1966, Japan. Starring Russ Tamblyn, Kumi Mizuno, Kenji Sahara, Jun Tazaki, Kipp Hamilton, Haruo Nakajima, Nobuo Nakamura, Ikio Sawamura, Yoshifumi Tajima, Ren Yamamoto, Hiroshi Sekita, Nadao Kirino, Goro Mutsumi. Directed by Ishiro Honda.

Along with Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster, my earliest kaiju eiga memories are of this wonderful film. I must have watched it a dozen times as I was growing up. I envied Russ Tamblyn and the fact that he got to run around with Kumi Mizuno (she and Lieutenant Uhuru were my earliest boyhood fantasy women) and a couple of giant monsters. Now that's a life for me!

Age has not spoiled this movie one bit, at least not for me. I love it partly because of all the monster action, partly because of the humor, and partly because it's one of the few giant monster movies where the giant monsters just plain haul ass. Godzilla is the baddest and all, but it takes a gargantua to break out into a fleet-footed sprint across the Japanese landscape, hurtling trees and bridges like the Carl Lewis of the monster world. These guys book, plain and simple.

War of the Gargantuas was originally meant to be a sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World, but whatever tenuous ties it had to that film were lost entirely when the film was translated into English. Frankly, that's okay with me. Despite the fact that it starred one of my favorites, Nick Adams, I thought Frankenstein Conquers the World sucked. Like I want to see Chaka from Land of the Lost sitting in a tunnel for 90 minutes. So losing the connection is really quite alright with me, though if Gargantuas had starred Nick Adams instead of Russ "Chaki the man-shark" Tamblyn, it would have been that much better. Nothing against Russ; it's just that no one can spice up a role with frequent, enthusiastic use of the word' baby!" the way Nick could.

War of the Gargantuas is about two big hairy Chewbaccas. If you look closely, you will see they don't look entirely unlike Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. So let's call the brown one "Steven" and the green one "Mick."

No one knows quite where the gargantuas came from -- some sort of strange genetic mutation is the best the scientists could do. Did they get maid to come up with that? I'm pretty sure I could look at two giant behemoths and deduce they were some bizarre genetic mutation, and I'd do it for half the price of most other scientists.

One of the gargantuas, the brown one we call Steven, seems well behaved and friendly. His brother, Mick, on the other hand, is a right bastard. He has a tendency to roam the coastline looking for sailors and bad lounge singers to eat.

Said lounge singer provides the best joke of the film, as Mick the Green Gargantuas attacks an airport. The lounge singer is there doing a hideously off-key song, the only lyric of which seems to be "But the words get stuck in my throat!" She soon becomes lunch for Mick, and her clothes get stuck in his throat.

Mick's marauding ways draw the ire of his peaceful brother, who comes out of the woods where he lives (damn hippy) to growl reason to his brother.

Mick will hear none of it, however. He needs to eat people, plain and simple. The brothers have their ups and downs, but in the end, Steven realizes the only way to put a stop to Mick's murderous tendencies is via a fight to the death.

This movie is full of pathos and heart-wrenching moments. Well, maybe that's overstating it a little, but the gargantua brothers are easily the most human monsters Toho ever created. Some of the scenes of the two estranged brothers together are really well executed, like the scene where Steven takes a maser blast for his wounded brother.

Yes, there is some serious maser action in this film. You all know and love the maser. It's that thing the Japanese army always rolls out to fight a giant monster, the radar that shoots lightning bolt looking lasers. Those infernal contraptions never work, but they keep hauling them out. I guess the Japanese army bought a bunch of them, and upon realizing how useless they were, figured that if they at least got them destroyed during the course of battle, it could all be written off.

But wait! Big shock! The maser cannons actually work here! For once in their sorry history, the masers do some damage. At least Japan knows if they ever have another run-in with gargantuas, they can wheel those masers out again and do some damage, if Godzilla hasn't melted them all by then.

The finale is great, and it actually made a few people I know get all choked up. I guess I would do if I wasn't such a hardcore son of a bitch! Seriously though, it's a great finale.

War of the Gargantuas remains and always will remain one of my favorite monster movies. It has tons of monster action, great writing, good effects, and monsters that you can actually connect with. Steven is the doomed hero, and Mick is the tragic villain. In this day and age of soulless computer animated crap, it's always good to look back at a monster movie with a soul.

Labels: Country: Japan, Science Fiction: Kaiju, Year: 1966