Following the success of King Kong vs. Godzilla and Mothra vs. Godzilla, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka wanted to include more monsters. Due to production on Kurosawa’s Red Beard running behind, Toho decided to push forward with a new Godzilla film. For the next film, they reunited Godzilla and Mothra, as well as bringing in Rodan, who first appeared in 1956. To push things further, a new monster was introduced called King Ghidorah, based on the legendary Yamata no Orochi. Director Ishiro Honda returned once again, though he didn’t agree with the direction the series was going towards. He was uncomfortable giving the monsters personalities when he felt they worked better as metaphors for the atrocities of war. Once again, Eiji Tsuburaya directed the special effects sequences alongside assistant Teruyoshi Nakano, though Ghidorah was designed by Akira Watanabe. Eight months after the last film, Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster was released in 1964.
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Synopsis
Meteor showers start appearing around Japan, the largest meteor landing in Mount Kurodake where Professor Miura (Hiroshi Koizumi) investigates. Meanwhile, Detective Shindo (Yosuke Natsuki) is assigned to be the bodyguard for Princess Salno of Selgina (Akiko Wakabayashi). An assassin named Malmess (Hisaya Ito) has been hired to kill her and attempts to by blowing up her plane. Fortunately, an alien entity from Venus saves her before the plane explodes, though it takes over her body. The entity uses her to try and warn humanity of an impending threat, but no one believes her. Soon enough, Godzilla and Rodan show up and start causing havoc across Japan, Mothra trying to take control of things. At the same time, the meteor near Mount Kurodake explodes to reveal King Ghidorah, a monster who destroyed Venus. It’s up to Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra to try and stop Ghidorah from destroying the world.
Review
Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster is one of the most important entries in the Godzilla series for several reasons. For one, King Ghidorah would go on to be one of Godzilla’s most popular foes, arguably his biggest foe. Also, this would be the first time Godzilla was a good guy, though he still causes tons of damage. Unfortunately, as Honda predicted, this would start the trend of making the monsters characters and giving them human personalities. While it does lead to some comedic moments, it definitely is a far cry from the original’s dark tone. That said, while it does take a while to get going, the climactic battle towards the end is pretty fun. This film helped to introduce the monster rumble, with Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra going toe-to-toe with King Ghidorah. It’s one of the best fights in the Godzilla series so far.
As for the human plot, it’s surprisingly captivating with plenty of subplots going on to keep things moving. The whole political assassination plot ties in well with the monster plot and features plenty of twists and turns. Akiko Wakabayashi does a solid job as the princess turned prophet as she tries to warn people about Ghidorah’s arrival. Yosuke Natsuki is also good as the sympathetic hero trying to do his job and has some fun banter throughout. At roughly 94 minutes, the film moves at a decent pace, though it does tend to slow down at points. Thankfully, there’s plenty of monster mayhem and political action to keep audiences invested without having to shoehorn anything superfluous. For kaiju fans, this is an essential entry as it introduced elements that would carry into later entries. Overall, Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster is an entertaining monster movie that’s worth a watch.
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