137) Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)

Halloween 2022's Godzilla-Maniapalloza Extravaganza #12...For the Love of Godzilla.

All Hail, the Monster King!

"Look, the two space monsters. The one with three heads is King Ghidorah. And that's Gigan."

Director

Jun Fukuda

Cast

Hiroshi Ishikawa - Gengo Kotaka

Zan Fujita - Fumio Sudo

Toshiaki Nishizawa - Kubota

Tomoko Umeda - Machiko Shima

Minoru Takashima - Shosaku Takasugi

After audiences recovered from their psychedelic trip and astronomy lessons as seen in "Godzilla vs. Hedorah," writers at Toho clearly decided what worked before in the earlier films just might work again.

"Godzilla vs. Gigan," the 12th movie in the Godzilla line-up, has the parts needed to create a tried-and-true Godzilla movie. 

Released in the U.S. under the title "Godzilla on Monster Island," the English dubbed version I own on VHS is still says "Godzilla vs. Gigan."

Writers must have known that the franchise was getting repetitive. So, they continue focusing just as much on the storylines as they do on the fighting scenes. Each movie definitely has its own unique story. This is certainly true with "Godzilla vs. Gigan." But this time, the writers decided to inject the monster battle with more juice, so to speak.

It's light on the cheese (though not completely void of), and heavy on the hellish destructive terror.

The film starts with Manga artist Gengo Kotaka (Hiroshi Ishikawa) who has just been hired as a designer at a Tokyo theme park called World Children's Land. The park includes an impressive life size tower that resembles Godzilla. 

His new boss, Kubota (Toshiaki Nishizawa) wants him to design new monsters for the park.

Right away, Kotaka thinks his new fellow employees at the park are a little odd. Regardless, he has ideas for monsters based on what kids generally perceive as frightening or simply undesirable. 

For instance, he designs a "homework monster" as well as an overbearing, strict mother monster named "Mamagan." 

Though Kubota speaks a good game about world peace, he wants to create life size monsters for Monster Island through the organization that owns World Children's Land, and then destroy the island and all the monsters living there. 

The park's head chairman is a 17-year old kid named Fumio Sudo (Zan Fujita). 

When Kotaka is introduced to Sudo, he's very involved in recording star charts, including the orbit of the M Space Hunter Nebula. 

During his first day at the new job, Kotaka accidentally bumps into a young girl outside of the office building. 

Frightened, she runs off without realizing she dropped a tape reel. Kotaka hides the tape in his jacket before returning to work.

Back in the office, Sudo mentions that the girl Kotaka ran into on the street is an enemy of the peace and is plotting to destroy the park.

On his way home that evening, Kotaka is held up by the girl and a stranger. The stranger fools Kotaka into thinking he has a gun jabbed in his back. The girl demands Kotaka hand over the tape she dropped, but he passes out in fear. 

When he wakes up, he's back in his home. The girl, whose name is Machiko Shima (Tomoko Umeda) and her companion Shosaku Takasugi (Minoru Takashima), are sitting by his bed. 

It turns out Takasugi didn't really have a gun. He was using a corn cob to make Kotaka think he was armed. And they're really not thugs to begin with. 

Machiko is trying to find her missing brother, Takeshi (Kunio Murai) who was a computer tech for the company that owns World Children's Land.

She stole the tape hoping it contained a clue as to her brother's whereabouts. 

The two convince Kotaka of their story. He agrees to do some discreet investigative work around the Godzilla Tower for clues and leads.

Gigan and Ghidorah stand over a bruised, but not beaten, Godzilla in "Godzilla vs. Gigan."

Not only does Kotaka find a clue, but he also finds Takeshi locked in a room up in the Godzilla Tower. 

The three of them dig a little deeper into the history of the park, and the Tower. They start with the mysterious tape. 

Kotaka happens to have a reel-to-reel player to play the stolen tape. 

All that's on the tape, however, is nonsensical electronic noise. 

While the electronic sounds mean nothing to the three investigators, Kubota and Sudo hear it up in the their Tower.

And guess who else hears the signals from the electronic tape. Godzilla and Anguirus!

The two monsters actually talk to each other when they hear the sound. 

In the Japanese version, their communication is in the form of word bubbles. But in the English version, they actually talk. 

Godzilla senses danger, so he tells Anguirus to head over to Japan to see what the hell is going on. 

Meanwhile, digging further and further into the goings on at the children's park, Kotaka and Machiko learn that Sudo and Kubota actually died a year ago during a mountain climbing trip they took together. They're able to confirm this through a photograph. They look just like the bosses at the park.

So, if they're dead...then who are those two guys working at the children's park? In short, they're aliens who have taken the form of Sudo and Kubota!

It turns out Godzilla Tower was constructed for the sake of killing the real Godzilla. 

The aliens are using tapes like the one Machiko stole to summon and command the monsters Gigan and Ghidorah to destroy Tokyo. 

This movie mixes in the more exciting elements from previous movies. There are aliens trying to take over the planet while controlling monsters. There are monsters against monsters. There's a Scooby Doo-like plot as a bunch of unlikely people solve a mystery. And there's destruction. Lots and lots of flaming destruction. 

In the first act when Kotaka is hired at the park, he has an idea about telepathic kids who are able to communicate with the monsters, which I think is reminiscent of Ichiro from "All Monsters Attack." I'm speculating, of course. 

It goes back to a line in "All Monsters Attack" in which Shinpei, speaking about Ichiro, tells a news reporter, "Adults believe in gods, so why can't children have their own gods too, like Minilla?"

Anyways, the fight scenes certainly deliver. There's a lot of action, explosions, fire, and destruction. The lighting and camera angles during some of these scenes accomplish an apocalyptical look. The flames provide most of the light which makes it look ominous. 

Other times, however, the camera zooms in close on various monsters as they flail around. It's mixed with quick cutaways which makes it hard to tell what's happening. 

During these fight scenes, Godzilla gets rather bloodied up, too. It's the first time that audiences saw Godzilla bleed. Perhaps that's fitting since this movie marks the final performance of Haruo Nakajima in the role of Godzilla, which he has played since the first film in 1954. The movie has all the best elements fans and audiences expect in a Godzilla flick. 

Ghidorah's appearance seems a little more updated with new head sculpts. And Gigan stands out among the other kaiju appearing in these Godzilla films. He looks part organic and part machine. The spikes on his chest work like a chainsaw, slicing into his opponents.  

It seems each film tries to out-do the previous one in some way or another. "Godzilla vs. Gigan" manages to succeed despite the few campy parts of the plot. 

I definitely have this film down as one of my personal favorites, despite the cringy monster dialogue.