Wow. This is one of the strangest and most eccentric films I’ve ever seen. It boggles the mind with its sheer weirdness and its odd sense of style. I know it doesn’t get a lot of love from critics or the audience reviews, but there is something about this film that is so unique, so […]
Read more "The Mummy Theme Park (2000)"I suppose you could say it is a tradition. Although it isn’t too hard to spot the moment when it actually began. When Toho’s first major monster epic, Godzilla, first came to the United State, the U.S. producer added a lot of new footage with Raymond Burr as a reporter (with the funniest moment coming in […]
Read more "Daikaijû Gamera (Gamera: The Giant Monster) (1965)"(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)"(aka, Demon Heaven: Ghost Hero) Honorable Mention This is one of those films which is almost impossible to explain. And when I say that, I mean, an almost impossible to explain Japanese film, which, yes, puts it in an even stranger category. Nor is it easy to put it into any of the ordinary categories […]
Read more "Youkai tengoku: Ghost Hero [Monster Heaven: Ghost Hero] (1990)"(aka, Outlaw Power, Armicron in Outlaw Power) I think the main effect of watching this Power Rangers-style direct to video movie is that I now really, really, really want to see the original 1995 Korean film they stole the effects from. I mean, wow, they look remarkably good. Better, for the most part, than the […]
Read more "Armicron (2000)"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)"Honorable Mention As I’ve noted before, the Heisei era at Toho, starting with the release of Godzilla 1985, was a rather strange time for Toho’s Tokusatsu films, one where it felt as if they were desperately trying to figure out what they were doing. After all, they started the era with the return of the […]
Read more "Zipang [Jipangu] (1990)"(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)"(Literal title: Three Giant Monster Gourmet) I have to wonder if you could have a Minoru Kawasaki anywhere other than in Japan? It’s not merely that he has made some truly bizarre films. It is simply hard to imagine his weird fantasy worlds where Tokusatsu monsters become famous wrestlers or fuzzy animals work as Salary […]
Read more "Monster SeaFood Wars [San Daikaijū Gurume] (2020)"
rivets on the poster 