Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Son of Godzilla was released in 1967, which is often cited as being 'The big kaiju boom', as it saw all 4 of Japan's major studios release a giant monster movie, this, along with King Kong Escapes were Toho's contributions, while closest rival Daei was putting out the third in it's Gamera series, released in the West as Return of the Giant Monsters, lesser known studios Shochiku and Nikkatsu releasing the bizarre The X from Outer Space and the Gorgo-derivative Gappa: The Triphibian Monster respectively.
Oddly, this is often named as being where the series took it's most dramatic swing towards the juvenile banality of the Gamera series, which is rather odd, given that up until this point, Gamera's movies were quite bad, but it wouldn't be until the following year's Destroy All Planets that they became completely and utterly moronic, and besides, Godzilla's Revenge makes this look like an absolute classic on par with the original Gojira.
I mean, there can be no denying that Son of Godzilla is aimed squarely at the youth market, and it, like the movie released immediately prior to it, suffers from a tight budget, and another South Seas Island location, not to mention Toho's 'B' crew, with director Ishiro Honda, composer Akira Ifukube and effects man Eiji Tsuburaya, once again taking on a hands-on role, not to mention their 'A-List' stars Mie Hama and Akira Takarada working on the joint-American funded Kong picture, making Son of Godzilla less than a priority for the studio that year, but it certainly isn't the absolute disaster many would have you believe it is, granted it isn't one of the best movies in the series, but upon a recent re-watching, like it's predecessor, I came to appreciate it a whole lot more.
You see, before purchasing the recent Columbia Tristar 50th Anniversary Region 1 DVD on holiday in America, I had only ever watched the movie twice. It was missing a showing of it on late night Channel 4 that had actually inspired me to beg my parents to set the VCR to tape Destroy All Monsters, which is what set me down the slippery slope of Godzilla fandom, but while on holiday in Florida one year, it was showing on a big screen at some sort of bizarre but cool place with a great arcade. I only caught half of the movie, but to date it's the only time, other than that Dean Devlin 'thing', I've ever witnessed a Godzilla movie on a screen bigger than a TV. At that point in time, I was aged either 4,5 or 6, and the huge spider, who in the dubbed print is referred to as Spiega, scared the bejesus out of me, and is probably why I can't stand the things now.
The next time myself and the movie met would be in the build-up to the 1998 American debacle, when companies decided to capitalise on the oncoming 'success' and put out a slew of old Godzilla flicks, some which had never been released in the UK, on VHS, offering re-issues of the ones that had been put out on long out of print VHS tapes.
At this point in time, I was 13, I was looking for cool. The Heisei Godzilla flicks were pretty cool, Son of Godzilla wasn't. My VHS took one watching, before growing very dusty. Granted Spiega still creeped the bejesus out of me, but that tape remained in that condition until recently, when I re-watched it, along with the DVD, for the purpose of this review.
As I mentioned, this movie is once again set on an Island in the sun(it was filmed in Guam), and this time we are at Sollgel Island, somewhere off of Japan. It is here that a team of scientists, lead by the brilliant Dr. Kusumi(Tadao Takashima - Atragon) are looking to perfect a device that can control the weather, therefore allowing crops to grow on land that was thought impossible to get fertile. His team, including the headstrong Fujisaki(Akihiko Hirata - Mothra) and the close to breaking point Furukawa(Yoshio Tsuchiya - The Mysterians) are given a surprise when a freelance reporter named Goro Maki(Akira Kubo - Gamera: Guardian of the Universe) parachutes in, looking for a story. He is immediately told that unless he wants to swim home, he will have to earn his place, and takes on a job as the cook.
It's on one of his treks into the jungle to find veggies that he spots a beautiful native girl swimming in the sea, but when she notices him she runs off, and he has to return to base, because the jungle is actually infested with man-sized Preying Mantis, something which doesn't boost morale at camp.
When the team decide to test their device, a problem arises in the form of interference with the radio signals, a problem that had been with them since they came to the island, however this one is costly, as it prematurely detonates a nuclear device used in the process, which causes intense tropical storms for 4 days straight, and also mutates the Mantis into Godzilla sized creatures, that, depending on if you are watching subbed or dubbed, Goro dubs Kamacuras(or sometimes Kamakiras) or Gimantis.
These creatures dig up what appears to be a giant egg, which is cracked open to reveal a small, chubby reptile...thing that they begin to beat up, in preparation for eating. However, it turns out that the interference was actually brain waves being emmited from the egg(!?) which have succeeded in their purpose, which was to draw Godzilla to the Island. He quickly despatches of the creatures, before taking his 'son', who bears only a passing resemblance to him, to train him in how to be a monster.
This isn't before the kid, called either Minya or Minilla, displays that maybe he is Godzilla's kid after all, and picks up where his dad left off in the prior movie, by making google-eyes at a native girl. He befriends the beautiful girl Goro saw earlier, who we, and the scientists, soon learn is called Saeko(Bibari Maeda - Judo Champion), the daughter of a scientist who stayed here after the war. She soon also gets friendly with the scientists, which comes in handy, because they need to take refuge in her secluded cave, and bring their equipment with them. They plan to carry on the experiment, but this takes a shot in the foot when they all get an odd jungle fever, but Saeko knows a cure, red water, and they set off to get some.
However, getting to the red water involves crossing 'The Valley of Kumonga'(Kumonga is another name for Spiega), and on the way back, they , expectedly, wake him up and must escape the jaws of this immensely creepy giant arachnid, but only succeed in doing so to find out that he followed them back to the cave.
Everyone is now cured, but can't get outside, but after fixing a radio broken in the storm, the team call for help, and decide to stop the monsters outside, because it should be noted that while growing tired of waiting for humans, Kumonga decided to try and eat Minya, which brought his none to happy dad, and all hell involving spiders and giant atomic dinosaurs is breaking loose, by using the weather device to freeze them. But will they pull it off? what will become of Godzilla and Minya?
Son of Godzilla is a pretty silly movie. While the characters still, to an extent, fear Godzilla, it's pretty blatant that he poses about as much threat as a wet napkin, and in this movie his nastiest act is try to teach Minya how to breath fire, and when the tyke can only emit puny smoke rings, Godzilla stands on his tail for the desired effect. He's portrayed as a defensive father, and while he tries to get Minya to fight for himself, which he eventually does, he isn't averse to thumping the much bigger and nastier Kumonga for trying to eat the kid.
Minya himself is much maligned by Godzilla fans, but you would have to take the series far too seriously to deny that some of the stuff here is kinda cute, especially the end of the film, and you have to wonder about people who take the Godzilla movies of the 60s and 70s all that seriously anyway.
So, as with the previous movie, the Island setting means that nothing gets smashed apart from boulders, which makes the Kamacuras a little pointless, but Kumonga is just plain creepy, so it's threatening enough, but it doesn't excuse the movie, cute as some scenes may be, of being a more kid-orientated and less violent against anyone but monsters rehash of the last movie. I mean, it moves at a decent enough pace, and is quite fun, a lot of it does suffer from being quite repetitive, and the introduction of Minya in the first place screams of lack of imagination, seeing as Gorgo had already given the World a monster family, and it does seem like a rather blatant device to try and attract a youthful audience.
What makes the film harder to stomach is the Godzilla suit. Here he is fat, has far too long a neck, his spines are all over the shop and he has a face like a frog. This is also the first movie that I noticed an effect that always annoyed me taking place, where his breath-ray seems to curve upwards.
Minya, when it's first born, looks like a really ugly mutant muppet, and makes this horrendous MWAGWEI noise, certain to split your ears. When a bit more grown he looks better, if still pug-faced, buck-toothed and not much like his dad.
The show is stolen by the bad monsters though, with both Kamacuras and Kumonga being brought to life via a complex puppetry job, and both are excellent, especially for the time, but even now Kumonga, with it's actually rather realistic spider-walk and horrible hiss, I still find pretty creepy.
As with Ebirah, Son of Godzilla has a stand-out effects scene that I love, this time it's Godzilla coming in to the beach, jaws-style fins first, before rearing up. The only thing that lets this awesome effect down is the fact it's a rather lame Godzilla suit(and for the scene they used the one from the last movie, which is still better than 'Frogzilla' in the rest of the film). I just wonder why Toho never tried to repeat such a nifty scene.
The acting is much easier to make out from the subtitled version, because the dubbing seems to use those three, voices that dub every old Toho movie, and while they put in a decent show, in general the voices are so un-Japanese that it kind of distracts you.
While this may be Toho's 'B' list, many of the actors were proven performers, and this wouldn't be the last time we saw Kubo, Tsuchiya, Takashima or Hirata in a Godzilla flick. It once again highlights the hilarious lack of continuity between movies, in the last film, Hirata was an eye-patched terrorist commander, here he is a nice guy scientist.
If there is one thing that the can be said about the cast, it's that they are reliable, and that makes it easier to say nice things about them, something I'm always reluctant to do through dubbing and subs, but I've seen all of these guys in enough movies to gather that they are never bad, and they don't show up the movie either.
This movie would be Maeda's only Sci Fi picture, and her performance here is ok, although basically all she is charged with doing is filling Kumi Mizuno's native sarong, but that's no mean feat, and this lovely pulls it off with flying colours.
Music in the movie is once again provided by Masaru Sato, and it's again horn-driven. This time, to help bolster the more juvenile picture, all the music is more playful and bouncy, and this, along with his previous Godzilla score, have, I always felt, fit the Island setting perfectly.
So, while some of it's effects are on the shocking side of things, and it is found guilty of trying to appease the juvenile audience too much, I have to say that Son of Godzilla isn't actually that bad a movie. It's only problem is that bad effects and the introduction of Minya aside, it really doesn't do very much that is memorable, something which every Showa Era Godzilla movie following this did, for good or bad reasons.
I'm going to settle on 3/5 for Son of Godzilla. Personally I don't like it as much as the movie on either side of it, but it does appeal to the innner kid in me, and is a hell of a lot more fun as a time waster on a lazy afternoon than anything on TV, or a lot of other movies. If you can get over the terrible Godzilla suit, and you do have touch with your more childish side, then you will get some enjoyment out of Son of Godzilla. Sure it's stupid, but it was meant to be, and it's also fun.
Year: 1967
Titles: Kaijūtō no kessen: Gojira no musuko
Son of Godzilla
On an uninhabited island, United Nations scientists experiment with changing the climate, cooling desert temperatures to provide more fertile land for...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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