Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about the nineteen sixty three Toho special
Speaker 1: effects Bonanza Atragon, directed by Ishiro Honda, who was probably
Speaker 1: most famous for making the original nineteen fifty four Godzilla,
Speaker 1: but who did a bunch of other things. I mean,
Speaker 1: made dramatic movies as well, but made some of the
Speaker 1: Kaiju classics like Mothra and things like that, but also
Speaker 1: some of the weirder ones I was seeing in the
Speaker 1: film list. Looks like Honda did, like Matango, the movie
Speaker 1: about the mushroom Island. Yeah, the mushroom people in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. I mean we'll get into him a little
Speaker 1: bit more in a bit, but he he's he is,
Speaker 1: without a doubt, Kaiju Royalty. It's not to say that
Speaker 1: that Kaiju movies would not have existed without Issu Rojanda.
Speaker 1: They might have, but they wouldn't have been the same
Speaker 1: with a trigaon here. I would say, I went in
Speaker 1: thinking I was going to get a straight Kaiju movie,
Speaker 1: but actually this turned out to be something very different
Speaker 1: than what I expected. It's, uh, I would say, primarily
Speaker 1: a morality tale about the dangers of nationalism and the
Speaker 1: virtues of cooperation in the face of great obstacles. And
Speaker 1: there is a there is a strange beast in it.
Speaker 1: There is a dragon monster featured towards the end of
Speaker 1: the film. But I'd say the real special effects spectacle
Speaker 1: centerpiece here is the submarine. This is also a movie
Speaker 1: about how submarines can fly. Yes, yes, this is more
Speaker 1: of a model submarine movie than a rubber monster movie
Speaker 1: in the end. And and yeah, I too was was
Speaker 1: It was surprised because the trailers and the emotional images
Speaker 1: for this film, they really sell the fantasy elements of it,
Speaker 1: and you think you're going to get more of a
Speaker 1: you know, sort of a you know, a Pulp era
Speaker 1: Flash Gordon sque clashing of human civilization and some sort
Speaker 1: of fantastic hidden civilization that just also happens to be
Speaker 1: humans and you know, different outfits. But yeah, there's this
Speaker 1: this deeper message they were going for here. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: was interesting. So I was reading a write up about
Speaker 1: this in a book called American International Pictures, A Comprehensive filmography.
Speaker 1: Now This was a Toho Studios movie, uh when it
Speaker 1: was made in Japan, but it was released by a
Speaker 1: I P internationally or at least in the United States. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a book by Rob Craig, and one of
Speaker 1: the things he points out about the film that the
Speaker 1: villainous entity in the film, the MoU Empire, is that
Speaker 1: it's an example of an anachronistic motif that was common
Speaker 1: during the golden age of pulp fiction, the so called
Speaker 1: lost Empire. Would you know, there's like a nation of
Speaker 1: people which secretly still exists, unknown to anyone outside of it.
Speaker 1: And usually this empire combines the esthetics of some kind
Speaker 1: of pre industrial society with futuristic technological superiority. So they've
Speaker 1: you know, they're like ancient Egypt with ray guns or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is um. This is a whole idea of like
Speaker 1: lost continents and so forth, and that you see. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's part of a whole occult movement back in the
Speaker 1: day and and sort of you know, sudo like not pseudo,
Speaker 1: but I guess a pre conspiracy theory. We would call
Speaker 1: it conspiracy theory thinking today, I guess, uh, turn in
Speaker 1: in the culture. But but also of course it leaked
Speaker 1: into various fictions. So you see it, you see it
Speaker 1: in uh, in both pulp science fiction and pulp fantasy
Speaker 1: of the old days, you know, like various like Roberty
Speaker 1: Howard and Clark Ashton Smith tails. They often concern things
Speaker 1: that happened on some continent it doesn't exist anymore, so
Speaker 1: sort of you know, I've forgotten iron age or have
Speaker 1: forgotten um, you know, history in which these fantastic tales
Speaker 1: could happen. And then also, uh, you know you can
Speaker 1: you can cast about and find numerous examples of undersea
Speaker 1: Kingdom style uh and adventure shows from back in the day.
Speaker 1: But coming back to the idea of this movie as
Speaker 1: a moral melodrama, I would say a lot of Kaiju
Speaker 1: movies have a clearly identifiable moral. It's usually not super complex,
Speaker 1: you know, It's something kind of simple, like war is
Speaker 1: bad and should be avoided, or you know, we should
Speaker 1: not pollute and damage the planet Earth. But despite the
Speaker 1: simplicity of of these themes, I'd say, for me, somehow,
Speaker 1: the moral of a Kaiju movie usually comes through with
Speaker 1: a kind of weird sense of integrity, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that it is writing into your brain on the vehicle
Speaker 1: of two radioactive lizards suplexing each other. So the central
Speaker 1: conflict in this movie is that the Earth is threatened
Speaker 1: by a force called the MoU Empire. It is a
Speaker 1: sort of evil atlantis at the bottom of the Pacific.
Speaker 1: It's ruled by an empress with red hair who wants
Speaker 1: to subjugate and destroy everyone and the the The Empress
Speaker 1: will not be satisfied until all of the land lovers
Speaker 1: on the planet are either killed or kneeling before her,
Speaker 1: and over the course of the film we find out
Speaker 1: that there's really only one weapon capable of standing against
Speaker 1: the superior technology and the and arguably the magic of
Speaker 1: the MoU Empire, and it is a giant submarine which
Speaker 1: can fly in the air, drill through rock, and shoot
Speaker 1: freeze raise. But that submarine belongs to a Japanese naval
Speaker 1: commander for whom World War two basically never ended, so
Speaker 1: the war is over, but he goes into hiding after
Speaker 1: the war and continues to work on this super weapon,
Speaker 1: which he wants to use to restore the Japanese in
Speaker 1: Pire to its place of glory and in when he's
Speaker 1: presented with the situation in the movie, he refuses to
Speaker 1: join in common cause with the other nations of the
Speaker 1: world against the MoU Empire, because he's only interested in
Speaker 1: fighting for the glory of the Japanese Empire specifically, or
Speaker 1: in the I'm sure it wasn't saying this in the original.
Speaker 1: In the dub that I watched, one line called it
Speaker 1: the imperial Empire of Japan. But anyway, the moral ark
Speaker 1: of the film is his discovery that he must put
Speaker 1: aside his his sense of nationalistic honor and superiority and
Speaker 1: and stand up with a good of humankind as a whole.
Speaker 1: And I think this was a common theme in Japanese
Speaker 1: films at the time that would sort of promote the
Speaker 1: idea of international cooperation and and be critical of the
Speaker 1: idea of nationalism or imperialism. But it uh, it seems
Speaker 1: to fit also very well with issue ro Honda's particular sensibilities. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a you know, it's a it's a monster movie.
Speaker 1: It's a more like I said, more of a submarine movie.
Speaker 1: But it is a it is a fantasy adventure. But
Speaker 1: you gotta fill up. The rest of the film was
Speaker 1: something and it's not just um, just popcorn in the area.
Speaker 1: It's a film that's that's trying to say something uh,
Speaker 1: while also entertaining us with toy submarines and rubber monsters. Now,
Speaker 1: a note on the title. The Japanese title for the
Speaker 1: film literally translates to the Undersea Warship, but Toho went
Speaker 1: with the Atragon for the international title, presumably because it
Speaker 1: combines the English words atomic and dragon. I guess the
Speaker 1: worship is the titular atomic dragon here, though, I guess
Speaker 1: you could also make a case for maybe maybe the
Speaker 1: actual dragon is an atomic dragon. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be pretty powerful. I love these Toho portmanteaus.
Speaker 1: You remember the story about the origin of the word
Speaker 1: godzilla That was from combining the words for guerrilla and whale.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right, it's the guerrilla whale. He's not
Speaker 1: really either of those things. No, no, now the Yeah.
Speaker 1: The trailer for this is uh is pretty flashy and impressive.
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to once you start seeing the looking
Speaker 1: at the posters for this film, once you start looking
Speaker 1: at the trailer footage, it's hard to not be pulled
Speaker 1: into it. It's like a whirlpool. That's how we wound
Speaker 1: up here, looking around for some sort of Kaiju or
Speaker 1: Kaiju adjacent film to watch and the uh uh for
Speaker 1: the elevator pitch. You can't get much better than than
Speaker 1: what is actually featured on at least some of the
Speaker 1: English language posters. It is see the Juggernaut of Destruction
Speaker 1: challenge the Incredible Empire beneath the Sea, which is accurate.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of what That's basically what you see
Speaker 1: in the film, but with a little more padding than that.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, well, one thing I will also say about
Speaker 1: this movie is it takes a long time to get
Speaker 1: to the Moon Empire. There is a lot of this
Speaker 1: movie has a surprising amount of plot, Like there's a
Speaker 1: ton of intrigue people sort of chasing each other around.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of characters that it spends the first
Speaker 1: twenty minutes introducing all these different characters and essentially just
Speaker 1: positioning them all on the chessboard to eventually move them
Speaker 1: to the island where the the Japanese naval commander Jing
Speaker 1: Gucci is working on his his super weapons submarine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's an interestingly kind of complex plot in a way.
Speaker 1: The way it's constructed here and the way it differs
Speaker 1: from from your pure Kaiju film, it does make me
Speaker 1: wonder if something like you could have, like a Shin
Speaker 1: a Trogon movie take place to you know, be produced
Speaker 1: today where they take this this basic concept just ultra seriously. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we see all the meetings and the rescheduling of
Speaker 1: the meetings and the moving the meetings to a different location,
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, my mind turns back to to Shin Godzilla.
Speaker 1: I guess anytime I watch a film that involves you know, Kaiju,
Speaker 1: and even in the slightest and I guess one of
Speaker 1: the great things about Shin Godzilla is it's kind of
Speaker 1: a um, you know, the fantasy there is is both
Speaker 1: the monsters, but also it kind of presents this optimistic
Speaker 1: view in which modern governments work, in which they they
Speaker 1: like all the things they are doing, or a can
Speaker 1: can actually be pushed in a beneficial direction and solve
Speaker 1: big problems like monsters attacking the you know, the country,
Speaker 1: or other things like, um, you know, some of the
Speaker 1: wicked problems in the world or climate change, etcetera. It's funny.
Speaker 1: Just the other day I was rewatching one of the
Speaker 1: original trailers for Shin Godzilla that I think is just
Speaker 1: a great trailer doesn't reveal too much about the movie.
Speaker 1: It's just a very well chosen edit of of short
Speaker 1: sort of scenes of characters again going to meetings and stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's got this soundtrack set to it, this uh
Speaker 1: escalating sort of uh string riff that's recorded on almost
Speaker 1: what sounds like an old timey telephone line or something. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it it creates this wonderful sense of impending doom.
Speaker 1: It's really all right. Well, on that note, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and hear the trailer audio for the English trailer
Speaker 1: for Arica. Atrigon the most devastating device the mind of
Speaker 1: man has yet created. It travels on land and in
Speaker 1: the sea. It tunnels through the earth. It's cruel. All
Speaker 1: superman with superweapons can freeze their enemies and enslave them.
Speaker 1: Fire and fear are the gods of terror. On the
Speaker 1: hidden content, no thing, no man, no adventure can match
Speaker 1: the nine amazing wonders of Atrigon, nor the massive powers
Speaker 1: of its allegoric destroyer. You will see wonders that challenge
Speaker 1: the imagination. You will see flying saucers. You will know
Speaker 1: terror that panics the world. At moroccos On me I
Speaker 1: am Agent number twenty three of the Mule Empire. This
Speaker 1: earthquake is not accidental. Sounds pretty exciting, right, Dragon, submarines, freeze,
Speaker 1: raise everything you could possibly ask for an emotion picture.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of the people involved. Certainly
Speaker 1: at the top we already mentioned is Shiro Honda, who
Speaker 1: lived in nineteen eleven through legendary tote film director of
Speaker 1: course Hill nineteen Godzilla, the movie that started at all.
Speaker 1: He directed forty four pictures in total. Eight of those
Speaker 1: were Godzilla films, culminating in ninety Terror of Mecca Godzilla.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he also directed Rodan, The Mysteriens, The Human
Speaker 1: Vapor Matango, Frankenstein Versus Beragon, The War of the Gargantuans.
Speaker 1: Those are both films that deal with giant Frankenstein's I
Speaker 1: was that I think has grown from a Nazi brain
Speaker 1: or something. Um. I think I was reading the Michael
Speaker 1: Weldon summary of Frankenstein Versus Bearragon and invited memory serves
Speaker 1: the heart of Frankenstein's monster is like sustained or resurrected
Speaker 1: by Nazi scientists to get shipped off to Japan, where
Speaker 1: a young boy eats it and then transforms into a
Speaker 1: gigantic Frankenstein. That's basically the plot of Jason goes to Hell. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and Honestly, it's pretty true to Mary Shelley's vision.
Speaker 1: I don't think she would disagree with this film at all. Uh.
Speaker 1: Was just there a part where the giant Frankenstein reads
Speaker 1: Paradise Lost. Yeah, probably it's they have. That's how they
Speaker 1: try and um and defeat it. I'm guessing is they
Speaker 1: have to build a gigantic copy of Paradise Lost it
Speaker 1: out there with Banks and try and trick him into
Speaker 1: reading it, make it realize that it is satan. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Let's see other movies. There's a Space Amba and others.
Speaker 1: He was a friend of legendary Japanese director at Cua Kasawa,
Speaker 1: and you see him popping up on some of his
Speaker 1: projects as well. For instance, he served, as I've seen it,
Speaker 1: listed as director counselor but also chief assistant director on
Speaker 1: Kurassow epic Ron. This is the one that is basically
Speaker 1: like a samurai uh, sort of riff on king Lear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great one. Yeah, has unbelievably staged battle scenes. Yeah. Honda.
Speaker 1: His name continues to a year in the credits on
Speaker 1: Godzilla movies moving forward, of course, but also you see
Speaker 1: there are also other homages to him in various Godzilla
Speaker 1: and Godzilla adjacent pictures. Alright. The screenplay was by Shinichi
Speaker 1: uh secon Zawa, who lived nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: a frequent collaborator with Honda. Inscribe of many Godzilla movies,
Speaker 1: beginning with nineteen sixty two's King Kong Versus Godzilla, and
Speaker 1: then this is interesting, This is not a The screenplay
Speaker 1: was not based on one novel, but kind of took
Speaker 1: ideas from two different books and sort of mashed them
Speaker 1: together and then use that as a space, uh to
Speaker 1: to to comment on the things. I guess that that
Speaker 1: Honda and the secon Zawa wanted to comment on. That
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, I can see this being a mash up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's something that ultimately works in its favor.
Speaker 1: So the first novel would be this, UM. This novel
Speaker 1: UM The Undersea Warship by shoonro O Chicawa who lived
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six through nineteen fourteen, Japanese author and journalist
Speaker 1: who was also a pioneer in Japanese science fiction. UM,
Speaker 1: I don't think His influence was was was felt outside
Speaker 1: of Japan, but was it was very influential within Japanese
Speaker 1: um uh you know, pulp writing of the time, science
Speaker 1: fiction of the time. He was inspired in large part
Speaker 1: by the works of Jules Verne uh So, of course
Speaker 1: he wrote about sci fi submarines, but in his book
Speaker 1: apparently the villains are themselves Japanese imperialist who build a
Speaker 1: great drill headed submarine. Now, the second book is won
Speaker 1: by Shigeru Kamatsuzaki uh the novel being The Undersea Kingdom.
Speaker 1: So Kamatsuzaki worked in the in the art departments on
Speaker 1: this film as well as Honda's fungal horror film A Tango.
Speaker 1: And he was a prolific artist in Japanese science fiction,
Speaker 1: specializing in futuristic vehicles. He did in a lot of
Speaker 1: covered illustrations for model kits, particularly model kits that had
Speaker 1: some sort of like sci fi TV show or movie
Speaker 1: tie in, And it's a definite style that I think
Speaker 1: many people will recognized, Like even if you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with his work, if you look up his name and
Speaker 1: look at some of these galleries of particularly of these
Speaker 1: uh these plastic model kit boxes you'll you'll recognize the
Speaker 1: style and it's you know, it's it's very like like
Speaker 1: you know, you know, classic sci fi, a lot of
Speaker 1: fantastic vehicles with unnecessary drills on them, that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: polished shiny metal on the surfaces, things that look like
Speaker 1: flying toasters. Yeah. Yeah, flying toasters is a good a
Speaker 1: good description. But yeah. He also wrote this novel, Undersea Kingdom,
Speaker 1: which serves this partial basis for this film, and it
Speaker 1: concerns an undersea kingdom threat. Okay, so smashing these together,
Speaker 1: you take what's originally the idea of a sort of
Speaker 1: remnant Japanese imperialist who who builds a dangerous super weapons submarine,
Speaker 1: and that's originally the villain of one novel, but in
Speaker 1: this it's do you take that same character and turn
Speaker 1: them into a reluctant hero or somebody who starts as
Speaker 1: uncooperative with the heroes but then comes around. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you combine this with the actual villain being this
Speaker 1: golden arrow of pulp fiction kind of idea of a
Speaker 1: lost empire, except it's under the sea and they have
Speaker 1: a dragon at their command and they have all kinds
Speaker 1: of technology. Yes. Now, normally we talk mostly about some
Speaker 1: human actors in this film, but like I said, most
Speaker 1: of them were Kaiju movie regulators, and we'll mention a
Speaker 1: few of them when we get into the plot. But
Speaker 1: really the real stars of this film are are the
Speaker 1: submarine and then also the dragon of the submarine battles.
Speaker 1: Um So, I guess starting with the submarine. The submarine
Speaker 1: is called the Go Tingu um or Go Tango, which
Speaker 1: apparently literally means roaring heavens, which a nice name for submarine.
Speaker 1: Like you said, it is the ultimate submarine warship, and
Speaker 1: it is so ultimate that it not only travels beneath
Speaker 1: the sea, it can also tunnel through solid stone, it
Speaker 1: can fly through the air, and it is a spectacular
Speaker 1: model in a movie that's filled with a lot of
Speaker 1: really solid model work. Um And, I think it shouldn't
Speaker 1: be a surprise at all that this apparently sold a
Speaker 1: number of Gotango model kits over the years, um So.
Speaker 1: I included a picture from from one of these model
Speaker 1: kit boxes. I do very much love the look of
Speaker 1: the design, though I have some practical concerns about this
Speaker 1: submarine I can raise later now. The Gotango here it
Speaker 1: was simply just too good to remain in one motion picture,
Speaker 1: so it would ultimately ultimately return you and Godzilla Island,
Speaker 1: a TV show that ran through Godzilla Final Wars in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, super Fleet Caesar X the movie
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, and god Zaban, which has been
Speaker 1: is a web show that at least started in twenty
Speaker 1: nine and is perhaps still going based on what I
Speaker 1: could tell on the on the wiki zilla dot com website.
Speaker 1: I don't think I know any of these except Final Wars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I should also mention that there was there was.
Speaker 1: There was also an Intragon two part anime series that
Speaker 1: came much later, which of course features the submarine You
Speaker 1: can't You can't do a movie about the Atomic Dragon,
Speaker 1: about having the Atomic Dragon itself in it uh And
Speaker 1: speaking of dragons, that brings us to Manda Uh. This
Speaker 1: is the god bio weapon of them of the move
Speaker 1: a great serpentine sea dragon that strongly resembles traditional Japanese
Speaker 1: depictions of dragons, which is one of the things that's
Speaker 1: into instantly interesting about this this monster design, because you know,
Speaker 1: you see things like Godzilla. Godzilla just looks kind of
Speaker 1: like a well, I guess a whale and a gorilla,
Speaker 1: but more more or less like a big dinosaur and
Speaker 1: other creatures that Godzilla battles or Gammera battles. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't they don't really look like monsters that one
Speaker 1: is instantly going to necessarily identify with Um with pre
Speaker 1: Kaiju Japanese culture. But here's Manda, and Manda basically looks like,
Speaker 1: you know, a traditional depiction of some sort of a
Speaker 1: serpentine Japanese dragon. Um And I think that that ultimately
Speaker 1: works in its favor um And I imagine it was
Speaker 1: quite intentional. Apparently it was. Originally some of the early
Speaker 1: UH pre production art showed Manda is like a big snake,
Speaker 1: but then they made him a dragon instead, And you
Speaker 1: think about, like what he's supposed to be. He's kind
Speaker 1: of a manifestation of war and imperialism, certainly for the
Speaker 1: people of MoU. But MoU is all so again presented
Speaker 1: is this dark reflection a kind of underwater world to
Speaker 1: mirror this this you know, the remnants of warlike sentiments
Speaker 1: in Japanese culture of the nineteen sixties. So it makes
Speaker 1: sense that the horrors of the past might be symbolized
Speaker 1: by a monster that is also draped in history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that makes sense to me. Now he's brought to
Speaker 1: life via or I can say he it could be
Speaker 1: a sheet or we don't know. Manda has brought to
Speaker 1: life via puppetry. But it's not you know, so it's
Speaker 1: not a rubber suit Kaiju. Uh. So it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: a slightly different beast than say Godzilla and so forth.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't stop Manda from coming back in other
Speaker 1: films and so again. This list is via wiki zilla
Speaker 1: dot com. Manda returns at least as in a cameo
Speaker 1: in Destroy All Monsters in sixty eight, All Monsters Attack
Speaker 1: in sixty nine. That's stock footage. Also comes back at
Speaker 1: stock footage in Terror of Mecca, Godzilla in seventy five,
Speaker 1: and then also Godzilla Final Wars in two thousand and four, uh,
Speaker 1: god Zaban uh in nineteen, and then Godzilla Singular Point
Speaker 1: a TV series in one so a, Manda still very
Speaker 1: much part of the Kaiju Toho Pampion. Now, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: though Manda is not a major figure throughout most of
Speaker 1: the film's runtime, Manda pops up basically right at the
Speaker 1: end um And one of the things that I think
Speaker 1: makes Manda interesting is that it uh some of it's
Speaker 1: like big confrontation and fight scene involves underwater puppetry, which
Speaker 1: I don't know what the challenges were in shooting that,
Speaker 1: but I found that interesting. Yeah, the underwater scenes, I
Speaker 1: think are are brought to life rather well in this film,
Speaker 1: you know, through the use of models and puppetry. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then I mean there are scenes also with some
Speaker 1: aquatic humanoids or frog band uh, swimming their way through
Speaker 1: the water, and it's you know, it's clear that they're
Speaker 1: they're not actually filmed underwater. They're just they're like hang
Speaker 1: by wires or something, but it still works. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: any movie that has long underwater sequences is where where
Speaker 1: you're actually like out swimming around in the water. I
Speaker 1: don't mean like in the interior of a submarine or
Speaker 1: something that's got to fight uphill to hold my attention.
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure why, but I think about a
Speaker 1: lot of movies that have diving scenes, and I just
Speaker 1: think a lot of those scenes I I tend to
Speaker 1: want to doze off, Like Thunderball. You know, the James
Speaker 1: Bond movie Thunderball has got like twenty minutes of just
Speaker 1: diving underwater, fighting between divers with masks, and stuff and
Speaker 1: uh and it's it's nearly impossible for me to pay
Speaker 1: attention throughout that entire sequence. Yeah, and you often have
Speaker 1: like a prolonged sequence on deck, putting the swim the
Speaker 1: swim gear on, putting on the wet suit, so that
Speaker 1: kind of drags it out as well. Weirdly, I would
Speaker 1: say the same is true for underwater levels and video games.
Speaker 1: People almost even like those. You ever heard people complain
Speaker 1: about this. I feel like that's a common sentiment. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a water level. Huh, Well I never really thought
Speaker 1: about that. I mean sometimes it's great. I mean, like
Speaker 1: the video game Solma that we've talked about before, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: that is great. But I feel like that's different because
Speaker 1: that's a sort of atmospheric horror thing instead of something
Speaker 1: where you're just waiting for the pace of of the
Speaker 1: action to pick up. Yeah. A lot of times watching
Speaker 1: an underwater scene in a movie feels like watching an
Speaker 1: extended slow motion sequence, you know. Yeah, Well, it's often
Speaker 1: a great place to dump some stock footage as well.
Speaker 1: You need to pad out the picture. But like I said,
Speaker 1: I was, I was okay with the underwater stuff in
Speaker 1: this one. Real quick um. Note on the music here.
Speaker 1: The music was by Akira if A Kubi, who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen through two thousand and six. If A Kubi
Speaker 1: was a Japanese classical composer who scored such films as
Speaker 1: the Original Godzilla, Rodan Dimigen, and The Snow Woman, which
Speaker 1: is a horror film. Uh so he did quite a bit.
Speaker 1: But certainly this is the name that is also attached
Speaker 1: to that icon Godzillam musing alright, so well, shall we
Speaker 1: leap right into the action of the plot, much like
Speaker 1: this movie leaps right into the action of the plot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. I wonder if this was an artifact of
Speaker 1: the version we watched. So I watched the one that
Speaker 1: was on Amazon Prime, did did you? Well? Yeah? Okay, um, Well,
Speaker 1: A couple of things about that. One thing is that
Speaker 1: any any lines I quote are a product of that
Speaker 1: particular English stub. I don't know if there are other
Speaker 1: dubs or how well they capture the spirit of the original.
Speaker 1: But there was some very weird and funny dialogue, and
Speaker 1: I suspect that a lot of that has to do
Speaker 1: with the translation. Yeah. In in general, this is often
Speaker 1: the case. We can give the film the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt regarding the the original dialogue in the motion picture. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but so the version we watched also, it just open
Speaker 1: just jumps right in, like you see a car driving
Speaker 1: through streets at night, their tires screeching as it whips
Speaker 1: around corners. It's going into tunnels. And then we see
Speaker 1: inside the car there is a strange driver in sunglasses
Speaker 1: and it's nighttime but he's wearing sunglasses, and a passenger
Speaker 1: riding in the back seat. And then the guy in
Speaker 1: the back seat suddenly looks around as if he is
Speaker 1: as confused as the audience about what's happening right now,
Speaker 1: and he goes, hey, what's up? Where are we going?
Speaker 1: And uh, and he tries to like grab the driver,
Speaker 1: but it's it's almost as if the driver is hot
Speaker 1: or something like he pulls his hand away. He's like
Speaker 1: and then sort of wilts into the back seat. And
Speaker 1: then next we immediately cut to an unrelated scene where
Speaker 1: there are two goofball photographers and a model. The model
Speaker 1: is wearing a leopard print bikini and they're doing a
Speaker 1: photo shoot, but they're doing it at like a deserted
Speaker 1: shipyard at night. Yeah, yeah, okay, so it wasn't just me.
Speaker 1: It's like it would in fact not be normal to
Speaker 1: stage a a swimsuit photo shoot at an empty concrete
Speaker 1: pier in the dark. I mean not without significant lighting, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, which I don't think these guys had. Is
Speaker 1: this like Miss Shipyards nineteen sixty three. Yeah, it's for
Speaker 1: the calendar. So the two photographers will become major characters
Speaker 1: in the movie. They are named Susumu and Yoshido, and
Speaker 1: the swimsuit model is played by an actress named Akimi Kita.
Speaker 1: And if I understand correctly, I think marketing for the
Speaker 1: American release of this movie may have possibly implied that
Speaker 1: the bikini lady is a main character of the movie.
Speaker 1: She is not. I think she's only in this one
Speaker 1: scene for like thirty seconds. Yeah. I looked Akita up
Speaker 1: and she was born in nineteen forty and actually has
Speaker 1: fifty eight credits in IMDb. Looks like a lot of
Speaker 1: it is. You know, it looks like she was in
Speaker 1: the various crime thrillers of the day. Yeah, the stylish
Speaker 1: kind you know, where there's some dude with black sunglasses
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, there's a lot of sunglasses in this movie.
Speaker 1: Did you notice how all the people who we find
Speaker 1: out our later agents of the moom Pire or wearing sunglasses. Well,
Speaker 1: that makes sense that they're going to need him to
Speaker 1: filter out the light of the sun. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: back to the scene. This scene is a lot like
Speaker 1: this movie generally is trying to cram a lot into
Speaker 1: a little bit of run time. But that's especially true
Speaker 1: in the first two minutes. So you've got the guy
Speaker 1: in the car being driven by the sunglasses creep. He
Speaker 1: starts to panic. Then you have the swimsuit photo shoot
Speaker 1: down at the docks and that's going on, and you
Speaker 1: have the model. She's like sneezing, I think because it's cold, um.
Speaker 1: And then the photo shoot is interrupted when the model
Speaker 1: sees a humanoid figure in a weird outfit emerging from
Speaker 1: the ocean with steam pouring off of it. It looks
Speaker 1: like it's wearing a wetsuit covered in crumpled aluminum foil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it kind of it kind of walks that nice
Speaker 1: line where you're not able to tell is this a
Speaker 1: wetsuit that is dressed up to look like a monster
Speaker 1: or is this supposed to be an alien wet suit?
Speaker 1: You're not sure exactly what you're looking at, uh, given
Speaker 1: the expectations for a film like this. But so she
Speaker 1: starts screaming in terror. And then the goofy, or of
Speaker 1: the two photographers is like, he says, come on, this
Speaker 1: isn't a funeral, implying that what you normally do at
Speaker 1: a funeral is scream. Yeah, that's got that's gotta be
Speaker 1: in this translation. Yeah. Um. And then they they and
Speaker 1: then they all see the creature. The photographers do to
Speaker 1: they start screaming, they take pictures. The flash from the
Speaker 1: camera seems to repel the creature back into the water. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then immediately the car from earlier with the confused
Speaker 1: passenger in the back, it just drives off the end
Speaker 1: of the pier into the water and then there's steam
Speaker 1: bubbling out everywhere. Then the credits. Yeah, this it really
Speaker 1: captures this the feeling you have when you decide to
Speaker 1: get popcorn despite the fact that you're running a little
Speaker 1: bit late, and then when you get into the into
Speaker 1: the theater itself, the movie is already up and running
Speaker 1: and you have no idea what's happening. That's how it
Speaker 1: feels if you're on time for the big ending of
Speaker 1: this film. But this opening sequence sets up a mystery
Speaker 1: in which the two photographers will be players. What actually happened,
Speaker 1: What was the steamy man? Why did a car drive
Speaker 1: into the ocean? Who was in it? The story moves
Speaker 1: on with the car being retrieved from the water with
Speaker 1: a big winch, and the photographers are being interviewed by
Speaker 1: the police and they say they say he came up,
Speaker 1: and I guess they're talking about the guy in the
Speaker 1: frogman or the guy in the wet suit. He they
Speaker 1: say he came up, he was steaming, He was steaming.
Speaker 1: And then there's a police detective. They're talking to them,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you expect me to believe that, And
Speaker 1: the guy says, you have to. The camera got a
Speaker 1: clear picture of him. The cops says, oh, I know
Speaker 1: you guys and your trick photography. And then the photographer says,
Speaker 1: oh no, not this time. So, like if they interacted before,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Again, I think maybe something's being lost
Speaker 1: in translation here, but they do make a connection with
Speaker 1: what's happening. They say that the guy who was supposed
Speaker 1: to be driving the stolen car was choked unconscious, and
Speaker 1: and so somebody else posed as him to drive this guy,
Speaker 1: and the driver says when he choked me, his hands
Speaker 1: were very hot. So like, okay, that seems to connect
Speaker 1: with the the steamy guy coming out of the water.
Speaker 1: But Robi have a question, now that we have both
Speaker 1: seen the whole movie in its entirety, did it ever
Speaker 1: resolve why the agents of the MoU Empire are hot?
Speaker 1: I don't think they did. This feels like something that
Speaker 1: maybe was cut or maybe was it was was explored
Speaker 1: more thoroughly in one of the source novels. Um So,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess they for some reason, their
Speaker 1: bodies need to run at a higher temperature. They're like cats,
Speaker 1: I get, yeah, I don't know. So when they're in
Speaker 1: the water, they're steamy. If they touch you there, they
Speaker 1: burn you. It's yeah, I don't know. So if they
Speaker 1: did explain that, it went past me. But from here,
Speaker 1: right after the interview with the police that was just happening,
Speaker 1: the photographers look up and they see a woman disembarking
Speaker 1: from a ship. This is going to be another major character.
Speaker 1: This is Makoto played by Yoko Fujiyama, and in one
Speaker 1: of many many weird coincidences that drive the plot of
Speaker 1: this movie, she will become a major player because she
Speaker 1: is the daughter of the lost naval commander Jinguji, who
Speaker 1: is the guy we were talking about at the beginning,
Speaker 1: who is the uh, you know, the the the guy
Speaker 1: who never gave up on World War Two. But here
Speaker 1: she enters the action just because the two photographers happened
Speaker 1: to see her coming off of a boat and they
Speaker 1: both do the cartoon wolf eyes popping out thing or
Speaker 1: they're they're like, I woo, and Susumu is like, hey,
Speaker 1: look at that random woman we've never met. She's the
Speaker 1: perfect model. We must photo her. So they like run
Speaker 1: after her, yelling she's clearly not interested. These guys should
Speaker 1: take a hint, but they do not, And so she
Speaker 1: gets in a car and speeds away, and the dude
Speaker 1: just takes pictures of the car. Yeah, and it's funny too,
Speaker 1: because I mean, obviously, Makoto is beautiful, and the actor
Speaker 1: playing Mikoto is is very beautiful. But are they so
Speaker 1: beautiful that you're just going to run after the car
Speaker 1: taking pictures of the back of the vehicle. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You've got a great one of the back of her
Speaker 1: head through the windshield. Yeah, And later there's a scene
Speaker 1: where they're like they're developing photos in their dark room,
Speaker 1: and Susumu is is telling Yoshido, He's like, you have
Speaker 1: to find this woman. She's perfect, you know. I guess
Speaker 1: he's he's just he sees her once and he's smitten
Speaker 1: um and so he gives this order to Yoshido. But
Speaker 1: Yoshido is like, hey, Tokyo has ten million people, at
Speaker 1: least half of them are women. How am I supposed
Speaker 1: to find her? I'd love that he crunches the numbers.
Speaker 1: But of course they decide they're going to track her
Speaker 1: down using the license plate number on the car which
Speaker 1: he caught in those photos. Yes, by the way, I
Speaker 1: remember how this is going to be a movie about
Speaker 1: an undersea empire that threatens humankind with global war. Yes,
Speaker 1: about a juggernaut battle. Yeah, an undersea kingdom. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot in the beginning about just chasing this lady around.
Speaker 1: Ye Oh. But then right after this, there's a funny
Speaker 1: thing where their secretary in their office like buzzes on
Speaker 1: the intercom and says, excuse me, have you done something wrong?
Speaker 1: There's a policeman here, and so the police are here
Speaker 1: to inform the photographers that another man has been kidnapped
Speaker 1: and taken to the ocean, and just like the previous
Speaker 1: guy who got kidnapped, he was a civil engineer and
Speaker 1: an expert in geologic faults. So, m it seems like
Speaker 1: these people getting driven into the ocean and cars are
Speaker 1: like they've they've got similar expertise engineers who know about
Speaker 1: earthquakes and seizemic activity. So it's got to be those
Speaker 1: steaming man that's right. In fact, they yeah, they're talking
Speaker 1: to the police and one of the Susumu I think,
Speaker 1: is like, was there a vapor man again? And the
Speaker 1: detective says, according to witnesses, he was very steamy, okay,
Speaker 1: And then it's onto introducing more characters again. As I said,
Speaker 1: this movie has a lot of characters. So we follow
Speaker 1: Mikoto to her place of work. You know, she she's
Speaker 1: the beautiful woman who the photographers had to find and
Speaker 1: uh so she works as an assistant to the retired
Speaker 1: Rear Admiral Kousumi played by Ken Yuhara, and in Kasumi's office,
Speaker 1: Makoto informs him that there is a visitor asking to
Speaker 1: see him. It is a journalist named Mr. Umino or Mr.
Speaker 1: I think his name was translated in different ways, but
Speaker 1: in the dub they were I think they were calling
Speaker 1: him umn No, but they say he's a journalist and
Speaker 1: he works for True Story magazine. This guy is my favorite.
Speaker 1: I love umin No. I love his whole vibe. So
Speaker 1: he's played by an actor named Kinji Sahara. And in
Speaker 1: this movie, he's a big guy wearing this big and
Speaker 1: overcoat along with what looks like a red velvet plaid
Speaker 1: flat hat and a red scarf. And he's always wearing sunglasses,
Speaker 1: even indoors, and he is sporting a wicked chin strap beard.
Speaker 1: He looks like a minnonite beat poet. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: this guy, this guy, he was actually present in an
Speaker 1: earlier scene of the scene that the docks where they're
Speaker 1: fishing the car. He was just hanging around, kind of
Speaker 1: leaning over people's shoulders, acting weird. Yeah. This actor, by
Speaker 1: the way, Kinji Sahara born. And I still I think
Speaker 1: it's still I think he's still around. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: not only is the visual presentation of this character great,
Speaker 1: but I feel like he has also has the most
Speaker 1: outrageous English dub. He has this wonderful, wonderfully gruff voice.
Speaker 1: So every time he says something, he has your complete attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything is like, oh, you're not in a yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: which is I feel like that is a staple English
Speaker 1: dub voice of Japanese these films, because I know I've heard,
Speaker 1: if not the same voice actor, I've heard somebody doing
Speaker 1: essentially that same voice for certain characters, probably in spaghetti
Speaker 1: westerns as well. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway, I love Umino.
Speaker 1: Kinji Sahara is great in this role. I love his outfit,
Speaker 1: I love his energy. He's just he's just powerful. Uh
Speaker 1: So the um though, so he's not in the room yet,
Speaker 1: Like Makoto comes in and says to Kasumi, um you
Speaker 1: know this journalist wants to see you. And he's like, well,
Speaker 1: do you know what he wants and she says yes,
Speaker 1: he wants to talk to you about some naval mystery
Speaker 1: during the war, and Kasumi says, naval mystery. Tell him
Speaker 1: I'm not in, but uh, Umino is already in the
Speaker 1: room and he's like, oh, so you're not in huh
Speaker 1: and uh And then so I was trying to understand
Speaker 1: that the doving he says, oh so you're not in huh.
Speaker 1: And then he says I am in, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell if that was Kasumi saying it or if that
Speaker 1: was Umino saying it, but either way it was funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh you're not in, ha, Well, I am in. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Once they're alone, the journalist reveals that he knows about
Speaker 1: some secret prototype submarine that is connected to kassume He's past.
Speaker 1: And honestly, I did not care very much about all
Speaker 1: of the like different submarine model intrigue, where the different
Speaker 1: the the A four oh one or the A four
Speaker 1: oh two or the A four oh three. Uh So
Speaker 1: I do not really plan on trying to keep all
Speaker 1: of that stuff straight. I will just say the the
Speaker 1: weird journalist claims to have knowledge of submarine doings and
Speaker 1: Kasumi he wants consuming to tell him about more submarine doings,
Speaker 1: and Kasumi will not. Yeah, for the most part, we
Speaker 1: just want to see the submarines. At this point, like
Speaker 1: he keeps talking about submarines. Let's just see him, Let's
Speaker 1: see him in action. Yeah, exactly. But then the journalist
Speaker 1: reveals something else. He says that the naval commander Jing Guji,
Speaker 1: who was presumed to have died in the war, is
Speaker 1: actually still alive. Somewhere in hiding. And it turns out
Speaker 1: also this is the scene where we find out that
Speaker 1: Jinguji is Mikoto's father, so she has believed him dead
Speaker 1: this whole time. And Kasumi rear. Admiral Kasumi here, the
Speaker 1: retired admiral was jingu Chi's friend, and he swore to
Speaker 1: take care of Makoto, to to bring her up, and
Speaker 1: Kasumi does not accept the journalists proposition that Jinguji is
Speaker 1: still alive, and he gives a speech. He says, like,
Speaker 1: your father was a great naval officer and a genius
Speaker 1: when it came to marine engineering. On the very night
Speaker 1: he left us, he came to me and asked me
Speaker 1: to take care of you. He wanted you to have
Speaker 1: a good life. And then she says, if he wanted
Speaker 1: me to have a good life, why did he go
Speaker 1: away and leave me? And then the retired admiral says,
Speaker 1: he had to do his duty to his country. That's patriotism.
Speaker 1: You young people don't seem to understand the word, but
Speaker 1: it meant a lot to us. And I thought that
Speaker 1: this is a good scene. Yeah, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: because we're establishing uh this uh, this tension between these
Speaker 1: two characters, but also one of the underlying cultural tensions
Speaker 1: has explored in the in the picture right Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: we cut back to the two photographers, who are still
Speaker 1: just being frivolous perverts. Uh. They're trying to track down
Speaker 1: Mikodo to see if she will model for them, and
Speaker 1: in doing so, they get into a car chase where
Speaker 1: they inadvertently help foil a plot to kidnap Mikoto and
Speaker 1: Kasumi and take them beneath the ocean. Uh. So if
Speaker 1: this I'll try to make sense of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: So Uh, Kasumi and Makoto are riding along in a car.
Speaker 1: They're being driven somewhere, and they start talking about how
Speaker 1: a strange man has been following Mikodo around lately. But
Speaker 1: she's not talking about the the magazine perverts. She's talking
Speaker 1: about a different guy who also keeps popping up. But
Speaker 1: then right in the middle of this, we see that
Speaker 1: the driver of their car is dressed like the driver
Speaker 1: of the car and the opening of the movie the
Speaker 1: guy with the sunglasses. Uh. And but the sky also
Speaker 1: he's not just wearing sunglasses. He's wearing a captain's hat
Speaker 1: like Skipper. I wonder if it's just like you know
Speaker 1: the Moo agents is they're sent out into the world.
Speaker 1: They just kind of grab surface human garments off of
Speaker 1: a rack and guess at how humans actually dressed. Like
Speaker 1: this guy just went into a costume shop and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'll be a captain today. He's very yacht rock. So
Speaker 1: Kasumi tries to protest. He's like, wait, where are we
Speaker 1: where are we going? And and the guy tells them
Speaker 1: to keep quiet and obey his orders, and then he
Speaker 1: drives them to the beach. He points a gun at them,
Speaker 1: and he gets gets him out of the car, order
Speaker 1: marches them to the water's edge, and he's like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're we're going to go to the MoU empire. And
Speaker 1: it like they're standing there at the water with the
Speaker 1: gunpoint and it really reminded me of the Simpsons episode
Speaker 1: where where Mr Burns is uh pointing the gun at
Speaker 1: Smithers and telling him to hop into the plane, but
Speaker 1: it's a model plane he's holding in his hands, the
Speaker 1: Casino episode yet one. Uh. There are multiple scenes in
Speaker 1: this film where basically, if you get to the edge
Speaker 1: of the water and you jump in, you're in the
Speaker 1: Empire of move I don't know if it means that
Speaker 1: like they're supposed to be buildings right there, or if
Speaker 1: at any given point you can jump into the water
Speaker 1: and there's probably a moose submarine nearby that will pick
Speaker 1: you up and take you where you need to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the implication is that these people who fall
Speaker 1: into the water, like drive in in cars or just
Speaker 1: jump into the waves, are picked up by submarines. But
Speaker 1: you don't see that happen. So instead, it's just very
Speaker 1: funny that it's like, Okay, get in the water, then
Speaker 1: you then you yeah. Yeah, they're withholding a lot of
Speaker 1: submarine footage for the at least the first third of
Speaker 1: this picture, if not the first half. But then so
Speaker 1: the two photographers, because they were chasing after this woman,
Speaker 1: they run up on this hostage scene and they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you think you're doing, And the guy in
Speaker 1: the sunglasses and the captain's hat points a gun at
Speaker 1: them and says, I'm going to take these people to
Speaker 1: the Empress of the Moo Empire. Okay, And that's the
Speaker 1: first we hear about it in the movie. He says,
Speaker 1: I'm an agent of the Moo Empire. I'm Agent number
Speaker 1: twenty three, and then uh Kasumi, with a gun like
Speaker 1: pointed into his stomach, says, listen, you must be crazy.
Speaker 1: The Moo Empire is the legendary country which disappeared ten
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, and I think they argue about that
Speaker 1: a little bit, but then the agent says, I have
Speaker 1: a special energy, so you can't hurt me, and he
Speaker 1: demonstrates his power by like, I don't know, like magically
Speaker 1: heating up a wringe. I think, oh, yeah, that's that
Speaker 1: body heat coming into play again. Yeah, you can't physically
Speaker 1: touch them. He certainly can't punch them because they're hot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he says, so I have a special energy, you can't
Speaker 1: hurt me. I'm gonna kidnap Kasumi and Makoto take him
Speaker 1: to the MoU Empire where they will be enslaved by
Speaker 1: the Empress. And then there's a scene of tense music
Speaker 1: as you see the masses of the sort of the
Speaker 1: entourage of the Moo Empire coming towards the beach too,
Speaker 1: I guess take them away. And this scene was actually
Speaker 1: I thought kind of spooky when you see the the
Speaker 1: vaporman poking their heads up out of the water, and
Speaker 1: then there's a submarine rising behind them in the distance. Yeah, this,
Speaker 1: this shot reminded me a lot of what we'd see
Speaker 1: much later in nine seven Shock Waves, which we talked
Speaker 1: about on Weird House Cinema. In in that movie, you
Speaker 1: had undead Nazis emerging from the Florida surf in a
Speaker 1: shot that that looks a lot like this. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's actually any connection here or if they're
Speaker 1: both inspired by something else, but it's a nice visual. Nonetheless, Anyway,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? You know? Agent twenty three,
Speaker 1: he's got special energy. Well, despite his special energy, Susumu
Speaker 1: disarms him, like the photographer guy just knocks the gun
Speaker 1: out of his hand and wrestles him into submission. Because
Speaker 1: sum he grabs the gun and points it at him
Speaker 1: and he's like you're coming with us? Uh, and the
Speaker 1: the agent just says basically, he's like no, no, and
Speaker 1: then he jumps into the water, instantly picked up by submarine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we regroup back at the police department where the
Speaker 1: detectives are investigating the physical evidence for for this whole story,
Speaker 1: including by looking at the gun, and the one detective
Speaker 1: is is checking out the gun by pointing it at
Speaker 1: his face, and clearing down the barrel. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: they so they're hanging out at the police station and
Speaker 1: they receive a package in the mail. It is addressed
Speaker 1: to Admiral Kasumi, care of the Metropolitan Police Department, and
Speaker 1: it is from the MoU Empire Agent twenty three. This
Speaker 1: is where the film really begins to kick it into
Speaker 1: higher gear. Oh yes, oh yes, I love this. But
Speaker 1: before we get to the contents of the package with
Speaker 1: a guy in a white lab coat comes in. He says, hey,
Speaker 1: the package might be dangerous, let me open it. So
Speaker 1: they're all like, oh, it's a bomb. But then they
Speaker 1: just stand around looking over his shoulder while he opens it,
Speaker 1: so like they I don't know. They don't take it
Speaker 1: to a secure location. But of course it's not a bomb.
Speaker 1: It's a film strip. So then we're treated to a
Speaker 1: movie within a movie. They they appear, they apparently gather
Speaker 1: all the big wigs to watch this film strip that
Speaker 1: has been sent to them by the agent, and it
Speaker 1: is a like it is a short film made by
Speaker 1: the MoU Empire explaining the MoU Empire to these people.
Speaker 1: It's like, here's what we are. We're going to conquer you,
Speaker 1: and this was one of my favorite parts of the movie.
Speaker 1: It's a Moo propaganda film and it raises a number
Speaker 1: of questions, like that, does the move Propaganda Department have
Speaker 1: just like their own cinema uh squad down there? Have
Speaker 1: they kidnapped cinematographers and cameraman and brought them down? If
Speaker 1: they have their arther Jacques Gustas who have gone missing
Speaker 1: so that they can be used for for this function,
Speaker 1: And then of course I love that. You would think
Speaker 1: if like an underwater imperial nation wants to make itself
Speaker 1: known to the surface world, like they they wouldn't just
Speaker 1: send it to a you know, a random admiral they like,
Speaker 1: wouldn't this go to heads of state or something or
Speaker 1: to the United Nations? No, no, they want Kasumi, like
Speaker 1: for his eyes. So what that say? Well, they say,
Speaker 1: this is the Pacific Ocean. They show a map of
Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean. Thank you, and then they say, for
Speaker 1: twelve thousand years the MoU Empire has prospered at the
Speaker 1: bottom of this ocean. This film will prove our existence
Speaker 1: to you. So they go on to claim that throughout
Speaker 1: ancient history, the MoU Empire ruled over the entire world,
Speaker 1: but However, they say, quote, however, because of a curse,
Speaker 1: our empire was buried beneath the waters of the Pacific
Speaker 1: that I wish we knew more about the curse, but um. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: our ancestors managed to survive by utilizing the heat store
Speaker 1: deep in Earth's center and other resources unknown to you.
Speaker 1: We have we have made great progress, as you can see.
Speaker 1: And well, this narration goes on. They show a bunch
Speaker 1: of what appears to be futuristic cities in underground caverns,
Speaker 1: and they have like, uh, I don't know, rail transport
Speaker 1: and and futuristic looking I don't know, catwalks and stuff,
Speaker 1: and and flying cars of course, and steam coming out things.
Speaker 1: It's it's very good. I like the miniature models. Yeah,
Speaker 1: huge caverns in the earth filled with glass and steel
Speaker 1: and spheares and also like weirdly old fashioned looking clock towers, um,
Speaker 1: and and all of it powered by geothermal energy, which
Speaker 1: which is a cool sci fi concept for for something
Speaker 1: like this. You know, if you're gonna have underground people
Speaker 1: have geothermal power, makes sense to be their their energy source.
Speaker 1: But they also revealed that they have possession of one
Speaker 1: of those submarines that came up earlier of the A
Speaker 1: four O three, a Japanese secret submarine that had been
Speaker 1: commanded by Jinguji, And the film says that Jinguji was
Speaker 1: not a board when they captured it, and he is
Speaker 1: currently somewhere designing an even more powerful, more advanced submarine
Speaker 1: in a secret base. And then the film orders Kasumi
Speaker 1: to locate Jinguji and tell him to stop work on
Speaker 1: the super sub immediately. Then the Moon Empire, it says
Speaker 1: it intends to recover its former domination, and it says
Speaker 1: the Impress move will soon be supreme ruler of the world.
Speaker 1: And they show like scenes from the throne room inside
Speaker 1: the Palace of Moo and all these adoring citizens bowing
Speaker 1: before the Empress in this throne room with big flames,
Speaker 1: with a vaguely ancient Egyptian theme. Yeah, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think you could also say, maybe, uh, stuff that looks
Speaker 1: sort of like elements of ancient Greek or Mesoamerican all
Speaker 1: kind of mixed together. Yeah, also reminds one of various
Speaker 1: like the Sword and Sandal epics. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of robes going on. Dude standing around
Speaker 1: with spears, and you know, I feel like this now.
Speaker 1: I want I want to really I want to like
Speaker 1: the move propaganda agency here, but I feel like they
Speaker 1: really miscalculated things. Like basically, they're saying, hey, there's a
Speaker 1: guy out there who has a weapon and we're afraid
Speaker 1: of it. Uh, you need to stop him because we
Speaker 1: want to take over the world. And then you look
Speaker 1: at us, behold all of our our weird mix of
Speaker 1: of advanced technology, but also um uh you know, spears
Speaker 1: and fires, open flames, and yes, we had to steal
Speaker 1: a submarine. So it seems it seems like they would
Speaker 1: something more subtle would have made more sense, Like couldn't
Speaker 1: you just like leak the location or the existence of
Speaker 1: this uh advanced submarine that you want taken out of
Speaker 1: the picture. I don't know. Yeah, it is strange that
Speaker 1: they're like they're saying, Okay, we're going to conquer you,
Speaker 1: and the only way that you could prevent us from
Speaker 1: doing that is with this submarine. So we need you
Speaker 1: to stop making that submarine immediately, and that appears to
Speaker 1: be true. They're not lying that, so okay. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean they are an isolated totalitarian society, so maybe
Speaker 1: they just don't know how to interact with the world
Speaker 1: at large anymore. Not great at at negotiating or diplomacy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh sorry. One last thing is they say, if you
Speaker 1: don't surrender to the new Empire immediately, our god Amunda
Speaker 1: will bring destruction down upon your heads. I know, we've
Speaker 1: been saying both Manda and Munda with an A or
Speaker 1: an u. It's been spelled both ways. All right, so
Speaker 1: balls in your court, surface world, How are you going
Speaker 1: to respond? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So we this
Speaker 1: the film has been screened for this large gathering of
Speaker 1: political and military big wigs, and they review the film
Speaker 1: and discuss how to respond. They're saying things like, do
Speaker 1: you think the Moon Empire really intends to take over
Speaker 1: the world? I think it's all a big fake, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So they argue about it. But one thing I love
Speaker 1: is in this scene, the two photographers are still there
Speaker 1: and they're like dominating the conversation about what to do.
Speaker 1: It's one of those classic cases of I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess there are a lot of movies like this, but like,
Speaker 1: why is this person still allowed to be part of
Speaker 1: the decision making process here? Yeah? Yeah, Especially these are
Speaker 1: just photographers who just who earlier we're chasing around a
Speaker 1: stranger trying to see if she wanted to become a model. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: from here, it's segues into UH into showing us a
Speaker 1: bunch of attacks by the Moon em Are on the
Speaker 1: world of the surface. But but first it shows us
Speaker 1: a newspaper headline that is translated in the subtitles as
Speaker 1: film threatens Nations. Nice, but it says there's an emergency
Speaker 1: meeting at the U n how are we going to
Speaker 1: deal with the problem? And then we see ships out
Speaker 1: in the water being attacked by submarines. We learned through
Speaker 1: newspaper headlines that the New Empire has attacked and destroyed
Speaker 1: the cities of Venice and Hong Kong. Uh. And then uh,
Speaker 1: in a minute, there is a conflict with a submarine
Speaker 1: and this is a very weird scene we actually rob
Speaker 1: Do you want to describe the Red Satan scene? Yeah? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're introduced to a submarine that is known as the
Speaker 1: Red Satan. And I know that sounds exciting and it's
Speaker 1: bringing all sorts of fantastic images to your mind. But
Speaker 1: we're showing this submarine and it just looks like a submarine.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a nice submarine. It's a like like
Speaker 1: all the toy submarines in this movie. It's very well executed.
Speaker 1: Uh wa Utterer and models. It's kind of like flames
Speaker 1: and models and pictures. You know. If the scale is wrong,
Speaker 1: if they don't know what they're doing, things can really
Speaker 1: look like like like toys on fire and toys in
Speaker 1: the bathtub, and you don't really get a toy submarine
Speaker 1: in the bathtub. Feel. From most of this picture, I
Speaker 1: feel like they did a really good job. That being said,
Speaker 1: the Red Satan is basically a Red Shirt submarine because
Speaker 1: the Surface Nations they send it out to follow the
Speaker 1: move submarine and find its base. But in pursuing the
Speaker 1: move vessel, it travels too deep and the pressure crushes it.
Speaker 1: And uh, this scene too is uh is pulled off
Speaker 1: with models and it looks really good. Uh you see
Speaker 1: the pressure crush this thing like a tin can. Yeah?
Speaker 1: I like that. But so the big question is whose
Speaker 1: submarine is this? Like? The crew appears to be from
Speaker 1: their accents, a combination of American, French and maybe Russian too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know a United Nations submarine. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't as far as I know that
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as like a an attack submarine
Speaker 1: with an international crew that belongs to no nation, and
Speaker 1: maybe there is, I don't know, but uh, like this
Speaker 1: isn't an exploratory scientific vessel or something. This is military
Speaker 1: war submarine. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, these are changing times,
Speaker 1: these are challenging times, so the surface world is having
Speaker 1: to to try new things out. Yeah, and it would
Speaker 1: fit with the themes of the movie about international cooperation
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, the good of humanity as a
Speaker 1: whole superseding the narrow nationalistic interest. All right, So at
Speaker 1: this point we actually have toy submarines in this movie,
Speaker 1: but we need more toy submarines, so our fractures have
Speaker 1: to go out and find them, right, So at this
Speaker 1: point the movie is propelled to the next stage where okay,
Speaker 1: finally we've assembled this huge cast of characters and they've
Speaker 1: all been introduced so that they can end up traveling
Speaker 1: to the mysterious island where Captain Jinguchi has been hiding
Speaker 1: ever since the war, which again he basically hasn't given
Speaker 1: up on um. And so how we actually get there
Speaker 1: is we meet that you remember the creepy guy who
Speaker 1: Makoto says, has been following her around. Well, it turns
Speaker 1: out this guy works for Commander Jinguchi, for for the captain,
Speaker 1: and he has been with this guy on his island
Speaker 1: base for a long time. But I guess he's been
Speaker 1: sent back to Tokyo to watch over his daughter. Or wait,
Speaker 1: was that the reason? I actually didn't make a note
Speaker 1: of this. I don't remember exactly why he says the
Speaker 1: reason he came back. I think that's it. But when
Speaker 1: they start interrogating him, they find out, okay, he can
Speaker 1: take us to to Jinguji's island, and he's very cagy
Speaker 1: about where it is, like he won't just say, but
Speaker 1: he will lead them there by boat. So our cast
Speaker 1: of characters are swooshed away to the island of Jinguji
Speaker 1: where he, as the documentary film by the Moon Empire suggested,
Speaker 1: he has in fact building a new submarine that is
Speaker 1: the ultimate weapon. Not only can the submarine fight under water,
Speaker 1: it can fly in the air and it has a
Speaker 1: drill allowing it to travel through rock. And not to
Speaker 1: be pedantic, because like, the submarine can fly, and I'm
Speaker 1: not bothered by the fact that it can fly. That's great. Somehow,
Speaker 1: I was a little bit bothered by the fact that
Speaker 1: the drill submarine, like it has a subterine function. To
Speaker 1: go back to something we've talked about in a couple
Speaker 1: of episodes, Uh, it has a drill bit, but the
Speaker 1: drill bit is narrower in diameter than the sub itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that wouldn't quite work with it. No, And not
Speaker 1: only that, the submarine also has a sail, you know,
Speaker 1: the part that sticks out at the top. So yeah,
Speaker 1: well we do see I think we see a scene
Speaker 1: where that that that part of the vessel can retract. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't remember if we actually see
Speaker 1: it retract later on when this thing sails through solid rock.
Speaker 1: So when we get to the island, the characters finally
Speaker 1: meet the commander who's been built up so much, Captain
Speaker 1: Jing Gucci, and he and Kasumi, his old friend, are reunited.
Speaker 1: He and his daughter are They sort of meet each
Speaker 1: other for the first time. I guess she was three
Speaker 1: when he left um. But it's a sort of bitter
Speaker 1: sweet reunion because it turns out he is not very
Speaker 1: interested in helping them out with their problem. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're here on behalf of the entire world. We're being
Speaker 1: threatened by the MoU Empire. We've got to do something
Speaker 1: about it. They so they want to get him to
Speaker 1: join in with the rest of humanity and use his
Speaker 1: super sub to protect it. But Jing Gucci will not budge.
Speaker 1: He is he is a hard man, and he is stubborn,
Speaker 1: and he's just still overwhelmed with nationalistic pride. The only
Speaker 1: thing he wants to use this submarine for is to
Speaker 1: restore the Japanese Empire after its defeat. And again, I
Speaker 1: like this because it's You can compare this to various
Speaker 1: Saint James Bond films, like what if you had to
Speaker 1: seek out the super villain with his super weapon, but
Speaker 1: not to stop him, but to say, hey, that's a
Speaker 1: nice super weapon you got there. Might you help us
Speaker 1: defeat another threat with it? Yeah? I would. This is
Speaker 1: kind of like if there was a James Bond villain
Speaker 1: and James Bond's mission was to go to that guy
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I know you wanted to use your
Speaker 1: heat ray against whatever you know the enemy of your
Speaker 1: country is, but actually we're being invaded by aliens and
Speaker 1: we need it for that. Yeah, Specter, only you can
Speaker 1: save us. Uh, don't. Don't you want to do the
Speaker 1: right thing here? And the question is will he come
Speaker 1: through in the end? I think you can. You can
Speaker 1: guess yeah, we will get a happy ending. Jing Guji
Speaker 1: will be one back over by the by the appeals
Speaker 1: of his daughter for his daughter's love because you like,
Speaker 1: they have an argument where he's like, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't understand. I have duty, I have I have patriotism,
Speaker 1: I I have responsibilities to uphold and she she's just
Speaker 1: like not having it. She's like you, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't expect you to be like this, and I hate you.
Speaker 1: And that clearly cuts him to the core. And he
Speaker 1: eventually comes around in the end and says, yes, he
Speaker 1: will stick up for humanity against the move. But there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of other things to talk about along
Speaker 1: the way, because eventually we get some uh some more
Speaker 1: conflict with the MoU Empire itself, such as meeting the
Speaker 1: MoU Impress and the Excellent High Priest of the MoU Empire. Yes, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I love this guy's whole hair situation. He's great. The
Speaker 1: MoU Empress also has a great hair situation. She has
Speaker 1: like like like candy red hair. Um and uh always
Speaker 1: she always looks really mad. Yeah, she has kind of
Speaker 1: a like a moody pop goddess look to her. Uh
Speaker 1: if a moody pop goddess was in a like a
Speaker 1: sort of biblical epic of the nineteen sixties, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of folks standing around. And then I did find
Speaker 1: it interesting that the uh the the ethnic makeup of
Speaker 1: the people of MoU, it's um it's fairly diverse, much
Speaker 1: like our scenes of the people of Earth. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the various political uh um groups, different nations coming together
Speaker 1: and trying to decide what to do. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: I read that they reasoned that because MoU is actually gigantic,
Speaker 1: it's like a continent under the Pacific, that it is
Speaker 1: a a massive, multi ethnic continent that I guess they
Speaker 1: have banded together in common purpose to destroy all the
Speaker 1: land lovers. Yes, so they've overcome their differences. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: why why can't we? I mean, well, they've they've overcome
Speaker 1: their differences, but they just want to conquer the world.
Speaker 1: They're not an example we should aspire to exactly, but
Speaker 1: but still we have to stop them. Now, there is
Speaker 1: a great plot line I really liked where Makoto and
Speaker 1: one of the photographers is kidnapped and taken to the
Speaker 1: MoU Empire by a double crossing double agent. Can you
Speaker 1: guess who the double agent among the main cast is.
Speaker 1: It's Jan Strap, of course, of course it was. He
Speaker 1: was wearing sunglasses inside all the time. Of course it
Speaker 1: was going to be him. Yeah. Yeah. Plus he's got
Speaker 1: that great gravelly voice. Yeah. And there's a there's a
Speaker 1: really good scene where, uh, they're trying to he you know,
Speaker 1: he's like you're going to the moo impress and they
Speaker 1: try to struggle with him, but he can do a
Speaker 1: thing where he like makes their their head flash with
Speaker 1: like an overexposed camera effect, and then they just pass out.
Speaker 1: That's that that body heat, which, by the way, you
Speaker 1: think they would have picked up on that, right if
Speaker 1: he's a if he's a move operative, how do they
Speaker 1: keep from steaming all over the place. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good question. Maybe they can. Maybe they only steam on command,
Speaker 1: or they they're constantly eating ice cream, constantly have an
Speaker 1: ice pop or something. So Makoto and Susumu are kidnapped
Speaker 1: by the reporter. Uh, and I think the reporter or
Speaker 1: some other double agents somebody plants a bomb in the
Speaker 1: in the hangar where Jinguji is super super Sub is captain,
Speaker 1: and you think, oh wow, that's that's it for Earth.
Speaker 1: But actually the super Sub survives the bomb attack, and
Speaker 1: I think it's the fact that Makoto has been kidnapped
Speaker 1: that sort of finally breaks through Jinguji's shell and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I will help, I will help. Now there is just
Speaker 1: a lot of plot going on in this. I feel
Speaker 1: like this should have been a television series or a
Speaker 1: board game or something. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: feel like you really could have stretched this out, because
Speaker 1: this is actually a type of plot I really enjoy
Speaker 1: which has been done in some other science fiction works,
Speaker 1: where like a sort of outside or alien force threatens
Speaker 1: Earth as a whole, and especially uh undercuts our ability
Speaker 1: to defend ourselves by exploiting national divisions and exploiting divisions
Speaker 1: within Earth to keep us squabbling with each other and
Speaker 1: not banding together to fight them. Yeah. I mean that
Speaker 1: this is one of the things that made Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones so enjoyable. Oh yeah, yeah, that's basically what's going
Speaker 1: on there, and it's always something we can relate to
Speaker 1: UM as an international community, as an international viewers can
Speaker 1: look at this and be like, yeah, why why can't
Speaker 1: we work together towards these bigger problems? Why are we
Speaker 1: wasting all of this energy on on strife amongst ourselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always easy for some narrow concerned seem more pressing
Speaker 1: at the moment. So, I mean it's a great type
Speaker 1: of story. Other sci fi things have done it well,
Speaker 1: and I think this, Yeah, you could totally have stretched
Speaker 1: out this, uh the the idea of a trigon over
Speaker 1: a whole series, or you know, the more of the
Speaker 1: politics comes into play and stuff like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately in the end, we need to have some submarine
Speaker 1: fights and some monster attacks. So that is what we're
Speaker 1: gonna get. So we see the New Empire attacking. We
Speaker 1: know they've already destroyed the cities of Venice and Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: and now we see them attacking within Japan itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in this we get into the last third of
Speaker 1: the picture, which is just constant submarine battles. We finally
Speaker 1: see uh Manda or Munda released. I really like that scene,
Speaker 1: by the way, where they basically throw open a door
Speaker 1: and they're like behold Munda and you just see like
Speaker 1: a wall of scales there at first, which I really like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I think they do that when they're telling the
Speaker 1: prisoners from Earth that they're going to be sacrificed to Munda.
Speaker 1: If I can't remember, if something doesn't happen, if Jinguji
Speaker 1: doesn't turn over the submarine or something. Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: this this uncertainty about the monster. Is it is it
Speaker 1: just a monster? Is it like a bioweapon? Or is
Speaker 1: it or is it a god? You know, they speak
Speaker 1: of it as if it is their god. Yes. But
Speaker 1: eventually what happens is the heroes are able to kidnap
Speaker 1: the Impress of MoU and take her to the submarine. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so she's she's there, and uh. There's a scene
Speaker 1: where they try to negotiate with her. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: just you know, tell your tell your monster is tell
Speaker 1: your people to surrender and we can end this. And
Speaker 1: she is not having it. She's like, no, no, it
Speaker 1: is victory or death. Yeah. She's like you can kill me.
Speaker 1: They'll just keep coming because that's what they've been told
Speaker 1: to do. So, because he believes he has no other choice,
Speaker 1: Captain Jinguji is like, okay, I've got a sabotage their technology,
Speaker 1: so he activates the drill. Oh well, actually first he
Speaker 1: has to fight munda Um, which they do with a
Speaker 1: freeze ray up and you know, so this thing is
Speaker 1: not dead, it's frozen. It can come back in another movie.
Speaker 1: That's right, and and and does to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: We do get a nice sequence there where uh Ramondo
Speaker 1: Amanda wraps itself around the submarine, which of course is
Speaker 1: great because this is such a Jewels Verne esque moment
Speaker 1: in the picture. And I've seen that there have been
Speaker 1: a number I'm not sure if they're model kits or
Speaker 1: maybe high end model kits or like high end collectibles,
Speaker 1: but you can see I see that there various statues
Speaker 1: at least of this interaction between the monster in the submarine. Right.
Speaker 1: But so after this fight, the submarine drills into the
Speaker 1: technology at the core of the Moon Empire, shuts down
Speaker 1: their ability to wage war, but it also causes this
Speaker 1: cataclysmic explosion that destroys the palace and they so they
Speaker 1: escape to the surface in the submarine. The Moo Empress
Speaker 1: is still with them, and I thought there was an
Speaker 1: interesting scene right at the end, as like things are
Speaker 1: exploding in the water us the palace is still blowing up,
Speaker 1: and they she just swims away into the fire and
Speaker 1: they go They're like, they're like, she wants to die
Speaker 1: in her own empire or something like that. They're like,
Speaker 1: let her go. Yeah, yeah, that was that was That
Speaker 1: was a nice moment, I guess. But also when when
Speaker 1: MoU is exploding there, it really does look apocalyptic on
Speaker 1: the surface, all these like billowing like dark reddish clouds
Speaker 1: of smoke ascending into the atmosphere, and I think this,
Speaker 1: this can't be good for for for the surface world entirely.
Speaker 1: I mean, they had to defeat Move, I guess, but
Speaker 1: I wonder what the ramifications of this are. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess we didn't talk much about, but they're they're extensive
Speaker 1: shots earlier when the MOVE is uh, when the Moon
Speaker 1: Empire is attacking Japan of like these strange uh bombing
Speaker 1: like guided bomb devices that come up out of a
Speaker 1: volcano and the stuff. Yeah, yeah, I did. I didn't
Speaker 1: quite get exactly what those were supposed to be, but uh,
Speaker 1: it looks great. In via archive footage from another A
Speaker 1: motion picture, it's shown that the Move also have satellites
Speaker 1: in space, which I don't know. I thought that kind
Speaker 1: of undercut the idea of an undersea kingdom reaching up
Speaker 1: into the surface world. But fair enough. Um, there there's all.
Speaker 1: And they also have the move submarine, which one of
Speaker 1: the details I liked about that is that they have
Speaker 1: a debt cannon that shaped like a dragon that shoots
Speaker 1: laser beams. Yes, well wait, I actually had a question
Speaker 1: the laser beams. So that was a cannon on the submarine.
Speaker 1: It wasn't actually supposed to be Munda himself, I don't
Speaker 1: think so when it when I first saw it, I
Speaker 1: thought that's what it was. I was like, Oh, it
Speaker 1: looks like here's here's the monster. But then I think
Speaker 1: we see that cannon again after the monster has been
Speaker 1: frozen on the bottom of the ocean. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. But it is hard to tell, especially
Speaker 1: in a pictures like this. Okay, I think that's all
Speaker 1: I've got on atrigone. Yeah, that's atrigone. There's a lot there. Um.
Speaker 1: I would struggle to say that it's must see. Um
Speaker 1: it is. It is an interesting picture. It's interesting and
Speaker 1: what it tried to achieve. Um, it has some some
Speaker 1: creative ideas, some creative plot elements. Um. If you if
Speaker 1: you happen to. I think it would be a fun
Speaker 1: one to put on in the background, uh, if you
Speaker 1: were having some sort of a get together or whatnot. Um,
Speaker 1: the trailers really nice and if you want to watch
Speaker 1: it as well, well you can do what we did
Speaker 1: and find a digital rental of it. I think we
Speaker 1: got our through Prime, but I believe I noticed some
Speaker 1: other places had it as well that you could at
Speaker 1: least watch as part of some sort of a package
Speaker 1: or or by trying the streaming service or another. You
Speaker 1: can also get it on DVD from Tokyo Shock. And
Speaker 1: there was also a two part anime follow up, super Atragon,
Speaker 1: which I don't know much about other than it appears
Speaker 1: to have the submarine and the dragon in it. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's a sit full on sequel
Speaker 1: or just kind of a reamat jenning off the same plot,
Speaker 1: but hey, maybe somebody out there is familiar with it
Speaker 1: and can chime in. Alright, alright, so where there we are,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and close it out. But hey,
Speaker 1: we invite everyone out there to share your thoughts on
Speaker 1: a trigon about any of the various Kaiju movies, uh
Speaker 1: that we have discussed here will remind you that we're
Speaker 1: primarily a science podcast with core episodes that publishing the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: but on Fridays we put aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: UM I blog about these movies on Samuda music dot com. Also,
Speaker 1: we do have a letterboxed account that's l E T
Speaker 1: T E R b O x D. If you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with this website, it's like a sort of social
Speaker 1: media site just about films, and if you want to
Speaker 1: look us up there, our user name is just weird House.
Speaker 1: I try to put in Weird House Cinema, but that's
Speaker 1: too many characters. I would have to do weird House
Speaker 1: Cinema or something, and that that just doesn't work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff
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