Strange phenomena are threatening the world, like meteor showers going
down onto the earth & both Godzilla & Rodan re.-emerging from
where they were thought to hae died, but detective shindo (Yosuke Natsuki)
is given the relatively uninteresting assignement of bodyguarding Princess
Salno of Sergina (Akiko Wakabayashi) during her visit to Japan. But even
before he can begin his job, the princess' airplane is blown up, with her
in it of course. Curiously enough though, before long seemingly out of
nowhere a woman appears who claim s to be from Venus & who predicts
all kinds of desasters - & she is a splitting image of the princess -
or might it be her, her body was never found ?
Soon, reporter Naoko (Yuriko Hoshi), Shindo's sister, starts showing an
interest in the Venusian, & soon the Cosmos (Emi Ito, Yumi Ito),
Mothra's twin fairies, hook up with her too - but unfortunately a quartet
of assassins (Hisaya Ito, Toru Ibuki, Kazuo Suzuki, Susumu Kurobe) after
the princess have figured out the striking similarity too & are now
behind the Venusian ... only Shindo, who just happens to be about, can
prevent the worst.
Soon, the Venusian predicts the worst desaster of them all: Ghidorah,
the three-headed monster, who has already destroyed Venus & is now on
the way to earth to destroy this plantet too. & soon enough, Ghidorah
arrives, & starts to wreak havoc, so the Cosmos call Mothra, who is
still in her caterpillar state (& stays so throughout the movie), who
tries to persuade Godzilla & Rodan to fight Ghidorah with her
(Really), but botht he monsters refuse, finding much more joy in fighting
each other. So Mothra tries her luck alone, but with little success (after
all, what can a caterpillar do against a three headed monster), but
somehow, Godzilla & Rodan get drawn into the fight, & together the
three monsters can defeat Ghidorah, with Godzilla giving the monster a
good beating while Mothra - flying on the back of Rodan - covers its head
in cocoon.
Humiliated, Ghidorah leaves the earth for good - but not for long, it
would return in Monster Zero, the next film in the Godzilla
series, & numerous times afterwards.
& the Venusian ... she has regained her memory & it turns out
she is indeed princess Salno, while her assassins were buried under the
rubble caused by the monster battle.
Undoubtedly, Ghidorah was Godzilla's most effective & most
impressive (& thus most enduring) foe, however, this film, the first
featuring the three-headed monster, is hardly one of the better ones of
the Godzilla series: The rather weak human subplot about a
princess who, instead of dieing in a planecrash turns clairvoyant, takes
up way too much screentime & it takes simply ages before the monsters
(naturally the series strongest selling point) appear, let alone wreak
massive havoc.
That said, giant monster-lovers should find a few scenes to chuckle,
like Godzilla & Rodan playing ball with a rock or Mothra trying to
persuade them to help her (really !), & of course, Ghidorah is a good
foe in any movie.
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