1972 Godzilla vs. Gigan

• Directed by Jun Fukufa, Yoshimitsu Banno, Ishiro Honda
• Written by Takeshi Kimura, Shin’ichi Sekizawa
• Stars Hiroshi Ishikawa, Yuriko Hishimi, Minoru Takashima
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wuS1WS-0FY
• Get it: https://amzn.to/44hWgSq

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This one has humans vs. aliens, multiple fighting creatures, loads of collateral damage to buildings and infrastructure, a lair in the shape of a giant Godzilla in an amusement park, and blood. The first time we’ve seen the creatures bleed in battle. And there are some long battles, maybe too long. If you’re a fan of the 70s Toho kaiju films, this is one of them. It’s fun for what it is. 

Spoilery Synopsis

We start with a cartoonist drawing kaiju comics. He talks to his friend, who pitches him the idea of a “Homework Monster” which is what the kids really fear. It starts as homework and mutates into a monster. The cartoonist says that idea stinks. 

Gengo is assigned to go to the construction on the “Children’s World Site,” where they are building the Godzilla tower, part of a theme park. The head of the project, Kubota, explains the idea to Gengo. He is a big advocate of world peace. Gengo says the park needs more monsters and suggests a few others. Kubota hires Gengo to design some new monsters. After this Children’s Land is complete, Kubota plans to destroy Monster Island. 

Gengo gets to work drawing his Homework Monster and Uptight Mother Monsters. The Uptight Mother Monster, Mamagon, looks just like Gengo’s wife. On the way to see Kubota, he runs into a girl who drops a tape that he picks up. Kubota and four henchmen chase after the girl. 

At the offices of the Children’s World Site, Gengo sees that it all looks like a supervillain’s lair, and the chairman there, Fumio, is very young but also is working on some serious math formulas. They mention a lost tape that could ruin their plans for peace. Gengo says nothing about the tape he’s carrying. On the way home, that woman and her friend wants her tape back. They are Machiko and Shosaku, and they tell their story. Her brother worked for the company and recently discovered an evil secret about the company, and they did something to him. The tape Gengo has is evidence, but he left it in a train locker. 

Her brother, Takashi, argues with Kubota and the chairman about his forced overtime; he’s being held prisoner. They get an alarm that someone is playing the Action 2 tape. Gengo and his new friends don’t understand the tape at all, but on Monster Island, Godzilla and Anguirus wake up and pay attention. The two monsters talk to each other with comic book speech bubbles (which is hilarious). 

Gengo goes to the company and snoops around. He finds Takashi’s lighter in Godzilla Tower. Shosaku and Machiko decide to do more research on the company, and Gengo goes along with the plan. The three find out that both leaders of the company came from Yamano, and our guys drive there to check out the little town. Fumio’s mother says that he died last year. His father says Fumio was never very smart, but his photo checks out. Kubota was his junior high school teacher, and he’s dead too, from a climbing accident. 

Meanwhile, Fumio and Kubota receive a message from the space nebula, “Prepare for Arrivals.” They play Action Tape 1. They decide they don’t need Takashi anymore and plan to eliminate him. 

Suddenly, Anguirus shows up on the beach and the Defense Forces leap into action. They open fire on the giant mutant turtle. They drive the monster back into the sea. 

Kubota follows Gengo to Shosaku’s house and captures the three good guys. Gengo’s wife accidentally barges in and beats up the men. The trio goes to the police, but those guys are busy because they just heard that both Anguirus and Godzilla are heading to the city. We soon see that Gidorah and Gigan are on their way to Earth as well, drawn by the bad guys’ tape. 

Gengo and Tomoko free Takashi from Godzilla Tower, but are soon captured. Fumio and Kubota admit that they are aliens here and give a lesson on pollution and ecology. They saved their planet, but it won’t last much longer. They both look like giant cockroaches in their true forms. 

The monsters are coming, so the Defense Forces deploy again. The space monsters attack and buildings fall. They blow up lots of stuff for quite a while. This is the aliens’ “Peace Plan.” This goes on until Godzilla shows up. Both space monsters can fly, so that’s a challenge for the Earth monsters to overcome. 

 Meanwhile, Shosaku and Machiko are outside Godzilla Tower trying to find a way in. Gengo, Tomoko, and Takashi are still prisoners inside. They send up a helium filled weather balloon up to the top of the tower with a rope for the others to climb down. Turns out, the big Godzilla Tower has a laser built in, just like the real monster. 

Our heroes all go to the Defense Force and tell them about the aliens inside Godzilla Tower. Takeshi suggests attacking inside the base rather than trying to defeat the monsters. They sneak a bunch of boxes, clearly marked TNT onto the tower’s elevator. 

Outside, Godzilla sees himself. No, that’s a tower that looks like him, and then the tower shoots laser beams at him. 

The elevator gets to the top, the bad guys shoot it, and the entire tower explodes. Kubota and Fumio turn back into cockroaches and die. 

Meanwhile, the monsters continue to fight. And fight. And fight. Working together, Godzilla and Anguirus tag-team the other guys to death. No, not quite– they both fly away, defeated. 

Gengo and the others watch as the space monsters leave Earth. The good monsters turn and go home. Godzilla Tower and the evil aliens are defeated. “Maybe cockroaches will inherit the Earth,” someone points out. The end. 

That closing song is something else!

Brian’s Commentary

So many models were destroyed in this! Actually, the modelwork is really good, and there’s a lot of it. A lot of work went into those, just to smash in one quick scene. The monsters, however, are still guys in rubber suits. 

The voice bubbles for the monsters were hilarious, and the translations were even better. There were a lot of nods to comics, cartoons, and manga here; that must have been a big thing at the time of filming. 

The monster-fighting goes on and on here. There are lots of models destroyed, but there’s not much to say about the fights themselves. 

Three of these monsters had appeared before, but this was Gigan’s first appearance. He would later appear in three movies and make numerous appearances on TV. He’s got claws instead of hands and a buzz-saw in his belly. It looks like he has a laser-beam eye in the posters, but we never see that used here. 

This is also the first film in the series to actually show any blood– this was actually based on requests from children to make the fights more realistic. There are no children in this one, so that’s a nice break, but overall, the monster fights aren’t that great because we already know who’s going to win. 

I thought the fights were a little tedious, but the human bits were mostly funny. It’s… OK. 

Kevin’s Commentary

If I had a secret lair, I would definitely want it to be inside a giant hollow Godzilla statue in an amusement park. Because why not? This one was on par with others of the era. It’s heavy on science fiction and very 70s in fashion and technology. I had a good time watching it.