This is the one where Godzilla fights a giant rose. It’s one of those things that is so bizarre that you just have to lead with it. What makes this particularly strange is that this story somehow beat out a script which pitted the Big G against a gigantic super computer, a story which was […]
Read more "Gojira vs. Biorante [Godzilla vs. Biollante] (1989)"(aka, XIX) I should know by now that you just can’t rely on the advertising. Consider the movie 19: if you read the plot summaries of the film that are out there (and yes, the plot descriptions you find on a movie site are almost always written by the studio, particularly when every review uses […]
Read more "Nainteîn [19] (1987)"This is one of the strangest Tokusatsu films Toho made. Admittedly, that’s an awfully big claim, and there are a lot of contenders for the crown, but let’s just point out a few salient points: Despite what you might think, this is not a sequel to Toho’s classic faceoff between Kong and their own in-house […]
Read more "Kingu Kongu no gyakushû [King Kong Escapes] (1967)"This is one of the rarest of Toho’s Tokusatsu films. But what the heck, I managed to see it anyway. Mind you, while I didn’t exactly see it in the worst way possible — after all, the quality of the film itself was quite good — I came fairly close. I couldn’t find any subtitles […]
Read more "Shuto shôshitsu [Tokyo Blackout] (1987)"(Literal title: The First Gas Human) This is one of the more difficult Toho Tokusatsu films to find. Okay, we all know that both Jû jin yuki otoko [Half Human] and The Prophecies of Nostradamus are virtually impossible as Toho actually buried them, and Tômei ningen [The Invisible Man] (1954) is as rare or rarer without Toho’s help, as […]
Read more "Gasu ningen dai 1 gô [The Human Vapor] (1960)"Remember when everyone made fun of the American Godzilla because she was a big, mutated Iguana? Somehow, one begins to miss a Godzilla that was that close to the original. After all, there is one thing that is clear about Toho’s Godzilla efforts in the new Reiwa era: they have very little to do with what […]
Read more "Gojira shingyura pointo [Godzilla Singular Point] (2021)"(aka International Secret Police: Driven to the Wall) Honorable Mention James Bond started it. You know, of course, what I mean: the spy movie featuring lots of goofy science fictional gimmicks. Admittedly Bond was a little more grounded and for years stuck to things like secret nuclear powered anti-missile systems or death ray lasers. But […]
Read more "Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Zettai zetsumei [The Killing Bottle] (1967)"(aka Day of Resurrection, The End, Virus: The End) I suppose it was inevitable. You can blame Irwin Allen who popularized the genre in the U.S., but it really wasn’t much of a surprise that the Japanese turned out a handful of disaster movies in the Seventies. Nor was it much of a surprise that […]
Read more "Fukkatsu no hi [Virus] (1980)"Look, there’s a basic truth here you need to remember: If you are going to turn someone into a giant monster, don’t pick your bitter ex-girlfriend. This was Toho’s version of Verne‘s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Yeah, the plot is mostly different, with an entire underwater civilization and hints of Shangri-La thrown in as […]
Read more "Ido zero daisakusen [Latitude Zero] (1969)"(aka, “Italian Godzilla”, Godzilla: The Euro-Trash Version) A psychedelic Italian Godzilla film? Well…yes and no. In 1977, Luigi Cozzi, best remembered for his goofy Star Wars rip off, Starcrash (and the terrible Alien rip off, Contamination/Alien Cargo) got the job of preparing a version of the original Gojira for the Italian market. The only problem was that the distributor […]
Read more "“Cozzilla” (1977)"
rivets on the poster 