Social commentary had always been Godzilla’s jam since his atomic inception, however, by the early 70s, this hadn’t really been working for him as well as it once had. Both Ishiro Honda’s All Monsters Attack and Yoshimitsu Banno’s Godzilla Vs. Hedorah had both tackled the themes of childhood and rampant pollution respectively head on, but somewhat tepid responces from audiences gave Toho the feeling that maybe they should set their sights lower when embarking on their next, Godzilla outing.
Cue Godzilla Vs. Gigan, which, to put things bluntly, isn’t really about anything except fighting monsters and yet another alien invasion plot. Social commentary? Searching metaphors? Nah, Gigan can’t be fucked with all that bollocks and instead goes full comic book in order to cram so many explosions into it’s meager running time that ironically must have left a carbon footprint the size of Hedorah itself. Oh well…
And yet, by a weird quirk of fate and thanks to some suprisingly dark choices by a returning Jun Fukuda (who directed the similarly shallow entries, Ebirah: Horror Of The Deep and Son Of Godzilla), Godzilla Vs. Gigan ends up being something of a kickass romp that give you plenty of Kaiju bang for your yen.
Sad sack Manga artist, Gengo Kotaka is desperately trying to shop around ideas for monster concepts when his bossy girlfriend, Tomoko, hooks him up with the minds behind the World Children’s Land Theme Park who’s aim is to teach the kids of Japan how awesome peace is. Quite why the rather sinister men behind this project – the stern Kubota and the seventeen year old chairman, Fumio – have chosen to place a Godzilla-shaped tower in the middle of their peace dedicated park is anyone’s idea, but dopey Gengo is merely happy just to finally have a paying gig.
However, sinister shit starts occurring not long after he’s hired, when Machiko and Shosaku, a couple of hippy, conspiracy theorists, approach him with some worrying news that his new bosses may have kidnapped Machiko’s scientist brother for some nefarious purposes. It turns out that they’re they’re not far off the mark as Fumio and Kubota are actually disguised cockroach people from the planet of M Space Hunter Nebula (catchy) and their first stage of their works conquering plan is to lure Godzilla to their tower (actually a powerful laser) and eradicate him before the full invasion begins. But how are they going to lure him into their trap, you ask? By goading him into a fight, of course, thanks to the summoning of King Ghidorah, Godzilla’s long-term nemesis and a brand new monster in the bizarre shape of the cyborg Gigan.
So the scene is set for titanic tag team action as Gigan and Ghidorah get ready to lock up with Godzilla and his long-suffering buddy, Anguirus in a battle of the ages that features around 70% of new footage.
In an immediate reaction to the strange, almost avant-garde, style of Godzilla Vs. Hedorah, the powers that be at Toho rushed to ensure that their next offering was far more closer to the more classic tone and the result was possibly one of the most blatently commercial offerings of the entire series to date. On top of that, box office for Kaiju movies in general were on a noticable decline, leading Toho to recycle much more than just the plot.
Yes, it’s the old space aliens mind controlling space monsters story again (giant cockroaches desperate to relocate from their dying planet, this time), but it’s not only the plot that’s noticably second hand, as Toho enforced budget cuts forced the filmmakers to not only piece together the entirety of its Akira Ifukube score from a multitude of sources, but sizable chunks of Kaiju action were lifted from previous movies to pad out the extensive action sequences an subsequently, every shot of either Godzilla or Anguirus fighting King Ghidorah solo is old, second hand news. It wouldn’t be so bad if the just used random, transitional bits either, but instead the movie utilises the most memorable bits from Destroy All Monsters and Invasion Of Astro-Monster to practically rub your face in the lower budget at any given opportunity and as a result Godzilla’s look changes multiple times during fight sequences, Ghidorah goes from writhing death-beast to a subdued, near-static dragon from one shot to the next and, worse of all, we randomly switch from day to night numerous times during a single scene.
And yet, unbelievably Godzilla Vs. Gigan – while not technically a great movie – is bizarrely a fairly watchable one and this is primarily down to two things; the first is that the lack of originality in the plot leads to an adventure that moves like a greased eel. The various human stuff that sees aliens trying to take over the world by building a theme park (somehow) and are thwarted by two daffy freedom fighters, a comic book artist and his karate-kicking girlfriend, is pure guff, yet it’s perky and nimble enough to set the table and then get out of the way as the monster shit takes up the whole last third of the movie.
The second plus point is the debut of the titular villain Gigan, who proves to be one of the most entertainingly mental monster designs in Godzilla history by presenting itself as a green, sickle handed, cycloptic, cyborg, chicken-assassin that’s come to the party armed with military-grade sadism and a buzz-saw in his belly. Simply put, the utterly outrageous Gigan is one of my favourite Kaiju ever. Looking utterly ridiculous yet displaying vast amounts of personality, he really is a questionable joy to watch, whether trying to bloodily crack Godzilla’s skull like a walnut or rearranging Anguirus’ face with his razor sharp abdomen (seriously, Anguirus cannot catch a break), he’s a formidable fighter, a worthy Godzilla opponent and endearably excitable to boot, clashing his hooked appendages together with gleeful exuberance when things are going his way.
Also, despite not being overly conserned about having to get across a big, serious message (there’s a token mention about pollution – using stock footage from Godzilla Vs. Hedorah, naturally), Godzilla Vs. Gigan is amusingly candid about the nature of it’s own, noticably cheaper production values, as a publisher states that the the business is in decline that’s to the audiences becoming more sophisticated.
While Godzilla franchise is firmly in the realms of so-bad-it’s-good territory at this point, a curious quirk of fate meant that Godzilla Vs. Gigan, was a notable gateway movie into the Kaiju genre for a new generation thanks to it doing the rounds a lot in syndication thanks to the rise of television. It may not be the most refined Godzilla ever made, but it’s comic book stylings (Godzilla and Anguirus boldly communicate with actual speech bubbles at one point) and its surprisingly violent, monster on monster action (squirting blood and wrestling moves are employed to enjoyably goofy effect) means that Gigan is a nicely brainless brawl to get your hooks into.
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