Year

1967

Duration

86 minutes

Director

Jun Fukuda

Distribution

Akira Kubo, Tadao Takashima, Akihiko Hirata, Bibari Maeda, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Kenji Sahara, Susumu Kurobe, Kenichiro Maruyama, Seishiro Kuno, Yasuhiko Saijo, Kazuo Suzuki, Ousmane Yusef, Haruo Nakajima, Yu Sekida, Seiji Onaka, Little Man Machan

Script

Shinichi Sekizawa, Kazue Shiba

After surprising with its tropical proposal in Godzilla Vs Ebirah, Jun Fukuda continued in charge of the saga of the radioactive monster in a period very marked by the attempt to attract children to the cinema.

The way to achieve this is usually to include a child among the main characters so that young viewers see themselves reflected, something that Godzilla's competition, the turtle Gamera, was very good at, and that Toho directors forced to include in later King of the Monsters films.

However, in this film another classic resource was used to attract children: the inclusion of a young and humorous monster that turned the film into something familiar, the same thing that had happened with King Kong in Kong's son decades ago.

And that's how it was born Kaijū-tō no Kessen Gojira no Musuko, better known as Son of Godzilla either The Son of Godzilla in Spanish.

The film places us on a tropical island (I suppose to take advantage of the sets of the previous film) where a lot of scientists They are testing a system to control the climate and thus be able to make fertile areas of the planet fertile if necessary due to overpopulation. Despite having certain problems with interruptions in their systems due to some type of brain wave, the work seems to be very advanced.

The tropical heat and the pace of work make the scientists exhausted and in a bad mood, something that will not improve with the arrival of a journalist who will appear on the island looking for good news to tell, thus continuing the mania of introducing journalists in these films even if they have nothing to do with the story.

Goro, the journalist, is forced to help the scientists, who have no means to send him back home. It will be through the eyes of this character that we will discover that on the island there are giant mantises (called Gimantis or Kamacuras) that tend to stalk the laboratory more than desired. Goro's curiosity will also lead him to discover that there is a native woman on the island, something that scientists were unaware of, since the island is supposed to be deserted as far as humans are concerned.

[HorrorScience] Son of Godzilla (1967) — The scientists and the journalist

The day they launch the experiment to change the hot climate of the island for a colder one, the brain waves cause a failure in the system and achieve the opposite effect, increasing the temperature of the island above what is bearable.

After a few days sheltering in the laboratory, the scientists return to explore the island, only to discover that The giant mantids are now much larger and for some reason they seem to be gathering near the lab., in the same direction where the brain waves that caused the interruption came from.

The mantis attack on a mountain of earth will discover the existence of a giant egg, from which it will hatch (forced by the relentless attack of the giant insects) a deformed dinosaur that will sob anguishedly and crawl pathetically trying to escape its predators. Fortunately for the deformed bug, Godzilla will arrive to protect him and take him to a safer area.

After the appearance of Godzilla, the scientists are forced to hide in the cave where the native girl lives, since the laboratory has been razed and the war between the Gimantis and Godzilla does not seem to be over. To make the situation worse, some of the scientists fall ill, which forces the journalist and the girl to look for a natural remedy against their illness, something risky, since it is located near the habitat of another giant monster called Spiega (also called Spiga or Kumonga, depending on the version you see).

Godzilla's son It is an entertaining film, but very childish. Most of the monster scenes show us Godzilla's poor son, doing some antics, suffering some blows in return and crying for his supposed father to comfort him.

Godzilla's paternal work is hilarious, because although he is patient with the horrendous monster he has taken as a son, he does not hesitate to shake him or step on his tail to make him wake up. These kinds of scenes are horrible and it's hard to believe that we are talking about a sequel to gojira, but the truth is that I couldn't help but laugh when watching them and that makes this movie more interesting than it seems, as long as you accept the general ridiculousness of the concept it deals with.

The human characters are quite realistic (they are tired of working, they even end up creating a ruckus to prevent the experiment in the face of the imperturbable discipline of their superior) but of course, the inclusion of the adventurous journalist and the native girl counteract that effect, since they are the least credible characters and also the ones in charge of everything.

The new monsters (Gimantis and Spiega) are very striking, especially since they are not costumed actors, which is common in these films, but puppets controlled by strings, something that Toho's specialists did quite well considering that they almost never used this effect. The design of the monsters is much more realistic than others in this saga, since they are practically giant animals, without modifying their design with flashy or futuristic elements. Personally, I think Spiega is the one who has the best scenes, because from the moment he wakes up until he stalks the humans in his cave, the film gains drama and seriousness, especially thanks to Masaru Sato's music, which goes from being happy and rhythmic to being typical of a horror film in those moments.

I would also like to mention the good work of the stuntmen in the final scene of the film, when the weather suddenly changes while Godzilla and Spiega fight. The effect is a bit abrupt, but it works very well and gives us an ending that is as beautiful as it is nerdy.

In short, this film continues the path of infantilization started by previous films, but at the same time adds 3 new monsters to Toho's bestiary. Technically it is above expectations, but there are so many silly scenes that one doesn't really know how to take them. Thinking about it coldly, the inclusion of Minilla as a monstrous jester was not such a bad decision, since most of the silly scenes fall on him, thus freeing the rest of the monsters from doing something that is not their place (which prevents us from seeing things like Godzilla dancing in Godzilla Vs Monster Zero, the monsters arguing as if they were little children as in Ghidorah the three headed dragon or constant antics as in King Kong VS Godzilla).

I guess somehow, Jun Fukuda was able to make an enjoyable movie y aceptable en varios momentos, algo aplaudible si tenemos en cuenta que la historia gira en torno a ver como Godzilla cría a su supuesto hijo.

Curiosidades de esta película.

El hijo de Godzilla se llama Minira o Minilla debido a que es la contracción de Mini Gojira y Mini Godzilla.
“Little Man” Machan, el actor que interpreta a Minira, fue wrestler profesional en Japón.