"Chikyû Kogeki Meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan" (1972) d/ Jun Fukuda

From Japanese corn-eating hippies to giant monsters that converse casually back and forth in English to interstellar cockroaches with notions of world domination, director Jun Fukuda shows he'd come a long way in handling daikaiju action since his first go back in 1966 when Godzilla made a crispy coconut shrimp dinner out of Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. Here, he packs eighty-nine minutes with as much silliness as anybody over four years old not wearing teeny-tiny shorts and a crooked baseball cap could possibly stand.


"Is that another banana in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"
Unemployed Manga artist Gengo scores a job at Children's Land, where from the top of Godzilla Tower, some alien cockroaches from Space Hunter Nebula-M have assumed the identity of some dead humans to launch a scheme attacking the planet with two monsters, King Ghidorah, and Gigan, a bird-like cyborg with metal hooks for hands and a table saw inside his belly button. The space beasts are controlled through a series of "Action Signal Tapes" as played through a common reel-to-reel. When one of the tapes is played out of sequence (by Gengo and his nosey pals), it alerts Godzilla, who's been hanging out with his buddy, Angillas, on Monster Island. Godzilla raps in Monster-ese to Angy (think: dubbed kung fu voices over noisy scratching, a la Cooky Puss by the Beastie Boys), who swims to the mainland to check out the funny goings-on, but gets his worthless kaiju ass handed to him him by the army. Congratulations on being the only monster in Japanese history that couldn't handle those guys.


"All of your go-go girls and most smokable hallucinogenic plants is now belongs to us guys, plix..."
Godzilla then tags along with Angillas, and both of Earth's defenders take a hearty beating at the...feet(?) of the interstellar invaders (Gigan has no hands, Ghidorah's got no arms, period), and a nifty laser cannon located inside the mouth of the Godzilla Tower turns the tide in favor of the unwanted guests from space, until Gengo, his black belt bitch of a girlfriend, Tomoko (Yuriko Hishimi), and his corn-munching pal, Shosaku (Minoru Takashima) manage to destroy the control panel, after which Godzilla dismantles his namesake tower, with the power-starved aliens fatally trapped inside. Gigan and Ghidorah get ganged up on, and fly their defeated asses back into space from whence they came. Godzilla and Angillas begin their long victory swim home (Godzilla on Monster Island is a deceiving alt title, since there's only roughly a minute of footage on the island altogether) when Big G turns for the cameras and gives his signature roar.


"He brought Angillas ?!!? He actually brought fucking Angillas !"
Despite being a lazy, insulting diaperful of childish excrement (Not nearly the worst of the lot, though. Fukuda's earlier Godzilla's Revenge stands all alone atop that particular poo mountain), second only to G vs Megalon for blatant overuse of stock footage, and extensively showcasing well-pulverized monster suits (If you think the Showa era King Ghidorah suit has seen better days, wait 'til you get a load of Hedo-Goji falling apart before your very eyes), G v G is not without its empty-headed charm, that keeps worldwide daikaiju fans revisiting it, over and over, myself included. Along with Megalon, the next in the series, and Shaw Brothers own Super Infra-Man, Gigan remains a glorious drive-in memory of mine, though it's one Wop score on the rating scale feels generous at times, more often than it does penurious.


As Big G approaches, his ferocious breath poaches the cooked cockroaches.

"Gojira Tai Megaro aka/Godzilla vs. Megalon"(1973)d/Jun Fukuda

Our 100th review this year is upon us,little droogies,so tonight we'll break out a bowl of Tokutei meishō-shu,and kick back with a real doozy under the wop-roscope.This slice of Kaiju gold-painted latex rubber takes me back to a double bill with the Shaw Bros' Inframan(1976) one glorious popcorn-filled evening at the Moonlite DriveIn(R.I.P.) in Wyoming,spent sprawled across the bucket seats of my old man's black 1967 Chevy Impala.Alas what was glorious to an eight year old wop holds different interest to your current narrator nowadays.It's hard to discern the target age for this,the thirteenth Toho film to feature everybody's favorite radioactive rascal,but an educated guess would be four to eight year old kiddies,with asterisk value for those who have a special affinity for small Japanese blokes in rubber suits,smashing miniatures amidst heavy firework explosions.And really,who doesn't?Fukuda took over the directorial duties for the series with Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster(Ebirah,Lord of the Deep)in 1966,and by the time this entry saw the light of day,he had effectively taken every drop of piss out of the monster,replacing the flame-breathing Tokyo terror with a goofy defender of the earth,and hero to all little high-pitched Japanese boys in vasectomy shorts.
Originally intended as a solo vehicle for Jet Jaguar,the colorful Ultraman knock off,designed by an elementary student for a contest,the producers quickly realized the film wasn't gonna cut it,so they added a second Gigan appearance and haphazardly slapped the most juvenile Muppetesque Godzilla suit yet together in a week's time.The film was distributed in America in 1976,as evidenced by the puzzling one sheet above, showing the monsters battling atop the Twin Towers to cash in on De Laurentiis' King Kong,released the same year,deceptive in that none of the kaiju action takes place in any city locations.This film is so laden with stock footage inserts(I see at least three other films right off the bat;War of the Gargantuas,Ebirah,Lord of the Deep,Godzilla vs. Gigan.Anybody out there know the final official tally of borrowed footage?Drop me a line.) that the viewer might think it was co-directed by Bruno Mattei.The producers' blatant laziness and disregard for the loyal G-fan base was rewarded with the dubious distinction of theirs being the first in the series to not sell a million tickets in Japan.That'll learn ya.

Add "wacky interpretive knife-headed dancing in slo-mo" to the Seatopians' impressively advanced resume.
Goru and Hiroshi, are having a groovy time at the lake,drinking Cokes and punishing little Rokuro by making him bob around in the water in his vasectomy shorts on an aqua-sissy bike made out of colorful cartoon dolphins,arguably the most disturbing toy to ever appear on the silver screen.Their picnic is interrupted when the lakebed suddenly dries up,a dastardly deed perpetrated by the Seatopians,an advanced civilization under the sea who have created their own oxygen supply,manufactured their own sun(!),but require the inventor Goru's robot to guide their guardian beetle,Megalon,to the earth's surface,to strike back at the humans,whose nuclear testing has inadvertently destroyed a third of their underwater country.Let's stop there for a second.They created their own oxygen supply,and later,their own sun,but a five foot tall brightly colored robot that flies they can't manage?And why would an underwater race have a fucking beetle as a guardian monster anyway?Wouldn't a porpoise or a fucking sting ray make more sense?I'm having trouble getting around the underwater sun,too.Two Seatopian agents plant a bug in Goru's apartment,and have an uninspiring car chase with Hiroshi that ends when the dune buggy driver is thown off their trail by a well-placed rear projected fire that he apparently couldn't just drive around for some unknown reason.Finally,the female-free existence(there's not one woman in the whole stinking movie) Goru's been living pays off,and his brightly colored robot,which he dubs "Jet Jaguar"(I think "Plane Leopard" was already taken)is completed.

"What it be's,Godzeezy my neezy!" says Jet Jageezy,as they exchange a soul handshake.
The Seatopians take control of the robot and fly him to the lakebed,where,after awakening Megalon like you might wake your wife up for work("C'mon,Megalon!Rise up!Wake up,Megalon!"...really?No crazy awakening spells or kooky songs?),they direct the bellicose beetle to Tokyo.Or a dam.One or the other.Luckily,Goru has invented a remote control transmitter,you know,just in case some haters take control of the robot,in the form of a groovy seventies necklace that he wears around his neck.This sends the colorful metallic fellow to Monster Island to get Godzilla,which he does with a series of hand gestures the giant radioactive monster naturally understands,and they're soon travelling back to Japan,whose empty hillsides are the battleground where Megalon squares off against some stock footage of tanks,fighter jets,and Masers from earlier Godzilla movies.Jaguar somehow programs himself to increase to the size of the monsters,and fights the giant beetle while Godzilla swims toward the Japanese shores.The Seatopians,sticklers for a fair fight,contact Star Hunter M Universe(!!)and ask to borrow Gigan for just such a purpose.Let's stop a second.They can contact Star Hunter wherever the fuck that is,probably eons away or some shit,but they couldn't shoot us an e-mail a few thousand feet above,telling us to knock off the testing or they'd sic their killer beetle on us.I'm not even gonna touch the robot's self-enlarging in times of crisis programming.Jet Jaguar puts his dukes up against Megalon,but his monkey ass is handed to him when Gigan shows up to take Meg's wing casings...errr,back.Godzilla finally makes the scene and the whole affair degenerates into a tag team wrasslin match between four latex libradores,exemplified by an embarrassing flying drop kick,where Godzilla does a slow flying backstroke into an empty Megalon suit.Godzilla bails for the sea,Jet Jaguar shrinks back to human size and returns control to Goru,and Megalon and Gigan fly off to lick their wounds,the same way audiences do after screening this movie.

Hundreds of Japanese toy company ceo's simultaneously erupted in uncontrollable laughter.Foolish consumers,they have you now...
Alpha released the now out-of-print dvd of tonight's feature in 2001,and DigitalDisc paired it with Godzilla vs.The Smog Monster as a double feature disc,both discs are pretty hard to come by these days with copies often fetching a pretty penny on eBay.There's a region 4 disc also floating around for those of you with all region capable players.If you threw the DigitalDisc print("odzilla vs. Megalo",as the pan n' scan titles exclaim)that I culled some of the screenshots for the review from in the toilet,buried it in the bottom of a dumpster,and ran it through a woodchipper,it couldn't make it any scratchier or choppier.Grainy would be a marked improvement.In any incarnation it makes for some empty-headed laughter and half of a good/bad movie double bill,indeed.One wop.

Two and a Half Japanese Men(and Their Brightly Colored Robot) will return after these messages.