31 Days of Halloween, Day 4- Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Directed by: Ishirō Honda

Top 8 Cast: Tomoko Ai, Akihiko Hirata, Katsuhiko Sasaki, Toru Kawai, Katsumasa Uchida, Toru Ibuki, Tatsumi Fuyamoto, Kazunari Mori

Plot: Disgraced oceanographer, Shinzô Mafune, teams up with outer-spaced invaders in a “that’ll show ‘em” move. His cyborg daughter’s gotta psychic link to deep sea leviathan, Titanosaurus. Rounding out the rogue’s squadron is a rebuilt Mechagodzilla. Fighting for the earth are a squadron of international scientist police and lovesick Marine Biologist, Akira Ichinose. Godzilla shows up eventually to whoop as and take names.

Response: Silver Daddy whips his minions. I like to think of the Kaiju Lovecraftingly - those slumbering ancient ones; but there’s a whole ‘nother mythos here. “That’s right, we’re from Black Hole Planet 3.” Caves become hallways for high-tech space chimps. The high priestess is knocking at the door. There’s a shoot-out in some tall stalks. There’s a moment where Godzilla does a few little punches like a boxer gettin’ ready to enter the ring. Mr. Yamashita comes up through a man-hole. The earth is a sleeping place, the movies are/our dreams. The cyborg lady subplot was real sad but intentionally so. Still, I didn’t like seeing the cyborg lady get iced. I didn’t like that she was a cyborg except for in that ecstatic way I like everything. I like that everything, from a certain vantage, is a river perpetually full of shine. I stand in the tall stalks by the river, catching bugs in my mouth, watchin’ the settin’ sun.

Some Quick Thoughts & Background Details: This was the 15th Godzilla film over-all, and the last in the original Shōwa era run that began with 1954’s Godzilla. There have been a total of 31 or 39 films (thus far!) featuring the terrible lizard (depending on whether or not you’re counting anime and American stuff).

Most of the original run of 15 features were directed by either Ishirō Honda (in the directors chair for 8 including this (last) one and the original) or Jun Fukuda (responsible for 6)*. Received discourse has it that the Fukuda were pictures were more kid-friendly, silly affairs while the Honda one’s retained the serious atomic bomb and Hiroshima trauma from the first. I suspect this reading is too pat, however.

I can’t deny the patina of bummer which infects most of this picture. The tragic love story feels a little male-gazey.

But there’s a dark power at work within this story that picks right up after 1974’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Every deep-sea monster seems crammed with poetic and political intentionality and I would guess the entire series rewards the viewer who marinates deeply in its troubled dreams.

The suits are incredible, the monster fights vicious and transcendentally awesome, the pyrotechnics marvelous and the miniatures extremely cool. Once the big G finally shows up the smack-down becomes pure cinema.

Second Opinions:

“There's something about a man in a rubber suit that CGI can't match.” - Ken Hanke, Mountain Express (Asheville, NC)

“the last fairy tale godzilla film. science perverted past all nobility, a madman's daughter kept alive and imprisoned by integration with the immoral kaiju themselves as a cyborg commandant. godzilla constantly emerges seemingly from nowhere, a spiritual manifestation of nature itself; mechagodzilla as an apocalyptic herald of the future, seeking to wipe away japanese history and establish a parasitic economic homogeneity.” - comrade_yui on Letterboxed

“Honda's movies are not ones of easy thrills and monster mayhem, but carefully calculated models of collateral damage. He has never completely lost sight of his original metaphor, and thus cares for Godzilla's integrity as a weighty figure of past war atrocities.” - Willow Maclay on Letterboxed

“The fight scenes at the end are great, but it would've been nice to get more depth from the Mafune/daughter relationship and the Titanosaurus mind-control subplot.” - Leon Blank, review on Mubi

Scores:

Autumn Vibes: 3/5

Scares & Chills: 1/5

Cultural & Cinematic Importance: 5/5

Monster Action: 5/5

*Exceptions to the Honda/Fukunda precedent are 1955’s Godzilla Raids Again (directed by Motoyoshi Oda) and 1971’s extra groovy Godzilla vs. Hedorah (directed by Yoshimitsu Banno)