Gojira-Minira-Gabara: Oru Kaiju Daishingeki

Godzilla's Revenge

Japan 1969
produced by
Tomoyuki Tanaka for Toho
directed by Ishiro Honda
starring Tomonori Yazaki, Eisei Amamoto, Sachio Sakai, Kazuo Suzuki, Kenji Sahara, Machiko Naka, Shigeki Ishida, Yoshifumi Tajima, Chotaro Togin, Yutaka Sada, Yutaka Nakayama, Ikio Sawamura
written by Shinichi Sekizawa, special effects supervised by Eiji Tsuburaya, music by Kunio Miyauchi

Godzilla, Son of Godzilla, Rodan, Gorosaurus, Anguirus, Spigas, Manda, Ebirah

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Little Ichiro (Tomonori Yazaki) has been left on his own by his parents (Kenji Sahara, Machiko Naka) way too often, so it's hardly surprising that he starts daydreaming, and he projects his daily problems - like another kid bullying him - to the fantasy world of monster island, where he is friends with Godzilla's son Mynia, and realizes the little monster has similar problems, as he is teased by big monster Gabara - which actually looks more like an unruly, unkempt schoolboy than anything else - and has to be taught by his father Godzilla to fight back. In the end, with a bit of help from Ichiro, Mynia can defeat Gabara for good.

Back in the real world, Ichiro has in the meantime gotten into the clutches of two bank robbers (Sachio Sakai, Kazuo Suzuki), but ultimately he manages to outsmart them and hand them over to the police.

... and when he manages to defeat his bully in a fight, Ichiro even earns respect from his classmates.

Common knowledge has it that this is the worst film of the Godzilla series ... and I tend to agree. The story is obviously aimed at very small children and so syrupy at that that it's hard to bear even for a Godzilla-fan like me, most of the monster fights - usually the saving grace of any Godzilla film - are lifted from older, better movies (like Destroy all Monsters, Son of Godzilla and Ebirah - Horror from the Deep) and the only new monster - Gabara - is nothing short of pathetic (the absence of new fight scenes had two reasons by the way: firstly, Toho's trusted special effects director was bedridden by the time this was filmed and would die later in 1969 ... and secondly, the film was much cheaper that way).

In all, a major disappointment.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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