Category: REVIEWS

By Last Caress.

KAIJU! (again)

It’s Day two of my Kaiju Marathon Weekender (check out Day One HERE), with four more monster movies ready to stomp their way into my front room. What’s That? Strictly Come Dancing‘s on? Yeah, right; you can poke that straight up your Pacific Rim. Mind you, Bruce Forsyth’s a Kaiju, isn’t he?

GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE

Giving radioactive nuclear waste a much-needed day off and instead looking at the folly of man playing God with biotechnology, Godzilla vs Biollante (Kazuki, 1989) sees Godzilla squaring up to a creature built by accident in a lab. So, what exactly is Biollante? Well, it’s a clutch of cells from Godzilla’s own body, spliced with… ready?… a haunted rose bush. That’s right everybody, Biollante is a bloody great rosebush, with a healthy dollop of Kaiju plus the soul of some scientist’s dead daughter thrown in for shits and giggles. But hey – don’t let that rather limp description dissuade you. Biollante is MASSIVE, maybe the biggest Kaiju in any Godzilla picture. And yes, it’s got a flowering rose for a head, but it’s also a writhing tangle of viney tentacles and teeth. Teeth everywhere. As it rises from the water, it looks like Cthulhu himself.

It’s not quite the same fun-ride as Godzilla’s more traditional throwdowns, but Biollante is a truly unique adversary and, just as uniquely, Godzilla vs. Biollante has more depth to it than any Godzilla pic since the 1954 original.

GAMERA 2: ATTACK OF LEGION

Following on directly from yesterday’s Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (Kaneko, 1995) comes Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (Kaneko, 1996), the second part of a self-contained trilogy for Gamera during the “Heisei” period (guess which Gamera movie I’ll be watching tomorrow). Keeping with the bio-monster plant vibe of Godzilla vs. Biollante, Gamera has to tackle some nefarious plant life too, but the plants here are not human engineering errors, they’re alien, altering the atmosphere and being nurtured all the way by a “Legion” of insect-like beasties, all of which of course are being spawned somewhere along the line by a queen. Ripleeeey! No… I mean: Gameraaaaa!

But is it any good? Well, let’s be clear: The Heisei Gamera trilogy is as good as anything the Kaiju genre has to offer. If you ever even smiled fondly at a Godzilla pic or a Kong movie, you owe it to yourself to give these three films a try. This incarnation of Gamera is every bit the equal of his more illustrious counterparts.

THE HOST

Following years of toxic waste dumping into the Han River and amid a frantic government cover-up to deflect public condemnation, a foul, vaguely amphibian creature announces his existence by hopping out of the Han and running amok through the cityfolk and daytrippers who had previously been enjoying the Seoul sun. Gobbling up civilians as it goes and, in a final flourish, swiping up the daughter of nice-but-dim riverside caterer Gang-du (the inimitable Song Kang-ho) for consumption back at its lair, so begins The Host (Bong, 2006), a wonderful monster movie from South Korea which is also a moving family drama, an indictment on the “freedom” of the free world and, often, a lively comedy. The creature – by far the smallest here at my Kaiju weekender – is one of the most impressive-looking of the lot but, as grotesquely magnificent as he is, The Host is stolen from under the monster’s nose (does he have a nose?) by Song Kang-ho, who is simultaneously heartbreaking, infuriating, daft and lovable.

KING KONG

Too long. Too mawkish. Hilariously overindulgent. Adds nothing to the tale already told over seventy years ago, save the bells and whistles of 21st century CGI and special effects (and even that lot pales in relative comparison to the stop-motion alchemy of 1933). Subplots which go f*cking nowhere. A mind-bending amount of screen time spent on the bloody boat to Skull Island, during which time the whole movie grinds to a halt and we, the audience, all lose the will to live.

Yes, all of that. But, dammit, if this tale of love ‘twixt a Vaudevillian chorus girl and a 25ft tall gorilla can overcome all of that, it truly is one of the greatest love stories ever told. And that’s exactly what Peter Jackson’s 2005 retelling of King Kong is. I mean, Kong always loved Ann Darrow but, in 1933, Fay Wray didn’t love him back. She couldn’t quite see past the monster. Naomi Watts’ Ann sees Kong, truly sees him. Maybe it’s because the Kong of 1933 is a monstrous creature, ape-like but not an ape, not anything we recognise, whereas Jackson’s Kong is a feasible evolution; a gorilla, plain and simple. A massive gorilla, but not incomprehensibly so. One of God’s creatures, not some toxic blasphemy coughed up out of the Earth’s crust. Ann Darrow relates, and so do we. When I watch Gamera, I think of Gamera, and cheer. Godzilla, ditto. When I watch Peter Jackson’s Kong share the awesome majesty of a sunset with his only friend… I think of me and my kitty-kat, peering out of the kitchen window together, watching the birdies flying over here, over there. Don’t fucking laugh, I’m all choked up here!

Anyway, it’s been eight-and-a-half hours of giant-sized smashy-smashy action, but that’s that for today. Four more tomorrow to wrap up my Kaiju Marathon Weekender.

By Last Caress.

KAIJU!

From the Japanese for “Strange Beast”, Kaiju is a genre of films which generally feature an oversized monster smashing up parts of a city; Tokyo, usually, although it could be New York, Seoul, London or anywhere. And who amongst us hasn’t dreamt of being enlarged by radioactivity to 300ft in size and then pulverizing our local town to f*cking rubble? I know I have. I’m fantasizing about it right now, in fact: Take that, Asda! Up yours, Debenhams! Hit ME with extortionate parking fees would you, Eastgate Shopping Centre?? Ha!

Anyway, enough of that. This weekend, I thought I’d try to watch a bunch of my favourite Kaiju pictures. Twelve of them, no less. Over three days. I can almost hear the divorce lawyers up and down the county firing up their laptops and emailing my wife to see if they can be of assistance at all. Well, tough luck, you grasping leeches; in recognition of my wife tolerating a dozen monster movies this weekend, I’ve agreed to sit with her while we watch Me Before bloody You, which I think is a more-than-fair exchange.

Right: Let’s get ready to rumble, eh?

KING KONG ESCAPES

Kicking off my Kaiju Marathon Weekender is King Kong Escapes, released in 1967 and directed by Kaiju maestro Ishiro Honda, writer/director of the original Godzilla (1954) as well as many others. Part Bond, part monster mash-up, part pile of crap (in the good way), King Kong Escapes finds the nefarious Dr. Who – no, not that one; this one is more of a “Dr. No” knock-off – trying to extract the radioactive Element X from the frozen Arctic Tundra using his creation: Mechani-Kong, a robotic version of our favourite 50ft gorilla. When the radiation fries Mechani-Kong’s circuits, Dr. Who – no, not that one! I’ve already told you! – opts to seek out the real thing, currently lording it on Mondo Island. A lot of fun, King Kong Escapes was Kaiju production specialists Toho’s second and best crack at a Kong movie, following on from 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, also directed by Honda.

GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE

Produced by the Daiei Film Co in 1965 in order to capitalize on Toho’s flourishing Godzilla franchise, Gamera told of a giant, prehistoric rocket-powered turtle – no, really – who, awoken by atomic testing, comes to wreak havok upon Japan. However, in the mid/late sixties Toho elected to make Godzilla an anti-hero, and Daiei quickly followed suit with Gamera, making him a hugely kiddie-centric creature. Targeting their Kaiju at a youngster demographic proved detrimental to both franchises however; Terror of Mechagodzilla (Honda 1975) was Godzilla’s last picture for ten years, and Gamera: Super Monster (Yuasa, 1980) was Gamera’s last for fifteen years.

Leap forward to 1995 and Daiei decided to get Gamera out of mothballs for a trilogy of movies, the first of which was Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, directed by Shusuke Kaneko and repurposing Gamera as a bioengineered protector of mankind, created by Atlanteans to battle another creation of theirs which turned on them, the batlike bioweapon Gyaos (first seen back in 1967 in Gamera vs. Gyaos). The Gamera movies of the 1990’s start well and get progressively better, and as a trilogy represent some of the best material of the Kaiju genre.

GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA

We’ve already seen a mechanized version of King Kong, and now it’s time to say howdy to a mechanized Godzilla in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (Tezuka, 2002), arguably the best Mechagodzilla pic (it’s either this one or its direct sequel, 2003’s Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.) and not to be confused with either Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (Fukuda, 1974) or, um, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (Okawara, 1993), often referred to as Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II so as to avoid confusion, even though it’s not a sequel in any way and is in fact the third Mechagodzilla pic. Hm. Anyway, this one sees the Japanese military create a biomechanical simile of Godzilla from the skeleton of the original Godzilla who was defeated in the original 1954 picture, to combat another Godzilla should one ever arise. And arise, one certainly does. An absolute blast, this picture; for my money it’s everything a Godzilla movie should be.

CLOVERFIELD

Finishing off day one of my Kaiju Marathon Weekender is a US picture: Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008), produced by Star Trek/Star Wars‘ J.J. Abrams and written by Drew Goddard, director of 2012’s The Cabin in the Woods, in which the footage on a camcorder found in the ominously-titled “Area US447, formerly known as Central Park” chronicles the trials and tribulations of a small band of friends frantically trying to escape Manhattan while a Kaiju smashes the island to pieces. Despite being over 250 feet tall, the nameless Kaiju of Cloverfield was designed by the filmmakers to be an infant of its species, smashing its way through New York City because it’s lost, confused and panicked; in many ways a way scarier prospect than the carnage wrought by something which knows what it’s doing. I love Cloverfield, I think it’s a mightily impressive Kaiju pic, considerably darker than one might assume it to be and a terrific way to wind up proceedings for today.

Four more tomorrow!