THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Django And Trinity Against Godzilla (1972)

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.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Konga TNT (2020)

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 SharkRaiders of the Lost SharkAgent 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.

You can get this from SRS Cinema or watch it on Tubi.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)

Directed by Kensho Yamashita and written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara, this is the sixth and next to last movie of the Heisei era that begins with The Return of Godzilla in 1984 and ends with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah in 1995.

SpaceGodzilla was first conceived in 1978 and is similar to new kaiju villain Biollant. Creature designer Shinji Nishikawa saw SpaceGodzilla as a Western dragon-like creature with large fin-like wings on its back. Godzilla’s son would be redesigned to be cuter and not like the dinosaur in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.

Speaking of Biollante, Godzilla’s cells were brought into space by that creature and when they’re exposed to intense radiation from a black hole, SpaceGodzilla is born. The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center comes to Birth Island and use a mind control device on Godzilla while The Cosmos, Mothra’s twin priestesses, appear to psychic Miki Saegusa and warn her that SpaceGodzilla is coming.

Even M.O.G.U.E.R.A. (Mobile Operations G-Force Universal Expert Robot: Aero-type), the new version of Mechagodzilla, fails to stop the creature from coming to our planet. Godzilla can’t even keep the monster from stealing his son and starts to use volcanoes to grow in power.

How wild is it that former All Japan Womens wrestler Masanobu Okamoto AKA Little Frankie was Little Godzilla?

If this movie had come out when I was a little kid, I would be drawing SpaceGodzilla in every class instead of learning about things I would never need to know from grade school. As it is, I’ve been drawing him in my notebook at work for the last day or two.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Reigo, the Deep-Sea Monster vs. the Battleship Yamato (2008)

Directed and written by Shinpei Hayashiya, this is the story of the real-life Japanese battleship, the Yamato, which fights giant monsters in the Pacific Ocean. Yes, the same battleship from Space Cruiser Yamamoto AKA Star Blazers.

The crew doesn’t believe when they hear that the oceans they’ve docked in are protected by the man-sized, carnivorous Bonefishes and the Hell King of the Seas, Reigo. Well, they try and shoot what they think is Reigo and discover they’ve only murdered its child. Now filled with rage, the crew of the largest battleship in the Japanese Navy must battle the largest creature in the world.

There was also a 2009 sequel, Raiga: God Of The Monsters. This movie was retitled Reigo: King of the Sea Monsters and re-released to take advantage of the 2019 release of Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Hayashiya also made the Gamera fan movie, Gamera 4: Truth, and the cast includes Susumo Kurobe, the original Ultraman, and Yukijiro Hotaru from the 1990s Gamera trilogy.

You can watch this on Tubi or buy the blu ray from SRS.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Gamera the Brave (2006)

Chiisaki Yūsha-tachi Gamera (Little Hero: Gamera) is the 12th Gamera movie and the second reboot. It’s also the first movie in the series made by Kadokawa Daiei Studio after the company purchased Daiei Film. There was no sequel and no more Gamera films until 2023’s Gamera Rebirth animated series.

In 1973, Kousuke (Kanji Tsuda) watched as the town of Shima, Mie was destroyed by several Gyaos until Gamera saved the day, helping everyone to escape before destroying himself to stop the threat.  Thirty three years later, he’s a widower with a son named Toru (Ryo Tomioka). Life is hard and his son worries constantly about losing everyone in his life after the death of his mother.

One day, he and his friends Katsuya and Ishimaru discover an egg near where Gamera was last seen. It soon grows into a small turtle that can spin and fly just like the larger kaiju. He’s just in time, as there’s another kaiju called Zedus who is eating people and destroying cities. He easily defeats Toto who is saved by the government and healed. However, the red stone that is needed to give him his full power has been given to Toru’s friend Mai (Kaho) for luck as she goes into surgery.

Directed by Ryuta Tasaki, who has directed several Kamen Rider movies, and written by Yukari Tatsui, this had some complain that it was too kid-friendly. Maybe they hadn’t watched any Gamera movies before, those that believed all the older movies were for grown-ups.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)

The 27th film in the Godzilla franchise and the fourth film in the Millennium period, this was directed by Masaaki Tezuka and written by Wataru Mimura. In this timeline, the order of movies are Godzilla, Godzilla 2000, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack before this and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. and Godzilla: Final Wars.

45 years after the original Godzilla attacked the world, maser-cannon technician Lieutenant Akane Yashiro (Yumiko Shaku) struggles to win over her fellow Japan Self-Defense Force soldiers when her failure to stop a new kaiju leads to several soldiers dying. Yet she’s picked to pilot the tool they will use to fight back, Kiryu, which is a cyborg built on the corpse of the first Godzilla. You may know it better as Mechagodzilla. Kikai-ryu means “machine dragon.”

The problem is that the new Godzilla’s roar unlocks memories in Kiryu which cause it to destroy humans. Yashiro must also win the respect of 2nd Lieutenant Susumu Hayama (Yūsuke Tomoi), the heart of Tokumitsu Yuhara (Shin Takuma) and learn how to use the Absolute Zero Cannon to stop the new Godzilla before it destroys Tokyo.

Japanese baseball player Hideki Matsui, whose nickname is Gojira and who played for the Yomiuri Giants, the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Angels, the Oakland Athletics and the Tampa Bay Rays before finishing his career with the Yankees, shows up in the movie. He’s hitting a home run when Kiryu shows up and also saves some children later in the movie.

Another cameo is Kumi Mizuno. She’s the Prime Minister in this but may be better known as Miss Namikawa in Invasion of Astro-Monster, Dr. Sueko Togami in Frankenstein Conquers the World and the island girl Dayo in Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Kraa! The Sea Monster (1998)

Lord Doom, evil master of Proyas the Dark Planet, has unleashed Kraa the Sea Monster on Earth. He knocks out a space station to keep the Planet Patrol — who have their own movie a year later — unaware of what he’s doing to our planet. That said, one of the patrol, Mogyar lands in New Jersey, complete with an Italian accent, as he was supposed to go to Italy and work with scientists there to stop the giant monster.

This uses footage from Zarkorr! The Invader and that’s fine, as these movies eventually cross over. Directed by Aaron Osborne and Dave Parker and written by Neal Marshall Stevens, this was also named for a Marvel comic, just like that movie. Zarkorr comes from the Tales of Suspense #35 story “I Accepted the Deadly Challenge of Zarkorr!”Kraa comes from the Tales of Suspense #18 story “Kraa, the Unhuman!”

Mogyar is a clam that speaks with the most racist Italian accent possible. I loved him!

You can watch this on Tubi.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Zarkorr! The Invader (1996)

Directed by Michael Deak and Aaron Osborne and written by Neal Marshall Stevens, this movie has aliens send a 185-foot, laser-eyed monster called Zarkorr to destroy Earth. The only man who can stop it is postal worker Tommy Ward (Rhys Pugh), who is helped by a 6-inch-tall pixie named Proctor (Torie Lynch), who is a mental image projected into his brain by another group of otherworldly creatures. However, the beast can’t be destroyed by any weapon.

The Zarkorr scenes directed by Michael Deak were filmed before Neal Marshall Stevens wrote the script. That’s the kind of movie that you’re getting into. However, those are the best parts of this movie. Zarkorr is pretty awesome and I wish that he was in his own movie instead of this, something better and with a bigger budget. Yet he rises above, even if he gets defeated by a mirror.

You can watch this on Tubi.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Sexy Rangers (2011)

The Muscle King is taking over the world with his kaiju but he never planned on Pai Energy, the power that comes from gigantic breasts. I am not making this up, trust me. That’s what powers the Sexy Rangers, who are the last — and most attractive — line of defense for our planet.

There’s never any nudity but it’s that Japanese perviness that lingers too long on cleavage, like when a character gets knocked down in an SNK fighting game and you wonder, “Did we need that juggle?”

Enemies include Queen Amorous, Uni Kong and a humanoid Polaroid camera who is called Unicong Camerang that takes photos of the girls in sexy poses. I guess he’s one of the bad guys, even if what he delivers seems positive.

Director Shinji Nishikawa wrote Godzilla vs. Destoroyah and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II and was the designer for Godzilla, Biollante and other monsters on Godzilla: Final WarsGodzilla 2000: Millennium and Godzilla vs. Biollante.

If you watch Japanese female pro wrestling, you may recognize two faces.

Yuzuki Aikawa was known as “The Gravure Queen of the Next Generation” — glamour modeling — who was the first Wonder of Stardom and Goddess of Stardom Champion and the first face of Stardom. She plays Pai Blue.

Yoko Yamada is an arm wrestling, MMA and freelance pro wrestler fighter. She started her career with S Ovation’s and Mariko Yoshida’s promotion Ibuki and is almost like a video game character come to life, as her father left the family when she was young as he was a gambler. He only came back when he had a stroke and she fights to raise money for his care. She plays Queen Amorous.

THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: King Dong (1984)

You can guess what movie this is trying to be. Also known as Lost on Adventure Island, this begins when Anna (Crystal Holland, who was only in two other movies, Surrender In Paradise — which is also about a shipwreck but at least has Ginger Lynn and Lois Ayres in the cast — and A Little Bit of…Hanky Panky) runs away from home and sails the seas, at least until her ship hits a battleship and she wakes up on an island filled with dinosaurs and, yes, King Dong who is really Supersimian, a female giant gorilla who is interested in Anna’s lover Alex (Chaz St. Peters).

Directed by Yancey Hendrieth, who also plays Buddy the Gorilla, and who wrote this along with his wife Dee, who plays Anna’s mother, this has a cast and crew that didn’t make another movie. Even Keith Finkelstein and David Dane, who did the stop motion effects for the dinosaurs and Supersimian. Buddy is just an ape suit.

It’s no Flesh Gordon, so just imagine how rough of a watch this was. Yet when someone asks, “Have you ever watched a porn parody of King Kong?” I can answer positively.