All About the Rage: Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

With the commercial failure of Godzilla vs Megaguirus, Toho looked around for ways to save their beloved franchise. But by this time, they had other irons in the fire. Toho was distributing anime. including Studio Ghibli and the Pokemon franchise, as well as producing low-cost, high return J-horror such as Ring and Pulse. If Godzilla could not perform, then perhaps it would have to be laid aside for a time. To avoid this, they tapped Shûsuke Kaneko, who had done a brilliant job revitalizing the Gamera franchise, to helm their new Godzilla film. This turned out to be a smart move.

As with previous and subsequent Millennium films, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (hereafter GMK) occupies its own continuity. The first Godzilla film is acknowledged, but the other twenty-four are not. Except for the moment when the film casts some shade on the 1998 Godzilla.



We begin with a lecture. Commander Taizô Tachibana is talking to a group of students about the function of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces, which has only been tested against Godzilla. Although this film closely engages the character of the admiral and the military, it does so with a very different bent than have previous Godzilla films. Neither there for a useless show (the Showa series), a serious challenge (any film in which MechaGodzilla is built by humans, including the next two films in the Millennium series), or bumblers causing as much destruction as the monster (Godzilla 1998) the military here is neither valorized nor there for comedy. They are treated as people. The man put in charge of the anti-Godzilla task force is a blustering foot-dragger, refusing to believe that Godzilla is even real at the beginning, and spouting inappropriate military doctrine ("Try attacking it from the side! It must have a weak point!") while his men get killed.



Taizô Tachibana on the other hand, is very much a lead-from-the-front sort of man, who takes responsibility for his actions, and decides to do the dangerous mission himself. He does not relish the thought of combat, and admits to being afraid just before he goes into battle. it is not the military as a whole that this film praises, but the resonsible individuals who do their duty.



At the same time, GMK is well aware of its roots. the Japanese Self-Defence Forces help search for a downed American Nuclear Submarine (shades of The Return of Godzilla) with a new submersible called the Satsuma, a callback to both the man who performed as Godzilla in the Heisei series, as well as the rescue ship from the first Mothra film. When Godzilla comes ashore, we get a quick glimpse of a picture of Lucky Dragon #5, the fishing boat that was contaminated after the Castle Bravo nuclear test. Whwen Godzilla uses its atomic ray for the first time, a teacher looks out to see a mushroom cloud. It's the second most chilling moment in the series, after the crying woman and her children in the first Godzilla. It reminds the modern viewer of a time when Godzilla meant something.



The other protagonist is Yuri Tachibana, Taizô's daugher, a reporter, one of the classic Godzilla roles. But in a subversion of the usual Showa roles, she is a sensationalist reporter, working on bogus supernatural stories. This makes her earnestness in wanting to cover real stories, the story behind the guardian monsters all the more powerful. Perhapsd the earnestness of the character grew from director and writer Kaneko's years of making soft-core romance films for Nikkatsu (the studio that had once produced Gappa the Triphidian Monster).



Kaneko has also brought with him several of his own ideas from his Gamera trilogy. There are good kaiju and bad kaiju. Godzilla is a radioactive lizard infused with the angry spirits of the dead from World War 2. Mothra, Ghidorah, and Baragon are beneficial guardians, equivalent to Gamera. But although they are beneficial, they are still giant monsters, and they kill, even if by accident. The first casualties of the film are a group of obnoxious motorcyclers, crushed in a tunnel as Baragon tunnels by. Originally, Kaneko wanted the guardians to be Baragon, Varan and Anguirus, but Toho, remembering the poor return from Megaguirus, insisted their two most popular kaiju, Mothra and Ghodorah, be used. And it works, Ghidorah is the thousand-year dragon, and Mothra started out being worshipped as a god. Which brings some interesting images to mind. I would have liked to see Varan arise in glory after being charged up the way King Ghidorah was.



The guardian monsters also appear to be moral guardians. The above-mentioned obnoxious bikers break a statue, and get crushed by Baragon cruising by. A group of looters disturb one of Mothra's guardian statues, and they are pulled under the water one by one. Godzilla, on the other hand, does not discriminate. People who are in his way die.



Further, there's a lot of confusion as to what's going on among the film's characters. With only second hand reports, the military cannot determine which monster is which. It's thirty minutes into the film before the military believes that there's more than one montser. There are no grand overarching shots that show them which is which.

Meanwhile, civilians constantly underestimate the deadliness of the monsters. A pair of tourists want selfies in front of the Godzilla and Baragon fight. They don't make it out alive.



Godzilla looks very different here than he did in the previous two Millennium films. He is no longer lean, but almost bloated, his eyes dead white, his snout blunt. The spines are blunt, also, not the long starp ones Godzilla is an ugly brute. He is not a force of nature, not the hero, but a furious engine of destruction, crushing everything in his path.



The monster fights are spectacular. The first one is Baragon against Godzilla. Godzilla is enormous compared to Baragon, and the entire thing is a beat-down. Baragon is clearly outmatched, but it will not give up its attack. Godzilla fires off its atomic heat ray, and Baragon disintigrates, leaving Mothra and Ghidorah to fight Godzilla.



Mothra ahs changed a bit since her appearance in the Hesei Godzilla vs Mothra: Battle for the Earth. It's not as aggressive-looking as the last Rebirth of Mothra, and that's a bit unfortunate. The later evolutions of Mothra were very dynamic looking, with straight leading edges ion their wings. This is a step backwards toward the traditional Mothra, admittedly the one that nearly took Godzilla to the cleaners in Godzilla vs Mothra. But she's less fussy than she has been, not as much a nurturing monster as something that does look ready for a fight. Further, she's been equipped with a battery of stingers, so she does not have to rely on the poisonous scales.



Ghidorah is much the same, if a bit smaller smaller he has been. It does take on a couple of power-ups in the course of the fight.



The second battle, with Mothra, Ghidorah, and Godzilla in Yokohama, is one of the best kaiju battles ever put to screen. Godzilla is a brute, smashing everything. When Mothra attempts to lansd on a tall building that happens to contain soldiers, Godzilla sends its atomic ray through it, killing the men, destroying the tallest building in Yokohama.



After the first ten minutes, the fight is no longer shot over complete buildings, but the rubble of structures already destroyed. This helps with the overall sense of dark weight this film has. Men are being killed, buildings are being destroyed, and this is reinfoced by repeated viewings, giving the destruction a sense of permanence.



Godzilla, while it has its teeth in one of Ghidorah's necks, casually swats Mothra aside with its tail, a move borrowed later in Godzilla 2014.



When both Mothra and Ghidorah go down temporarily, the military moves in. While the display is impressive, it only attracts Godzilla's destructive attention. Godzilla sweeps his atomic ray across the men, annihilating entire platoons, then blowing a destroyer out of the water.



From the smoking shore, Godzilla roars his triumph.



But at least it keeps Godzilla from destroying the helpless guarsian monsters. Very seldom have human and kaiju worked in such good harmony.

Mothra, wings on fire, confronts Godzilla again, only to be disintigrated by a close-in blast. Like Biolante, she disintigrates into golden particles. These flow into the downed Ghidorah, who awakens, now with a forcefield surrounding it like a clould of electrons.





Godzilla lays into this with a long blast of its heat ray, but Ghidorah collects the energy and returns it to sender in a gigantic ball of destructive energy. At last, Godzilla is wounded.



This doesn't prevent him from unleashing his ray on Ghidorah, and creating a frikkin' huge explosion as the three-headed monster disintigrates.



With the Guardians gone, Tachibana pilots his submersible literally down Godzilla's throat, and relesases the drill torpedo from inside. Godzilla collapses and sinks, pouring blood into the water. Attempting to use its heat ray, Godzilla manages to destroy itself, leaving only a heating heart at the bottom of the bay.



The film is political, and I'm not steeped in Japanese culture enough to honestly reflect on Japan's relationship with World War II. But Kaneko is clearly making a statement that Japan is in denial of its responsibility for many deaths in the Pacific during that conflict. Far from destroying the film, which was released as a double-bill with Hamtaro, an animated film about a hamster, this is the most successful film in the Millennium series.



Despite, or perhaps because of the layers of subtext, this is one of the best Godzilla films out there. The dark edge appeals to me, and the extended monster fight at the end of the film is everything I could ask for. The writing isn't embarassing, there are no random experts who show up with impossible answers, the characters are well drawn. Shûsuke Kaneko turned Gamera from an extended Mystery Science Theater 3000 gag into an excellent trilogy of kaiju films. He brings the same love and devotion to kaiju film making here. Visrually, the story is exciting and Godzilla is seen with a badly-neede fresh set of eyes.

Of further note is director's excellent choice for score. Kô Ohtani has worked with director Kaneko on his three Gamera films, and the score is excellent. Unlike Michiru Ôshima, who provides a full orchesttral score, Ohtani gives us something a little more electronic, but it's a thrilling, beautiful bit of work.

Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack was a financial and critical success, considered by myself and many other fans as the best of the series. So naturally, Toho returns back to, director of Godzilla vs Megaguirus for the next film.

Kaiju Neo-Brutalism: Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris

In addition to the return of Toho's Godzilla, 1999 also saw the return of his greatest rival, Gamera. Director Shûsuke Kaneko and writer Kazunori Itô had created two stunning Gamera films, some of the finest kaiju films ever made. And they had done so with half the budget of Toho's Godzilla series of the same period. As the difference between the Japanese Godzilla and the 1998 American film demonstrate, attention to detail does matter. Itô and Kaneko clearly love the series, and spent a lot of time coming up with the plot, fleshing out the characters, and studying Kaiju films, finding their tropes, and subverting them.

The film starts with an old enemy, Gyaos, star of two Showa-era Gamera films, and the main antagonist in Gamera, Guardian of the Universe.



Directly after this, a deep-sea vessel discovers a graveyard of not one, but dozens of dead Gameras. So our heroic turtle isn't just an anomaly, he's part of a long line of Gameras. This brings up questions unanswered by the first film of the Heisei seriesd, as well as calling all the way back to the original 1965 Gamera. It also imparts a history to both of the Gyaos and Gamera himself.



Previously, Gamera had a connection to Asagi Kusanagi. That link was sacrificed in the previous film, and here, Gamera is much more destructive than he has been. Additionally, that previously-benign relationship can be poisonous if the individual taking that psychic connection has a lot of issues. Ayana Hirasaka, who forms a link with the Iris guardian, has been traumatized by the loss of her parents and the bullying of her fellow students. When given the power to appease her appetite for destruction, it doesn't go well for anyone. This is a definite swerve for the series. Rather than concentrating on the monsters, The Revenge of Iris looks at the trauma caused by the giant monsters that stomp through cities, examnining the broken lives in their wake. Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla had moments of ths, but wasn't as willing to put an unflinching eye to the human misery around the monsters' feet.



Gamera's introduction, twenty-three minutes into the film, is brutal. After burning a Gyaos over Tokyo, he lands. As he walks, buildings crumble and people are crushed under the debris. Later estimates of fifteen to twenty thousand people are killed ast Gamera pursues the Gyaos without respect for the humans at its feet. It breathes fire through buildings to get a better angle, blows up streets with near-misses. In the end, Tokyo is a sea of fire, much as it was during the 1954 Godzilla rampage. And Gamera is again put on the military's hit list.



Meanwhile, Asagi is raising Iris, a tentacle monster that is a guardian spirit similar to the Phoenix. It grows from a small snail-like thing to a huge, gossamer-winged tentacle beast with arrowhead-like spiky bits. Like the Legion Queen, the construction is amazingly detailed, and must have been incredibly complex to work. Like Gamera, it's no angel, requiring body fluids to feed on. And humans are plentiful and convenient.







It has been fascinating watching Godzilla and Gamera swap ideas back and forth. In the late sixties, Godzilla attempted to court Gamera's audience. In Gamera's Heisei series, many ideas are borrowed from Godzilla. The heavily tentacled form of Iris is reiminscent of Biollante, especially when Gamera gets a tentacle through the hand. f Also the concept that the two monsters come from the same source, although in this case, gamera and Iris share the same creators, rather than sharing DNA. The idea that the friendly creature is from time immemorial awakened to fight its ancient enemies is central to Godzilla 2014.



The biggest subversion of the usuak kaiju tropes is that we do not see the ultimate fight. Gamera defeate Iris, which should have been its ally, and then, wounded, must confront dozens of Gyaos. But Gamera has his badass walk through the burning ruins before roaring a chellenge at his enemies. Gamera will never stop fighting. But we never see that last fight against the Gyaos. We never see the end.



Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris is an impressive film, well made, with a compelling plot, and good characters. It actually has less Gamera action in it than the previous two films in the franchise, but monster action defines a kaiju film, and is not what makes it great.Gamera 3 involves the audience in the lives of the people impacted by the kaiju, gives them very real jobs to do. Even the unlikeable characters are memorable.

You know who else made a comeback in 1999? Yonggary, of course.

Gamera Is Completely Outclassed: Gamera 2: Attack of The Legion

A pattern emerges during the Heisei Godzilla series, and continues on to the Millennium series. When Godzilla has steam, few other kaiju films make an appearance. When Godzilla is not being produced, other films begin to show themselves. In 1995, two Kaiju films were made: Godzilla vs Destoroyah and Gamera, Guardian of the Universe. Gamera was the first non-Godzilla kaiju film since 1985's Pulgasari. The year following, 1996, had no Godzilla, and three kaiju films were released. The best is Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion.

Attack of the Legion has an advantage over the previous Gamera film in that it doesn't need to introduce us to the new Gamera. So it goes straight to introducing us to the villain, the Legion. Like some of the best bad kaiju, it arrives in, or possibly as, a meteor. With a little nod to Godzilla vs Destoroyah, and even as far back as Return of Godzilla, Legion has many small parts as well as a massive queen. This provides the humans with something they can combat and the giant monster something of its own size to fight, also. This is reflected a bit on Cloverfield, in which the gigantic monster has human-sized parasites, bringing the conflict to two different levels. In an interesting twist, humans attempting to deal with the giant pod do very poorly, and Gamera, when attempting to deal with the smaller Legion creatures, nearly gets killed.

The smaller Legion are sort of hunched-over bugs with one eye and a lot of pointy bits. Like Warhammer Tyranids spiky. It's very clear that they are not here for anything but conquest.



Like Hedorah, the larger legion creature has a life cycle. It begins as a gigantic plant-like pod, and eventually hatches into the gigantic Legion queen.



The Legion Queen is in a Serizawa class all by itself. With ten long claws, a protective shell, a huge horn above its face, and a scream like stressed metal, it's as menacing as any kaiju put to screen. It must have been insanely complex to pupeteer. And just when the audience wonders if it has an energy weapon, it's head-horn splits open, and Gamera gets zapped. The beam is so strong that it takes a chunk out of Gamera's shell. It can also direct energy out of its spindly limbs and create an barrier. Gamera's clearly outclassed. It's just a giant, fire-breathing turtle that can fly.



Like so many kaiju, the Legion Queen has redundency built in under its redundencies. When Gamera pulls off the two horns that deploy the blue cutting beam, and it has whippy energy tentacles that lash through anything.



And there's plenty of monster action. Gamera initially fights the Legion queen to a standstill. But he errs when he attacks the second bloom, which opens in Sendai. It explodes in a massive, nearly nuclear, fireball, turning Gamera in a charred, immobile hulk.



Asagi Kusanagi appears again, sheerly by coincidence, having going for a ski vacation before the monsters attacked. Once involved, however, she again proves essential to Gamera. With an accumulation of people around the burned, immobile Gamera, Asagi's amulet chanels their love, and heals the gigantic turtle. But the talisman breaks. The ramifications of this are explored in Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys. The film reuses the idea of the invader making the environment more comofortable for itself, but this time, they're producing more oxygen, and increasing pressure, for example. This is why the explosion of the second pod was so massive--all the oxygen build-up.



There's a certain weird, X-Files feeling to the initial quarter of the film. Electromagnetic disturbances make the sky glow green, and radios don't work properly. And why not? X-Files was hot at the time, and very popular in Japan. But the mysterious atmosphere is difficult to manintain is a Gamera film. Still,



Again, the miliatry is valorized, even to the extent of cooperating with the science people, who are often at odds with the military in films following Ishiro Honda's style. A scientist who discovers and lures the smaller Legion swarm away, allowing Gamera to fight the Queen without having to take on the smaller creatuers. The military, finally realizing that Gamera is fighting against the Legion Queen, lobs some missiles at her, resulting in the loss of a couple of limbs. And the military takes care of the smaller Legion.



Gamera unleashes a new weapon. Having destroyed his connection to Asagi, and no longer able to draw power from humans, it draws it from the world itself.



This powers a huge power blast from its chest. And that's all for the Legion Queen.



Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion is one of the best the kaiju genre has to offer. The innovation of the two forms of the monster, each one something that only one force, Gamera or human, can handle, is a brilliant idea, executed well. It gives the humans something to do other than document the destruction and tell the audience how to feel. The execution of the film is excellent, the characters breathe, Gamera faces a tough challenge. Legion Queen is awesome. What more could you ask for?

Next up: Although Godzilla is dead, Toho didn't get out of the kaiju business.

When Did He Get This Awesome? Gamera, Guardian of the Universe

If you've been following My Year of Monsters, or even if you have seen the Gamera films yourself, you will be aware that that they are not held in high esteem. Not by me, at least. They were cheap, recycled their own special effects footage, and made little sense. The franchise ended in 1971, with one last sputtering gasp in 1980. But there are people who love the franchise. And one of them is director Shûsuke Kaneko. Kaneko seemed unlikely to bring the Terrible Terrapin back. Initially a director of soft-core porn films, he mad moved on to horror, directing a segment of Necronomicon, Book of the Dead. But how could anyone turn Gamera, a franchise about a jep-propelled monster turtle, into a notable watchable film? By taking the premise absolutely seriously.



The 1995 Gamera, Guardian of the Universe begins with talk of the advanced civilization of Atlantis. This is one of the aspects of of the original Gamera film that was left by the wayside in subsequent films. Gamera was from Atlantis, although in the original series, he was a demon of destruction, where here, he is much more friendly. The new Gamera series is not set after the previous Gamera films. Giant monsters are new to the characters.

This is a film that knows its roots. In homage to the original Godzilla, the film takes the audience to an island that has been wrecked by a mysterious and unseen force. In another nod, tghis time to Jurrasic Park, the bird expert plumbs a gigantic bird poop. There's another call-out to Godzilla as a woman at the supermarket complains about the price of fish, there's a train scene, with a pedigree that stretches all the way back to King Kong. And when it gets to Tokyo, well, Tokyo Tower gets broken. And just to prove that he's seen the last Gamera vs Gyaos, Gyaos loses a foot. And in the last five minutes, Gamera absorbs the heat and flame of the exploding oil refinery, another aspect, Gamera's hunger for heat, that was lost as the series went on.



The Gyaos of this film are similar to the ones in the original Gamera vs Gyaos. More bats than birds, there isn't any discussion of the two throats, but they certainly have the sonic cutting breath weapon. They also kill people. And pets.



Gamera is as he ever was. Right down to the squeaky belt roar. The suit has been improved, and so have the breath weapon special effects. Gamers not fires off balls of fire, rather than a blowtorch. At first, because he's moving slowly in the ocean, he mistaken for a floating island. But Gamera is no lionger the destroyer of a forgotten civilization. He's the protector agaist the Gyaos. When initially discovered, a number of talon-shaped talismans were discovered. This provides a link between the girl protagonist (who is fourteen or fifteen, sidestepping the hugely annoying boy protagonists of the previous films).



This talisman provides a psychic link between Gamera and Asagi Kusanagi, who holds it. When one it hurt or wounded, the others shows signs of it. In the end, however, we learn that it's powered by love, and with extra love, the wounds go away. Gamera is healed when Asagi's father holds her hand. This repeats at the endof the film. It's kind of weird and not well explained, but at least it's something that occurs after the movie is over, rather than disrupting the film with something clunkingly dumb.



Gamera and Gyaos are both products of Atlantean genetic engineering. It's interesting to note the change in Japanese films towards technology. Although Godzilla was initially created by the nuclear bomb, the series started out as very positive towards technology, and negative towards the military. Technology would save us from the monsters. Godzilla was initially defeated by the Oxygen Destroyer. New technologies were constantly being rolled out to combat the monsters. Here, the trend has reversed itself. Genetic eingineering created these monsters, which then destroyed the civilization that birthed them.



And like many Godzilla films, specifically, Godzilla vs Mothra and Godzilla vs Hedorah, this film touches on environmental issues. But it does so with a pretty light touch. The Gyaos awoke because the environment has changed enough that they are again comfortable, an idea recycled into Pacificf Rim. And Gamera has returned in response to his natural prey being active again, which was a touchstone of 2014 Godzilla. When the military fires missiles at Gyaos, it loops around, and the missiles strike Tokyo Tower, which is similar to a scene in the 1998 Godzilla. Kaneko's Gamera is clearly influential on many of the kaiju films that follow it.



In its initial analysis, the government advisors decide that Gamera ios the greater thread, even though it hasn't killed anyone, the way the Gyaos have. The actively incompetent bureacerat is a new stock character that will show up more as the nineties pass into the millennium. It's an easy way to misdirect the forces of the film, and stretch out the idea. But it's not offensively abused here.



One of the central scenes of the film takes place on a footbridge. The woman scientist is carryign a baby (of course) across a bridge and stumbles (of course). Our protagonist is saved at the last moment by Gamera's fire breath. One more shot, and one of the three Gyaos are down. One remaining Gyaos uses its sonic cutting beam, but Gamera puts a claw in front of the beam, saving the humans. And then the battle is over. But it's an excellent piece.



There's a lot of military showing off, trucks going here and there, large pieces of hardware shifting and then locking into place. Because it is initially misdirected, believing that Gamera is the greater threat, missiles are launched at Gamera, knocking him out of the sky. From there, the military pounds away at him until the Gyaos shows up. Even as Gamera is retreating, the military continues to fire on him, rather than Gyaos.



And man, does Kaneko love his explosions. Gmaera unleashes a barrage of fire, each one missing the fast-moving Gyaos, and Tokyo erupts in flames. Gamera may be humanity's prtector, but he clearly doesn't mind doing a few billion yen in property damages. The final confrontation between Gyaos and Gamera takes place in the midst an oil refinery. The final fight is surprisingly quick. Gamera doesn't deploy a new weapon, but uses his firey breath, which we saw was quite effective against the previous Gyaoses.



Gamera, Guardian of the Galaxy is an excellent kaiju film. The human characters are interesting, the monster fights are satisfying, and the plot isn't embarrassing. And it was done for a twentieth of the budget of Toho's Godzilla vs Destoroyah. The truly amazing part is that film got off the ground at all. Gamera is not a well-respected franchise, certainly not by me. But when a talented writer and an innovative director set their minds to making a film they want to see.

With Godzilla on hold, the 1996 sequel, Gamera: Attack of Legion is next.