I first saw “King Kong vs. Godzilla” many, many years ago on the Sci-Fi Channel. They were doing a week-long Godzilla marathon (one Godzilla flick each night) hosted by the late Peter Boyle, of all people. “King Kong vs. Godzilla” was shown on the second night and believe me, I was jumping through the roof. You see, I had no idea this film existed at the time. So discovering that tonight, my favorite giant lizard would be battling such a legendary film icon absolutely thrilled me. Ahhh, sweet memories.
Sakurai (Tadao Takashima) and Fujita (Kenji Sahara) are employees of Pacific Pharmaceuticals charged with the unenviable task of traveling to the mysterious Pharaoh Island and retrieving a giant monster for publicity. After some rascally hijinks with a giant octopus called Odako, the pair returns with the behemoth they were looking for: King Kong (Shoichi Hirose). Naturally, King Kong doesn’t cotton to being held prisoner and promptly breaks free; running amok across Japan. Compounding issues, Godzilla (Haruo Nakajima) escapes from his icy tomb and proceeds to seek vengeance upon Japan. Left with no other option, the Japanese Defense Force decide that their best bet is to let King Kong and Godzilla duke it out, hopefully killing each other in the process.
“King Kong vs. Godzilla” is considered one of those “legendary” kaiju flicks. Not only does it pit Japan’s most notorious giant monster against America’s, but it actually manages to wrap an entertaining plot around the fight when, in all honesty, Toho really didn’t have to. It’s King Kong fighting Godzilla. Did they really need a plot?
But wait, there’s more!
This film also marks Godzilla’s big transition into the wide world of color. Guess what everybody!? Godzilla’s green! I know you’re all surprised. But it doesn’t just stop with color. This also marks Godzilla’s first movie to be shot in glorious Toho Scope. Sure, Toho Scope is identical to Cinema Scope…but damn, is that shit ever wide! Freakin’ epic. So epic, in fact, that to this very day, “King Kong vs. Godzilla” ranks as the most-attended Godzilla movie in Japan. I think every man, woman and child in the country went to see it, or something.
So yeah, “King Kong vs. Godzilla” is referred to as a “legendary” kaiju flick with good reason.
Making his way into a Toho flick for the first of two times (the other being “King Kong Escapes”, though it should be noted that this film does not acknowledge the events of the original "King Kong"), the legendary King Kong doesn’t exactly translate to “suitmation” particularly well. As much as I enjoy this movie, Kong’s suit looks more or less pathetic, almost as if it was assembled from carpet samples. I hate to bring it down, as I’m sure Eiji Tsubaraya put a lot of effort into it, but I’ve just never liked the way it looks. On the bright side, Shoichi Hirose does a great job playing the big ape. He gets the primate mannerisms down nicely, and as a former professional wrestler, his titanic strength really shines through in the performance. Those suits are incredibly heavy, and yet Hirose managed to judo-flip Godzilla. Not an inflatable Godzilla dummy, either, but Haruo Nakajima in his full getup. That, in and of itself, is quite an amazing feat.
So, as I’m sure you noticed, King Kong has crazy electric powers in this movie. He apparently draws his strength from storm clouds and can channel electricity through his fingertips to shock his opponents. Weird. But I have an even weirder anecdote about that.
When I first saw “King Kong vs. Godzilla”, the sight of Kong zapping Godzilla with his fingers threw me through a loop. My tiny elementary-schooler brain tried to come up with some sort of explanation as to how King Kong suddenly developed electric powers. Well, some time before I’d seen this movie, I subjected myself to “King Kong Lives”, the 1986 sequel to the 1976 version of “King Kong”. In that movie, King Kong is revived by having a mechanical heart surgically implanted in his chest. Deciding that the fact that “King Kong Lives” was made twenty-four years after “King Kong vs. Godzilla” was trivial, I came to the conclusion that Kong’s new mechanical heart gave him his amazing electric powers. It made perfect sense at the time, I swear.
The only other new kaiju to appear in this movie is the always-forgotten Odako. Odako is an interesting specimen, brought to life by a combination of live octopi and a rubber octopus prop. The segments with the live octopus superimposed over a landscape via bluescreen are the highlight of his appearance, not only making the kaiju look genuinely lifelike (because, you know, it was actually alive), but also making him all squishy and gross and threatening. After King Kong trashes the Odako puppet, the octopus slithers off into the sea, doomed to a future of random, infrequent cameos (in "Frankenstein Conquers the World" and "War of the Gargantuas”, specifically).
The human drama in this Godzilla flick is a departure from what we’d seen in the previous two installments. While those were played up fairly seriously, the antics of Sakurai, Fujita and their boss, Mr. Tako (Ichiro Arishima), are pure comedic relief. The comedy runs the gamut of “chuckle-worthy” to “irritating”, but doesn’t ruin the movie. There’s enough genuine drama, such as when King Kong abducts Sakurai’s sister, Fumiko (Mie Hama), to break up the string of jokes.
“King Kong vs. Godzilla” is legendary. It remains a very fun movie with a sense of humor and one of the more memorable kaiju battles of Godzilla’s early career.
Grade: A- (as in “All King Kong wants to do is pound back some narcotics, listen to repetitive music and chill out. Is that really so wrong?”)
Sakurai (Tadao Takashima) and Fujita (Kenji Sahara) are employees of Pacific Pharmaceuticals charged with the unenviable task of traveling to the mysterious Pharaoh Island and retrieving a giant monster for publicity. After some rascally hijinks with a giant octopus called Odako, the pair returns with the behemoth they were looking for: King Kong (Shoichi Hirose). Naturally, King Kong doesn’t cotton to being held prisoner and promptly breaks free; running amok across Japan. Compounding issues, Godzilla (Haruo Nakajima) escapes from his icy tomb and proceeds to seek vengeance upon Japan. Left with no other option, the Japanese Defense Force decide that their best bet is to let King Kong and Godzilla duke it out, hopefully killing each other in the process.
“King Kong vs. Godzilla” is considered one of those “legendary” kaiju flicks. Not only does it pit Japan’s most notorious giant monster against America’s, but it actually manages to wrap an entertaining plot around the fight when, in all honesty, Toho really didn’t have to. It’s King Kong fighting Godzilla. Did they really need a plot?
But wait, there’s more!
This film also marks Godzilla’s big transition into the wide world of color. Guess what everybody!? Godzilla’s green! I know you’re all surprised. But it doesn’t just stop with color. This also marks Godzilla’s first movie to be shot in glorious Toho Scope. Sure, Toho Scope is identical to Cinema Scope…but damn, is that shit ever wide! Freakin’ epic. So epic, in fact, that to this very day, “King Kong vs. Godzilla” ranks as the most-attended Godzilla movie in Japan. I think every man, woman and child in the country went to see it, or something.
So yeah, “King Kong vs. Godzilla” is referred to as a “legendary” kaiju flick with good reason.
Making his way into a Toho flick for the first of two times (the other being “King Kong Escapes”, though it should be noted that this film does not acknowledge the events of the original "King Kong"), the legendary King Kong doesn’t exactly translate to “suitmation” particularly well. As much as I enjoy this movie, Kong’s suit looks more or less pathetic, almost as if it was assembled from carpet samples. I hate to bring it down, as I’m sure Eiji Tsubaraya put a lot of effort into it, but I’ve just never liked the way it looks. On the bright side, Shoichi Hirose does a great job playing the big ape. He gets the primate mannerisms down nicely, and as a former professional wrestler, his titanic strength really shines through in the performance. Those suits are incredibly heavy, and yet Hirose managed to judo-flip Godzilla. Not an inflatable Godzilla dummy, either, but Haruo Nakajima in his full getup. That, in and of itself, is quite an amazing feat.
So, as I’m sure you noticed, King Kong has crazy electric powers in this movie. He apparently draws his strength from storm clouds and can channel electricity through his fingertips to shock his opponents. Weird. But I have an even weirder anecdote about that.
When I first saw “King Kong vs. Godzilla”, the sight of Kong zapping Godzilla with his fingers threw me through a loop. My tiny elementary-schooler brain tried to come up with some sort of explanation as to how King Kong suddenly developed electric powers. Well, some time before I’d seen this movie, I subjected myself to “King Kong Lives”, the 1986 sequel to the 1976 version of “King Kong”. In that movie, King Kong is revived by having a mechanical heart surgically implanted in his chest. Deciding that the fact that “King Kong Lives” was made twenty-four years after “King Kong vs. Godzilla” was trivial, I came to the conclusion that Kong’s new mechanical heart gave him his amazing electric powers. It made perfect sense at the time, I swear.
The only other new kaiju to appear in this movie is the always-forgotten Odako. Odako is an interesting specimen, brought to life by a combination of live octopi and a rubber octopus prop. The segments with the live octopus superimposed over a landscape via bluescreen are the highlight of his appearance, not only making the kaiju look genuinely lifelike (because, you know, it was actually alive), but also making him all squishy and gross and threatening. After King Kong trashes the Odako puppet, the octopus slithers off into the sea, doomed to a future of random, infrequent cameos (in "Frankenstein Conquers the World" and "War of the Gargantuas”, specifically).
The human drama in this Godzilla flick is a departure from what we’d seen in the previous two installments. While those were played up fairly seriously, the antics of Sakurai, Fujita and their boss, Mr. Tako (Ichiro Arishima), are pure comedic relief. The comedy runs the gamut of “chuckle-worthy” to “irritating”, but doesn’t ruin the movie. There’s enough genuine drama, such as when King Kong abducts Sakurai’s sister, Fumiko (Mie Hama), to break up the string of jokes.
“King Kong vs. Godzilla” is legendary. It remains a very fun movie with a sense of humor and one of the more memorable kaiju battles of Godzilla’s early career.
Grade: A- (as in “All King Kong wants to do is pound back some narcotics, listen to repetitive music and chill out. Is that really so wrong?”)
1 comments:
The epic crossover that defined the word "crossover" for me.
For some reason, as a kid I was under the impression that two versions of this movie existed with different endings (King Kong apparently winning in the English version and Godzilla winning in the Japanese). Was this just an urban legend? We all know Godzilla should have toasted him in the first minute, but it was nice to see Kong (albeit artificially enhanced in size and wacky electric powers) make good against a clearly superior opponent! ;-D
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