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Gojira-Minira-Gabara: Oru Kaiju Daishingeki
Godzilla's Revenge
Japan 1969
produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka for Toho
directed by Ishiro Honda
starring Tomonori Yazaki, Eisei Amamoto, Sachio Sakai, Kazuo Suzuki, Kenji Sahara, Machiko Naka, Shigeki Ishida, Yoshifumi Tajima, Chotaro Togin, Yutaka Sada, Yutaka Nakayama, Ikio Sawamura
written by Shinichi Sekizawa, special effects supervised by Eiji Tsuburaya, music by Kunio Miyauchi
Godzilla, Son of Godzilla, Rodan, Gorosaurus, Anguirus, Spigas, Manda, Ebirah
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Little Ichiro (Tomonori Yazaki) has been left on his own by his parents
(Kenji Sahara, Machiko Naka) way too often, so it's hardly surprising that
he starts daydreaming, and he projects his daily problems - like another
kid bullying him - to the fantasy world of monster island, where he is
friends with Godzilla's son Mynia, and realizes the little monster has
similar problems, as he is teased by big monster Gabara - which actually
looks more like an unruly, unkempt schoolboy than anything else - and has
to be taught by his father Godzilla to fight back. In the end, with a bit
of help from Ichiro, Mynia can defeat Gabara for good.
Back in the real world, Ichiro has in the meantime gotten into the
clutches of two bank robbers (Sachio Sakai, Kazuo Suzuki), but ultimately
he manages to outsmart them and hand them over to the police.
... and when he manages to defeat his bully in a fight, Ichiro even
earns respect from his classmates.
Common knowledge has it that this is the worst film of the Godzilla
series ... and I tend to agree. The story is obviously aimed at very small
children and so syrupy at that that it's hard to bear even for a Godzilla-fan
like me, most of the monster fights - usually the saving grace of any Godzilla
film - are lifted from older, better movies (like Destroy
all Monsters, Son of
Godzilla and Ebirah - Horror from the Deep) and the only
new monster - Gabara - is nothing short of pathetic (the absence of new
fight scenes had two reasons by the way: firstly, Toho's trusted
special effects director was bedridden by the time this was filmed and
would die later in 1969 ... and secondly, the film was much cheaper that
way).
In all, a major disappointment.
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