|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Some fishing vessel has vanished in the South Seas, and all of those on
board are soon declared dead - but young Ryota (Toru Watanabe) is so
convinced that his brother, crewmember Yata (Toru Ibuki), is still alive,
that he hijacks a boat and a makeshift crew - drifters Ichino (Chotaro
Togin) and Nita (Hideo Sunazuka) and safecracker-on-the-run Yoshimura
(Akira Takarada) - with her to go to the South Seas. The boat is soon
attacked and sunk by a giant lobster, later to be identified as Ebirah,
and while our motley crew manages to save itself onto an island, they soon
find out they are not alone here: A secret organisation called Red Bamboo
uses this island as its secret hideout where to build atom bombs to
eventually take over the world. And they take prisoners from the
neighbouring island - Infant Island, the home of giant moth Mothra - to
basically make them the proper juice to ward off Ebirah when their ships
are coming true. One of the girls from Infant Island, Dayo (Kumi Mizuno)
escapes and hooks up with out heroes, and together they soon make up a
plan to free the other slaves while at the same time running from the Red
Bamboo ... which leads them to a cave in which Godzilla is hibernating (no
idea why). Things get heated up when Nita gets captured by the Red
Bamboo and persuades the enslaved Infant Islanders to not make the
anti-Ebirah juice anymore but a poor substitute, when Ryota somehow gets
caught up in a weather balloon which takes him to Infant Island, from
where he returns with his brother, the missing Yata, in tow, and when the
others manage to awaken Godzilla, who is quick to destroy the Red Bamboo
headquarters and fight Ebirah. Our heroes manage to free the Infant
Islanders, Ebirah destroys the boat the Red Bamboo is fleeing in (the
substitute juice isn't warding off the monster anymore), then Godzilla
fights and defeats Ebirah, and finally Mothra stops by to fly our heroes
and the Infant Islanders to safety. In the finale, the whole island is
blown up, and Godzilla only just manages to hop off it and into the sea to
safety. Probably the best of Godzilla's (cheaper)
island-set movies: Sure, the monster doesn't destroy cities in this one,
the monster fights are kind of goofy, and it takes a bit of time to accept
Godzilla as the good guy, but the whole film, that has borrowed more than
a few plot elements from Dr. No, is
directed in a light-footed way, pretty well-paced, and thus very
entertaining to watch. Now I wouldn't even call this one of the better Godzilla-films,
but it's fun, maybe in a guilty-pleasure way, nevertheless.
|