Toho's bid to merge the Godzilla series with their popular alien-invasion films resulted in this entertainingly goofy entry. The plot involves the discovery of the mysterious Planet X in our solar system, leading to a joint U.S./Japanese space exploratory mission. The explorers bump into some aliens with no fashion sense whatsoever (even for 1965) ...
Ishiro Honda directed this fourth Godzilla film (the second for Mothra), which is bogged down at the start by an uninteresting set-up involving corporate intrigue and a pair of boring reporters. Godzilla's first appearance is not very impressive, as he rises from a sandy beach looking distinctly the worse for wear since his last outing in ...
This preposterous battle between the huge ape King Kong and the fire-breathing dinosaur Gojira marked the beginning of Toho Studios aiming their monster films at children rather than general audiences. Director Ishiro Honda stages the battle scenes atop Mt. Fuji for laughs, as the two lovable beasts play ball with a large boulder and generally ...
The most unashamedly childish entry in the Godzilla franchise is basically a vehicle for recycled footage from previous Toho productions. The framing story involves a precocious little boy (Tomonori Yakazi) whose real-life traumas include harassment by bullies and kidnapping by a gang of bank robbers. He escapes these dilemmas mainly by taking ...
A race of malevolent aliens bent on world domination unleash the ultimate weapon of destruction on mankind, leaving them with no hope for survival but the power of the mighty Godzilla. Their galaxy dying, the endangered aliens discover a planet that could save them from extinction if it wasn't already populated. In order to solve that significant ...
A true "monster rally," this Japanese special-effects smorgasbord stars no fewer than four "A"-list movie monstrosities. Once again, the citizens of Tokyo are subjected to an ill-tempered atomic mutant. This time it's the triple-headed Ghidrah, who breathes electric volts in all directions. Coming to Tokyo's rescue is faithful old Mothra, but ...
This twisted, surreal monster story is related in flashback by an asylum inmate, who tells of his horrific experiences as one of several castaways on a mist-shrouded tropical island. While the crew affect repairs to their yacht, the stranded passengers take refuge in a derelict ship overgrown with a strange variety of mushroom -- which seems to be ...
Director Jerry A. Baerwitz created this uninspired, problematical monster story by using footage from a similar but different Japanese monster flic by Inoshira Honda (he who started off Godzilla and followed up with Rodan, Mothra, Monster Zero and more). Viewer opinion overwhelmingly sides with Honda's film. In this story, the Japanese and U.S. ...
In this Japanese sci-fi adventure, Japan and the rest of the planet is being destroyed by a deadly series of earthquakes. Explorers soon discover why: beneath the sea is an enormous city, Mu, and to keep it going, they have been stealing energy from the Earth's core. They refuse to stop and so the Japanese government pleads with the commander of ...
Godzilla maven Inoshiro Honda helmed this quaint, old-fashioned fantasy adventure (loosely styled after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) about the crew of a damaged deep-sea craft who are taken aboard a high-tech atomic submarine dubbed "Alpha," commanded by the Nemo-like Captain McKenzie Joseph Cotten. The Captain then transports them to the ...
Most famous for his original Godzilla film in 1956, director Inoshiro Honda is primarily a screenwriter and quite seldom a director. One of his recurrent themes -- the deadly or mutant effects of atomic radiation (as in Godzilla), is also featured in this otherwise routine sci-fi film. The title characters are from a planet that has been destroyed ...
This hilarious monster mess from the makers of the Godzilla series (including director Inoshiro Honda) essentially recruits Mary Shelley's classic creature into the ever-growing ranks of Japanese city-stomping behemoths -- albeit with a less colorful costume. The only nod to the original Frankenstein involves the monster's reanimated heart, ...
Japan and the rest of the world are again in grave danger after an evil amoeba-like alien emerges from a spaceship crash and turns an octopus, a crab, and a turtle into gigantic city-squishing terrors. An entrepreneur sees the creatures not as destructive forces to be destroyed, but as a gold mine with the potential to bring in millions of bucks ...
The H-Man rates as one of the most genuinely frightening Japanese horror films of the 1950s. When a minor-league drug runner completely vanishes, leaving only his clothes behind, detective Tominaga (Akihiko Hirata) investigates. Along the way, Tominaga makes the acquaintance of scientist Masada (Kenji Sahara), who theorizes that the missing doper ...
The second major addition to Toho Studios' giant-monster series after Gojira (aka Godzilla, 1954), was Rodan (or Radon), a giant pterodactyl whose wings create massive, destructive winds as it flies by. There are actually two of them in this film, mates who finally get together (after the traditional destruction of various Japanese cities) and die ...
Rhodes Reason is the requisite Hollywood "name" actor in the Japanese-produced King Kong Escapes. While hacking through the jungle, expedition leader Nelson (Reason) and his companions are attacked by a dinosaur. They are rescued by King Kong, who since his traumatic experiences in New York has evidently changed his spots and become a lovable old ...
One of the longest-running series in film history began with Ishiro Honda's grim, black-and-white allegory for the devastation wrought on Japan by the atomic bomb. As his visual metaphor, Honda uses a 400-foot-tall mutant dinosaur called Gojira, awakened from the depths of the sea as a rampaging nuclear nightmare, complete with glowing dorsal fins ...
Packaged in the States with director Honda's 1964 feature Gorath, this sci-fi film tells the story of an ex-con who has undergone a substantial change on account of a scientific experiment. He is now able, at will, to transform himself into vapor. When his girlfiend is accused of theft, the Vapor Man leads the police to believe he is the ...
Another example of a fairly interesting Japanese monster film rendered nearly incomprehensible by ham-fisted editing and substandard English dubbing, the original Yeti epic Jū Jin Yuki Otoko was shorn of nearly half its 100-plus-minute length, then crudely spliced back together with additional English scenes (shot by Kenneth G. Crane) and stodgy ...
Japanese sci-fi director Inoshiro Honda and special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya teamed up again (Rodan, Godzilla, Mothra) for this thriller/adventure. Set in the futuristic 1980, a group of Tokyo scientists discover that Earth is in the direct path of a star with a gravitational pull 6,000 times than that of Earth's. As a space ship finds itself ...
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