The sequel to Reigo: King of the Sea Monsters, this was also directed and written by Shinpei Hayashiya. ten years later, there was a sequel, God Raiga vs. King Ohga: War of the Monsters.
Global warming has melted the ice caps in the South Pole and disrupted Earth’s ecosystem. This also brings long-sleeping sea creatures back to life, including Raiga, which instantly decides to destroy the city of Asakusa while avoiding destroying any temples. There’s also a father (Yukijiro Hotaru) and his three daughters (Miyu Oriyama, Mao Urata, Manami Enosawa) who use the monster’s attacks to create merchandise and sell it, like something out of Yeti Giant of the 20th Century when father isn’t trying to get a new girlfriend to the anger of his children.
The Defense Force has a new weapon, KAMIKAZE, as well as cluster bombs and stealth fighters. But they can barely stop one monster, much less two. I mean, have you ever seen a kaiju piss all over some rubble to mark its territory? Watch this and you can say that you have.
This feels very close to the original Godzilla but in a way that lovingly echoes that movie. I had a lot of fun with this and found it way better than the first movie.
I know that I am old as this is the 31st Godzilla movie and the third reboot. Actually, there are two reboots going on, the Legendary Pictures movies that started in 2014 with Godzilla and this series, which stars the Reiwa era.
Directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi with a script by Anno, this is the highest grossing and best received Godzilla movie of all time at least until Godzilla Minus One comes out.
Much like all of the first Godzilla films, a boat is found with no one on it. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi believes that something living caused it and soon, news reports show a tail coming out of the ocean. Soon, whatever it is crawls through Tokyo, destroying anything it can before overheating and going back under the water.
Whatever it is, it’s powered by nuclear fission. Kayoco Anne Patterson, sent by the U.S., believes that anti-nuclear zoology expert Goro Maki predicted this, which seems to be true as the abandoned boat was his. He’d been censored and his reputation ruined. It turns out that he was right.
The creature, now known as Godzilla, destroys even more of Tokyo as it continues to change form. It even wipes out most of the Japanese government before using up all of its energy and going into a sleep stage. The governments of the world decide to drop nukes on Tokyo but before they can do that, the Japanese Defense Force is able to freeze the creature.
Godzilla was once the nuclear fears of Japan seen as a giant creature. In Shin Godzilla it has become a way of trying to deal with the ecological issues and disasters that Japan faced starting with the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. It also shows that a government not ready to adapt and be flexible when these major events happen are just as frightening as a kaiju.
It’s weird to me that Toho’s contract with Legendary Entertainment keeps them from releasing their Godzilla films in the same year as Legendary’s Godzilla films. While there hasn’t been a sequel, there have been several other movies set in the Shin universe, such as Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, Shin Ultraman and Shin Kamen Rider.
Directed, written, produced and filmed by Anthony Polonia, son of Mark, this movie uses footage from Konga TNT, Gappa: The Triphibian Monster and Reigo: King of the Sea Monsters to show the kaiju that have attacked Earth. Thinking humans are too violent to be part of a peaceful universe, aliens sent the ape-reptile hybrid Zillafoot to Earth. Its mission: Destroy everything and everyone.
Can the military stop it? Can Dr. Kaski (Mark Polonia), inventor of the GXG-1 weapon? Can the Ultrasquad? Can anyone?
This has effects by Brett Piper, which explains why props from Empire of the Apes and Revolt of the Empire of the Apes are in this. Man, this has some bad reviews on IMDB and Letterboxd, but I was somewhat charmed by it. It’s only an hour and pretty goofy, which are two things that make me watch a movie.
You can watch this on Tubi or buy the SRS blu ray.
Based on the Native American myth and inspired by Suitmation kaiju movies, Uktena is eighty feet tall and 200 tons thick. He’s an ancient Cherokee monster that has awakened because of the modern world’s greed.
Made by father and son Dan and David Treanor, this pits the titular monster up against Sheriff Poncho Bravo (Marc Bilker), Doc Collins (Kyle Borthick), Colonel Tuttle (Norman Hughes), Dr. Geco (Kayla Rose) and Jerome Greywolf (Jerry Roys). You should not expect a movie that looks like a high budget epic. But you can be assured that the monster against little people scenes are a lot of fun. There’s a lot of green screen and I know that some people can’t get past that. I get the feeling that the filmmakers had a lot of heart and wanted to make the best monster suit movie they could.
This also has a lot of blues music, talk about the blues and Dan’s friends playing the blues. Kaiju blues. I feel like rewriting “Talk About the Blues” by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion just for this:
That’s right I’m talkin’ ’bout the kaiju I said it looks so huge baby Uh I’m talkin’ ’bout the kaiju G-FAN magazine On the telephone, baby Talk about the kaiju Right now Uh Look out Yeah
An entry for GEMSTONE’s Creators Audition, a collaborative project between Toho Co., Ltd. and AlphaBoat in which Japanese artists and filmmakers competed in a challenge to create new works inspired by the Godzilla series, Hedorah Silent Spring was made by Hiroto Yokokawa, director of indie kaiju films The Great Buddha Arrival and Hoshi 35.
You may think the Rachel Carson quote is out of place in a kaiju movie, but Godzilla vs. Hedorah director Yoshimitsu Banno also took inspiration from her book.
Just five minutes long, this finds a man unleashing a small piece of Hedorah on a city, basically deciding that humanity has had its chance to fix the pollution they created. Now, Hedorah will return and destroy everything.
With perfect music by Hiromi Shinoda, this does more in a few moments than most modern kaiju do in hours.
A small Japanese village of fishermen has decided to join together to kill the monstrous whale that has been ruining their catches. It becomes such a cause that the richest man in town (Takashi Shimura) offers his power, his land, his money and his daughter (Kyoko Enami) to whoever can kill the kaiju-size whale. This works well for Shaki (Kojiro Hondo), who has been planning on killing the whale after it ate his family. However, a man known only as “I am–” (Shintaro Katsu) has come to town with the same urge to kill the demon whale.
Can a kaiju movie pretty much be Moby Dick? Yes, it can. This is the film. Yet it’s also more, as it’s based on a novel by Uno Koichiro (thanks Japan On Film).
Directed by Tokuzô Tanaka and written by Kaneto Shindô, this finds “I am–” fighting with everyone in town and even assaulting a woman in love with Shaki (Shiho Fujimara). Our hero raises that child as his own. Meanwhile, both “I am–” and the rich man’s daughter are nearly stoic, silent and near-emotionless figures despite their importance to the story. The old man sees his daughter as the biggest prize, but neither man wants or needs her. Our hero wants revenge and his enemy just wants something different, a new experience and something to challenge his will.
Daiei is such a strange company, one that could release Rashomon and also the Gamera, Zatoichi, Yokai Monsters and Daimajin series of films. They even had their own baseball team, the Daiei Stars, which are known today as the Chiba Lotte Marines.
I’ve never seen anything like this movie, a moody look at fishing life that just so happens to feature a kaiju whale.
You can get this movie on blu ray from SRS or download it from the Internet Archive.
Kenzo Miyazawa is a night school teacher with a class full of weirdos. Sadly, there aren’t enough students and the school is about to close. There’s also a musical that the class wants to put on for a festival. And oh yes, an alien kaiju that has come to destroy the city which Mr. Miyazawa challenges to a battle.
Directed by Yoshikazu Ishii and written by Nobuhiko Ishii, you may be not pleased to learn that the giant teacher doesn’t become giant until the last few minutes of the movie. Instead, it’s an entire movie about alien students learning about themselves. You might be let down if you’re looking for an entire movie of a monstrous kaiju instructor.
The Return of Godzilla (1984): The 16th film in the Godzilla franchise, this was the last film produced in the Shōwa era and the first film in the Heisei series. It is at once a sequel to the original 1954 Godzilla and a reboot. The King of the Monsters would return to his roots as an enemy of human beings, if only for a few movies, and it was jarring for kids who grew up with the cute and cuddly version.
Directed by Koji Hashimoto and written by Shuichi Nagahara with a story by Tomoyuki Tanaka, this begins with the Yahata Maru caught in strong currents off the shores of Daikoku Island and a creature that makes its way out of a volcano. Godzilla is not the only creature, as there are also gigantic sea lice called Shockirus.
In the universe of this movie, the Godzilla attack of 1954 happened and people are aware of the kaiju. They are not, however, in the know that it may be back. People are in total fear of Godzilla, with an example being that Professor Hayashida refers to him as a living, invincible nuclear weapon. The Japanese government finally has to reveal that there is another kaiju when it destroys a Russian submarine and almost starts World War III.
Other countries want to nuke the monster but the Japanese government asks them to keep from doing that and allow them to use their new SUPER X weapon and its cadmium shells, which can slow down the nuclear reactor inside Godzilla. Of course, the Russians have set their nuclear weapon to fire automatically on Tokyo but can’t stop the countdown. The American counter-missile destroys it, an EMP pulse stops SUPER X and brings Godzilla back to life. That said, you can always defeat a kaiju — at least for the end of the movie to happen and before it comes back — by blowing it up inside a volcano.
Special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano said, “We went back to the theme of nuclear weapons, since that was the theme of the original film. Japan has now learned three times what a nuclear disaster is, but at that time Japan had already had two. The problem was that Japanese society was gradually forgetting about these disasters. They were forgetting how painful it had been. Everyone in Japan knew how scary nuclear weapons were when the original movie was made, but it wasn’t like that by the 1980s. So in those meetings, we decided to remind all those people out there who had forgotten.”
This was the first Godzilla movie since 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla. There was a rumored color remake in 1977, The Rebirth ofGodzilla, as well as Godzilla vs. the Devil and Godzilla vs. Gargantua. There was a push in Godzilla’s 25th anniversary to make a new movie and series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka wrote Resurrection of Godzilla that had Godzilla fight Bakan, a shapeshifting monster and dealing with nuclear waste. Steve Miner and Fred Dekker almost made a stop-motion 3D movie as well, but budget kept getting in the way of these new movies. It took the 10,000 members of the Godzilla Resurrection Committee to make the movie happen.
Godzilla was back, even if it wasn’t exactly a box office success. There’s always America, right?
Godzilla 1985: In the same way that Godzilla was re-edited to be Godzilla King of the Monstersin America — and re-released as the American edit in Japan in 1957 as Monster King Godzilla — Toho worked with New World Pictures to release The Return of Godzilla in North America under the title Godzilla 1985. They even brought back Raymond Burr to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original movie.
New World’s plan was to make a remix with Leslie Neilsen voicing much of the dialogue, turning a very serious movie about nuclear power into a goofy comedy. Raymond Burr disliked this and supposedly that’s where this ended.
Burr’s scenes were done in a day. The reverse shots, where the actors were speaking with Burr, were shot the next day. The major change is that while Soviet Colonel Kashirin dies trying to stop the missile launch in The Return of Godzilla, in this edit, the Russians make the choice to nuke Tokyo. Director R. J. Kizer (Hell Comes to Frogtown, Death Ring) said that New World was a conservative company and demanded this. They also demanded Dr. Pepper product placement all through the movie, even asking Burr if he would drink it in a scene. He stared at Kizer until, well, you don’t see Raymond Burr drinking a Dr. Pepper in this, do you?
I love that New World also decided that they would make a music video for this movie, “I Was Afraid to Love You (Love Theme from Godzilla 1985)” by Jill Elliot.
Interestingly enough, this is one of the first movies to be based on the scientific agreement that dinosaurs evolved from birds and not lizards. Godzilla follows birds due to the homing instinct that he has and that’s the same way that he’s lured to the volcano.
If you read critics’ reviews for this movie, they seem to wonder why Japan keeps making movies that are poorly dubbed with cardboard movies and people in rubber suits. This speaks to me of a lack of imagination and a childhood that wasn’t spent joyously watching Godzilla fight Megalon, Hedorah, Gigan and more. Compared to the CGI American films that came in its wake, this is a lean and frightening take on the creature.
When a good witch sends Django one hundred years into the future, he has to protect humanity from Godzilla. Yet even his abilities are not enough, so the sorceress sends him assistance in the form of Trinity. Can these two Italian Western heroes stand a chance against the Japanese King of the Monsters?
Edited by Steven Sloss, this fan trailer was edited together from seven different films, with music and sound effects from many others. It also has some original voice acting.
I know this isn’t real but I was so happy after watching this that I decided to share it with all of you.
Not only is this a kaiju movie, it’s also a comic book movie. Based on the Charlton Comics series Konga, which was an adaptation of the movie Konga and had 24 issues of art by Steve Ditko, this movie was made during COVID-19 lockdown by Brett Kelly, who also made Ouija Shark, Raiders of the Lost Shark, Agent Beetle (which is based on the Dan Garret Blue Beetle), Planet Blood and so many other movies. It uses stuff shot by friends and fans as well as stock footage and footage Brett shot himself.
The laws of public domain are always wild. The Konga comic book came out a year before the movie and is the first appearance of the ape. None of the Charlton Comics had renewed copyrights, placing them into the public’s hands, so this movie could be made while an adaption of the movie couldn’t.
After getting injected with a formula from an alien ship, a gorilla escapes and makes friends with Chance and Grayson. Then he grows to monstrous size and the boys have to figure out how to stop him before the government kills him. One way they try to help is by dressing Chance as a hot dog and trying to lure Konga away from the military.
I warn you that this movie is made with a stuffed animal and a monkey suit. If you’re expecting the poster to be real, you should not watch this. It also has characters with names like Megan Bacon (Ellen Mildred) and Major Bummer (Trevor Payer). Speaking of Major Bummer, someone took the time to complain about how his medals are incorrect on IMDB, which is hilarious, because of all things in this movie to complain about, they took the time to navigate the difficult-to-use IMDB database to remind the filmmaker that he was so wrong and that the character “wears the four stripes of a Navy Captain, not an Army, Air Force or Marine Major’s gold leaf.” I assume the same person also wrote about how the jets were wrong in a movie where a stuffed monkey becomes a 50 foot kaiju simian.
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