Mimetic Mutation, Kaiju Becomes Comedy: Monster X Strikes Back/Attack the G8 Summit

Some ideas have long, full lives. After being kicked around and taken seriously for years, even decades, there's often a moment when someone comes along to take the mickey out of it. In America, this person is often Mel Brooks, who spoofed Westerns with Blazing Saddles, Space Opera with Spaceballs. Each time, the parody has marked a trend on the wane. Westerns had been ubiquitous in the sixties, and were starting to fade by the advent of Blazing Saddles. It was inevitable, then that the idea of the Kaiju film would also mutate. 2008's Monster X Strikes Back/Attack the G8 Summit is one of two kaiju parodies to appear after Final Wars: Monster X Strikes Back, and Death Kappa.

While these parodies of course mock the genre, they also preserve it. Very few films are using rubber suited monsters these days. Godzilla was done in full CG in Japan for the first time in Always Sunny on Third Street 2. Although it's a brief appearance, it's quite credible. Low budget satires, then, are a way to keep the art of suitimation alive.



In previous kaiju films, the world has occasionally taken an interest in the plight of poor Japan, constantly under attack from various monsters. The off-screen United Nations is referred to in Gamera vs Zigra, for example. But here, the leaders of eight powerful nations (Japan, the US, Great Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, and Russia) are together for talks. Each leader is a broad stereotype of the Japanese perception of the country: Canada constantly defers to Great Britain, the American is obsessed with his popularity, the French Prime Minister is looking to get the cute translator into bed.



The other protagonists are the kaiju film regulars, the reporters. While the politicians argue, they are our common man, the people who go out and actually solve the plot problem of Guilala. Wandering around the Lake Toya region, they discover a group of locals performing a strange religious dance to Take-Majin, a warrior spirit.



Primi Minister Ibe is on the defensive from the rest if the G8, having not reduced Japan's Carbon emissions. He is also suggering some intestinal distress, possibly echoing the 1980 conference in which Saburo Okita stood in for the recently-deceased Masayoshi Ohira who had literally died days before, as well as Geroge H. W. Bush's well-known social faux pas involving Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. One of the better running gags for the film is the constant replacement of the G8 banner to reflect first that the world leaders are going to deal with the monster, and then as headquarters for each of the cockamamie schemes they come up with to destroy it. He is eventually replaced by Oizumi, the former Prime Minister.



Sapporo is the town that gets hit, which has been previously attacked by Godzilla in Godzilla vs King Ghidorah and Gamera in Attack of Legion. So it's no stranger to getting wrecked.

Guilala is the monster from the 1967 film Giant Space Monster Guilala, known in the US as The X From Outer Space. In fact, Guilala's initial rampage is grainy footage recyvled from the first film. a fair amount of the rubber suit footage is recycled from the older film, but it would be unfair to compare this film with Godzilla-inspired remakes such as the 1999 Yonggary. This is not a remake, but a not-so-gentle ribbing from a director who knows his kaiju film. There is more to this film than merely having a monster smash a city.



The jokes come fast. The World Leaders use a toy Guilala to show its location on a map. A kid, who appears from nowhere, suggests the name Guilala. He is hauled away, as the audience has wanted to many of Gamera's boy protagonists hauled away, but everyone starts using the name Guilala anyway.



Several of the world leaders come up with schemes for destroying Guilala. The Japanese launch their more recent missile, but Guilala simple eats it. The Italian lures Guilala into a giantic pit (shades of King Kong vs Godzilla). The Russians attempt to poison it with their newest development, Polonium 210 (which killed Russian political refugee Alexander Litvinenko). The Germans attempt poison gas. The United Kngdom tries brainwashing. The French Prime Minister doesn't manage to get a plan off, he's too busy trying to get into the pants of his translator. This serves as a vital plot point later on. As each of the leaders fails to destroy Guilala, their flag is reduced to half-staff.



When the Brits fail, the Japanese prime minster proposes the use of a nuclear weapon. Nukes have been brought up as an option in several kaiju films, such as King Kong vs Godzilla, and there is that scene in The Return of Godzilla where the Soviets and the Americans argue over using atomic weapons on Godzilla. They have been used in the recent American films Pacific Rim and 2014 Godzilla. But this This is of course against everything Japan has stood for since World War II, as the only country that has been subjected to nuclear weapons during wartime.



Former Minister Oizumi, it turns out, is not the minister at all, but the ruler of the North Country (unnamed, but clearly Kim Jon Il and North Korea.). See the Pulgasari article for the complex relationship between North Korea and Japan. The translators, it turns out, are his also, and have been concealing M-16s... somewhere. All he really wants is to drop his Potaedong 55 missile with a nuclear warhead (North Korea had made its first nuclear test in 2006, two years before this film was released, and has done so twice more since then).



Luckily, the reporter has been working with the villagers on summoning Take-Majin, a protective spirit or god destined to fight Guilala. Take-Majin is a warrior spirit, similar to Daimajin. More humanoid than the kaiju, I wonder if these large fighting spirits are the ancestors of Japan's giant fighting robots. Lord Take-Majin has multiple arms like a Hindu god, but a more pleasant face than Daimajin.



The day is saved by the French Prime Minister, who sneaks into the G8 summit that has been taken over by the Supreme Commander and distracts the translators by flashing them. A melee ensues, but Kim manages to get his Potaedong launched.



Lord Take-Majin intercepts the missile, and fights with Guilala. It's a pretty classic wrestling match, as you would find in just about any super sentai show. The end comes when Take-Majin throws a chakram, decapitating Guilala.





The film is clearly made on the cheap, and I say that undersatanding that the director cared a lot more for this film than did the producers and directors of, say, Kraa the Sea Monster. But it's reasonably funny, clearly understands where its roots lie, and took some time with the script. The jokes are broad, the action based on stereotypes of countries, but there's a bit of effort to make them not completely cliche. It's a fun film for the Kaiju groupie, if not a stellar acheievement.

That's One Hell of a Turkey: Giant Space Monster Guilala

Part of the reason I am writing My Year of Monsters is to watch the development of the visual language of kaiju film. Not just for its own sake, but as a microcosm of film in general, to see what elements are retained from film to film, what works, and what is discarded. I am not enough of a scholar of Japenese history to meaningfully comment on the social changes happening in Japan, or even America, as these films were procuced, to give an informed opinion about their sociocultural significance. But in learning the language of the film, we can draw conclusions about what makes a good kaiju film, and what makes one worth watching.



Released in the US as The X From Outer Space, Giant Space Monster Guilala (1967) is the only giant monster film from Japanese film studio Shochiku. It starts off with a lounge-act song over the initial credits. Which is a heck of a thing, especially as the film exhorts the listener to embrace the twinkling future. Given that this is a giant monster film, I cannot help but think that this is somewhat at odds with the embrace of future technology, since many kaiju films are about humanity being punished for scientific transgressions.

For the first time since the 1965 Gamera, this is a rampage movie. As with virtually every other franchise, thism, the first film, has the monster alone against the military and the team of scientists. Guilala does return, in 2009, with Monster X Strikes Back.



The film follows the Fuji Aeronautical Flight Center, the sort of agency that cropped up with regularity in space-race era films. Our first experience is watching four white jumpsuited figures carry enriched nuclear fuel and put it in the back of a station wagon. If that's not space-age professionalism, I don't know what is. This space agency is launching missions to Mars, and anticipating the Galactic Ghoul of the 90's, has long a number of missions previously. Of course, the lost missions were all manned, and the spaceship they're sending, AAB Gamma the agency's first nuclear ship, is unarmed. What could possibly go wrong?



The anticipated problem, UFO interferance, happens, and the ship has to divert to the lunar base because Dr. Shioda has gotten ill from the UFO's approach. And who has to tend his fevered brow and brng him a drink? Why Lisa, the blonde, and the only woman on the crew. Huh. Blonde Lisa is also involved in a love traigle with the Sano, captain of AAB Gamma, who thinks he likes her, but really belongs with Michiko. Despite this early, dismissive treatment, the character of Lisa has a lot of agency, and that's a welcome relief from most kaiju films, which shove the female characters into stereotypical and passive roles. In fact, she is the discoverer of just about all the research that defeats Guilala will come from her. But she starts out as a Space Stewartess.



The Lunar colony AAB Gamma aborts to has been established so long that the inhaitants smoke, raise apples, and even have a hot tub and hot showers. This allows Lisa and her rival Mickiko share a tame but titillating shower scene.



Once AAB Gamma gets back underway to Mars, it's buzzed by a UFO, and then discovers that the engine has developed some lumps, as if it had gotten glowing Space Herpes. It's collected and kept in a vacuum, and brought back to Earth. There, it melts the container, and then goes through the floor, in a discovery that's uncomfortably like a section of Ridley Scott's Alien.



In an interesting twist on the usual gigantic footprint trope that has been used from King Kong to Pacific Rim, Guilala's initial spoor it a tiny track etched into the floor of the lab, giving no indication of the size it will eventually achieve. The gigantic footprint is later discovered, giving the characters the link between the huge monster and what escaped from their lab. Guilala is often referred to as giant poultry, and that's no accident. When viewing the small footprint, it is compared to a three-toed chicken footprint.





Guilala's initial appearance is very similar to Godzilla's, appearing over the top of a hill to give it scale. This is forty-five minutes into the film, perhaps the longest we've had to wait to see a titular monster in a kaiju film. Guilala's dorsal fin glows, like Godzilla's. Instead of doing so when it's about to breathe atomic fire, Guilala's is sort of an indicator as to its energy level. But it only shows up once, is discussed later, and does not impact the story at all. Like the two deely boppers on its head, the glowing shell seems to be there for visual interest. Guilala's roar seems to be a hoarse guy shouting RAAAAAR, possibly into a coffee can.



Guilala's initial breakout takes place on Mt. Hakone, which is a bit of an odd place for a space agency, unless it's been deliberately located on the Izu Penninsula. Still, it's quite close to all monster's favorite stoming ground, Tokyo. Scenes of people fleeing while Guilala marches on Tokyo are brief. The film isn't interested in showing us the human cost of the monster's rampage.



The military is, of course, completely ineffective. Guilala stomps on tanks, blows fireballs at them, and swats Starfighters out of the sky, even though they shouldn't get close enough to let it reach them. Two smash straight into Guilala's head.



Shochiku is not above stealing a few bits from their favorite kaiju films. The military deploys their own version of the heat ray/maser shown in War of the Gargantuas and several subsequent Toho productions.



But there are some innovations, which is why it's always interesting to watch a new studio attempt a man in a rubber suit film. As it later echoed in Pacific Rim, Guilala picks up an oil tanker and throws it.



Of course, the monster must have a weakness, and Guilala's is the ore that encased it while in space. This is recreated as the jaw-breaking Guilalanium, which of course proves to be the giant monster's downfall. Like Gamera, Guilala is after energy. Once it has got enough, it turns into a huge, red ball and floats off. Because just having fire breath and some sort of glowing energy shield isn't enough.



Ultimately, the monster's hunger for energy is its downfall. It is lured away from the Fuji Aeronautical Flight Center by a pair of guys pulling a reactor core on a jeep. This gives everyone time to load their air squadrons with the Guilalanium. As they pelt it with missiles, the monster begins to foam, as if they were hitting it with cream pies. In a spectacular bit of poor editing, as Guilala is layered in foam we cut back to a pair of suits. “No effect yet,” one tells the other. Guilala, coated in shaving foam at this point, lets out a last fireball, destroying one more plane, then shrinks under a blanket of foam until it's once again a small oval.



The tiny remnant is placed in a rocket and sent into space. And everything is all better.

Giant Space Monster Guilala is a faltering first step by a studio that had never made a monster film before. It can't decide what it wants to be, a space adventure or a monster movie, and is unsatisfying in either. But it's fascinating for it's craziness. Loading the nuclear fuel into the back of a station wagon? Guilala's unexplained and unnecessary ability to turn into a ball of energy? AAB Gamma's plot-consuming back and forth of to the Moon, and then getting rescued. Which would be fine in a space movie. That's why people go to see a space movie. But as the lead-in to Sometimes I feel like this film was two different pitch scrips that were inexpertly stitched together to form one science fiction movie that was true to neither premise.



Guilala's rampage is pretty good, and it steps back to Toho's older films, with the planes flying close enough to be swatted down. And there is a bit more interaction with the scenery, specifically when it throws an oil tanker into the cityscape. Unfortunately, they keep cutting away from it, to pursue the story of the humans looking for a way to defeat it. Longer blocks of both, I think, would have kept my attention better.

I hope you have enjoyed your monstrous helping of Thanksgiving turkey. Next, another Japanese studio, Nikkatsu, tries their hand at the genre.