Review : Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla, Jun Fukuda, 1974

GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA

Original Title : Gojira Tai Mekagojira

Directed by Jun Fukuda

Written by Jun Fukuda, Masami Fukushima, Shinichi Sekizawa, Hiroyasu Yamamura

With Masaaki Daimon, Kazuya Aoyama, Akihiko Hirata, Hiroshi Koizumi, Reiko Tajima, Hiromi Matsushita, Masao Imafuku

Year : 1974

Country : Japan

Length : 84 min

Rating : 7 / 10

SYNOPSIS

A priestess of the royal family has a terrible vision of a monster coming to destroy the Earth. At the same time, a cave is discovered on a construction site...

REVIEW

Twenty years after the first Godzilla opus, the controversial director Jun Fukuda comes back with a Nth episode of the successful Kaiju Eigan series (the last but one of the first era of the Godzilla series and the last directed by Jun Fukuda himself), after doing "EBIRAH, HORROR OF THE DEEP", "SON OF GODZILLA", "GODZILLA VS GIGAN" and "GODZILLA VS MEGALON". "GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA" is the first movie to stage the cyborg repliqua of Godzilla made in “cosmic titanium”, like it was done for King Kong in 1967 by Ishirô Honda in "KING KONG STRIKES AGAIN".

About the scenario, it's still quite light, with being on the same level of stupidity as some episodes that would follow, especially the most recent ones. In "GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA", we can find back our radioactive mascot fighting his mechanical alter ego, technological piece of evil extra terrestrials looking like humans (but whose true appearance would look more like characters of "PLANETE DES SINGES") coming to conquer the Earth. Fortunately, Godzilla would be helped by Kind Seezer, a sort of giant hairy Gremlin which part is quite limited, but also by the spiky shelled monster Anguirus, which would only make a small appearance in the very beginning of the movie, fighting the Mechagodzilla again “transvestite” in Godzilla... if in this episodes, the monster fights are les comic than in the other opuses by Fukuda, they're quite rare, leaving, unfortunately, much space to bit too long and boring scenes staging the “human” characters: a scientist, his daughter and his nephews, without talking of the Interpol agents who came to help. Anyway, we will like the fight scenes with Mechagodzilla with his super powers and his laser stuffs, of course reminding of the key series at the time like Goldorak, but also of the Jet Jaguar in "GODZILLA VS MEGALON".
About the special effects, they seem well done at the time. The only flat being maybe the probable too “human” behaviour of the monsters, which doesn't always make them believable in their part of spectacular creatures. On the other side, the fights are bloodier than in some other episodes, giving this long-running movie a more “serious” touch.
A movie associated with the decline of the first series, even though it was quite a success in the audience eye, which stays innovative thanks to the robotic character of Mechagodzilla and pleasant to watch in spite of the lengths.

Note from Lan : 7 on 10

Published on 2004-12-07