⭐⭐⭐ 91min Monster: Godzilla, King Kong and Oodako (giant octopus)
Recap
So there is this pacific island where they use red berries to pacify their King Kong. In Japan the big money decides that the red berries will be their next killer product and that King Kong will provide the public relations. In the meantime, a godzilla iceberg melts, releasing its contents.
This is the third Godzilla movie, which means that most people call it a “Showa Era” movie even though “Showa” does not mean “rubber suit” (it means that Hirohito was the tenno back then). Of course, the newer Godzillas with the better special effects have their own charm, but for nostalgic reasons I like the old, silly ones very much.
What I watched was the american edit, which means that part of the original plot was replaced with an american newsman. Some will say that the original was too much of a comical satire on capitalism. Who knows, maybe making fun of capitalism was forbidden in America back then? Or maybe the comedy just wasn’t funny enough? I often get the impression that for the Japanese being funny is just like eating dairy: they think it’s western and exotic and they want it so badly, but they are just not good at it.
Either way, this is a silly old suitmation monster movie. I watched the american version, I enjoyed it, and I won’t be going out of my way to see the original edit.
Recommended only for people who enjoy suitmation monster movies.
(Besides, about 75min into the movie we see the original inspiration for the movie Up (2009))
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