Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today
Speaker 1: we are going to be covering a film based on
Speaker 1: a listener recommendation. So to all of you out there
Speaker 1: who would like to write in with suggestions for us
Speaker 1: this this may give you some hope. I wonder Rob,
Speaker 1: should we kick this episode off by reading the message
Speaker 1: that that suggested this movie? Sure? Yeah, go for it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. This is from Jordan. Jordan wrote in
Speaker 1: to say hello, Stuff to Blow Your Mind team. I
Speaker 1: don't always watch every Weird House Cinema movie before listening
Speaker 1: to the episodes, but my partner and I certainly had
Speaker 1: a blast watching Robot Monster. Our streaming service then recommended
Speaker 1: us an equally short and hilarious movie with its own
Speaker 1: unrelated dinosaur fights, the nineteen nine film All Monsters Attack.
Speaker 1: If you ever had the chance to see it, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a short pitch. Uh. This Japanese bank heist
Speaker 1: meets home alone sci fi action mystery movie is filled
Speaker 1: with giant monster fights that show kids how to overcome
Speaker 1: their school bullies. Certainly qualifies as a weird house film,
Speaker 1: to say the least. I don't think it's been covered yet,
Speaker 1: and if not, I know my partner and I would
Speaker 1: love to hear your take on it. Love the show,
Speaker 1: Jordan's well, Jordan's I hope you were excited for today's episode.
Speaker 1: We are indeed covering All Monsters Attack. Yeah, And listeners
Speaker 1: keep the recommendations coming, because sometimes listeners let us know
Speaker 1: about a film that's not on our radar, such as
Speaker 1: this one. Other times, like last week's episode, let Sleeping
Speaker 1: Corpses lie. That was a case where a listener requested
Speaker 1: it and that kind of bumped it back up on
Speaker 1: our list. It was on the list, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: at the top. But yeah, so so so let us
Speaker 1: know anytime something catches your eye, if there's anything near
Speaker 1: and dear to your heart that you think fits the
Speaker 1: weird house cinema template. So I think All Monsters Attack
Speaker 1: is a very interesting film, especially for its place in
Speaker 1: the history of the Godzilla franchise and for its varied
Speaker 1: reception history. And I think it's also a little bit
Speaker 1: it's interesting in the very different notes it hits. This
Speaker 1: is a movie that is both quite funny for schlock reasons,
Speaker 1: as as alluded to in the email, but also I
Speaker 1: think strangely sweet and even a little bit moving. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has it has a good heart. It is a
Speaker 1: It is a monster film about children, like this is
Speaker 1: not a it's It's pretty common to see these various
Speaker 1: Kaiju films where there is a child involved, and we
Speaker 1: all know that's like Gamera is a friend to all
Speaker 1: children and so forth. But this movie especially, is a
Speaker 1: film where the child is not just a character like
Speaker 1: the the the the childhood view of the world. It
Speaker 1: is kind of the centerpiece of the whole picture. Uh
Speaker 1: like that. The film doesn't make sense unless you realize
Speaker 1: that it is from the viewpoint of a child and
Speaker 1: not just from the view viewpoint of a child is
Speaker 1: in it has a child protagonist, but literally the monster
Speaker 1: drama in it is a dream in the mind of
Speaker 1: a child. Yeah. Yeah, this is a film in which
Speaker 1: none of the monsters are real. Um Like, none of
Speaker 1: the monsters that we that we see, none of these
Speaker 1: fights are actually taking place. They're all in the child's head.
Speaker 1: They're all in his dreams. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's not like those battles. It's not that they don't matter,
Speaker 1: like it's ultimately well presented. We talked in our Robot
Speaker 1: Monster episode about films that have the it's it was
Speaker 1: all a dream trope in them, And this is certainly
Speaker 1: a film where a lot of the action is taking
Speaker 1: place within the dream. But also there is this it's
Speaker 1: not presented in kind of a gut punchy, twisty way.
Speaker 1: We know from the get go that this is a
Speaker 1: dreamscape we're entering into, and yet at the same time
Speaker 1: there's also, uh, there's also the real world plot that
Speaker 1: is a that is taking place as well, and there
Speaker 1: are steaks in it as well. So it's not like
Speaker 1: all the steaks are in the dream world and nothing's
Speaker 1: going on in the real world. Right. It is a
Speaker 1: movie about a child who has dreams about monsters, and
Speaker 1: those dreams about monsters teach him how to solve problems
Speaker 1: in real life. Now, whether these are good lessons or not,
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, that's there may be some generational divide
Speaker 1: on that and there and this is all open for discussion. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I thought it might be useful here to do
Speaker 1: a brief digression on the history of the Godzilla franchise
Speaker 1: and the place all monsters attack has within it. Uh so.
Speaker 1: The first Godzilla movie was released in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: It was directed by Ishiro Honda, the same director as
Speaker 1: today's movie, and it was about a giant, prehistoric reptilian
Speaker 1: monster with radiation breath who appears from under the ocean
Speaker 1: as a consequence of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.
Speaker 1: Godzilla attacks Japan and is eventually defeated by the ingenuity
Speaker 1: of human scientists. Now, I think it's really important to
Speaker 1: note that if you have only seen later Godzilla movies,
Speaker 1: you may be shocked if you go back and watch
Speaker 1: the original, shocked to discover it's much darker tone, the
Speaker 1: heavy themes treated in a very solemn manner, and the
Speaker 1: fact that there is no Kaiju meet Slam. The monsters
Speaker 1: do not suplex each other. There In fact, there's only
Speaker 1: one monster. Godzilla is a pure antagonist in the first movie.
Speaker 1: He doesn't wrestle other monsters, and it is not light
Speaker 1: camp entertainment. The original Godzilla is a bleak, doomy movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of grimy, it's useful black and light is
Speaker 1: very stark. H It is a It is a serious
Speaker 1: film about dread and horror in the modern world. However,
Speaker 1: in the film that would follow, which was called Godzilla
Speaker 1: Raids Again in nineteen fifty five, Godzilla once again emerges
Speaker 1: to threaten humankind, but this time there's another element. Godzilla
Speaker 1: is fighting another monster, so fighting this ancient fire breathing dinosaur.
Speaker 1: To me, he's sort of based on the design of
Speaker 1: an Ankleosaurus um and this would set off a kind
Speaker 1: of pattern of monster on monster violence that would continue
Speaker 1: into the following films, including movies like King Kong versus Godzilla,
Speaker 1: that's the nineteen sixty two mothro versus Godzilla and sixty four,
Speaker 1: various battles with monsters from outer space and with three heads,
Speaker 1: other things coming up from the deep and rob I
Speaker 1: wonder if you would disagree with anything here or have
Speaker 1: anything to add to this, but I would argue a
Speaker 1: few general trends in the Godzilla movies as they go on.
Speaker 1: One is the trend of the moral valence of Godzilla,
Speaker 1: who I think goes initially from hard heel to kind
Speaker 1: of anti hero to full face. What would you agree
Speaker 1: with that? Oh, yeah, yeah, he's definitely a baby face.
Speaker 1: And then the most of the films, people are really
Speaker 1: familiar with. Yeah, it's often like Godzilla has to show
Speaker 1: up to fight a bad monster in order to protect
Speaker 1: humanity from that monster, and he's kind of like a
Speaker 1: dangerous ally, but ultimately it's he who is defending human
Speaker 1: civilization from from this really wicked creature. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that trajectory tends to hold true occasionally with
Speaker 1: You'll see some some new Godzilla pictures that come about
Speaker 1: in which they kind of go back to basics and
Speaker 1: go for like the solo monster threat sort of plot.
Speaker 1: And I guess one of the main examples of that
Speaker 1: is um Shin Godzilla from Yeah. Well, a lot of
Speaker 1: times when they do a reboot, it's like that shin
Speaker 1: Godzilla is like that Godzilla, that horrible American Godzilla from
Speaker 1: the nineties is like that yeah, or wait is it
Speaker 1: now I'm trying to remember. I think it is. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe so, though I think the more recent American
Speaker 1: Godzilla remake that had some extra monsters in it, as
Speaker 1: I recall, so that would had bad ones that Godzilla
Speaker 1: had to fight. Yeah, let them fight, Yes, some sort
Speaker 1: of radiation eating dinosaur creatures. Yeah. Okay, So there's that trajectory.
Speaker 1: Another thing is the tone. The tone changes. It goes
Speaker 1: from the bleak, just doom laden horror of the first
Speaker 1: movie to a much lighter, campier, sillier kind of entertainment,
Speaker 1: even when it sometimes still has commentary. A lot of times,
Speaker 1: these sillier, campier Godzilla movies will be satirical about, say
Speaker 1: pollution or politics or the entertainment industry, even like I
Speaker 1: think there's one where there's like, you know, somebody's trying
Speaker 1: to boost TV ratings by capturing King Kong and then
Speaker 1: he gets out and has to fight Godzilla and so forth.
Speaker 1: Uh So they often satirize real elements in the world,
Speaker 1: but they're not as dark as the first one. I
Speaker 1: would also say, as it goes on, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think some people would be tempted to say that
Speaker 1: the quality of production in the films goes down, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that's exactly right. I would say the
Speaker 1: quality of production becomes more variable. It's not like there's
Speaker 1: a steady decline in the quality of Godzilla movies, but
Speaker 1: instead we see a sort of all over the place
Speaker 1: quality pattern. Would you agree with that? I think so,
Speaker 1: and I do wonder how much. And this is maybe
Speaker 1: something that Godzilla scholars may have thoughts on and indeed
Speaker 1: it is worth pointing out that Godzilla movies are definitely
Speaker 1: an area where there is a People have written whole
Speaker 1: books on this, There have been agonimic papers on this.
Speaker 1: This is this is a well explored region of weird cinema.
Speaker 1: But I do wonder at times they get into the
Speaker 1: sillier zone and the kid friendly zone, and I wonder
Speaker 1: what are the different forces involved. I mean, part of
Speaker 1: it is clearly like the reception to Godzilla by young viewers,
Speaker 1: but then also I wonder how much of it is
Speaker 1: the filmmakers realizing like not only the limitations of rubber
Speaker 1: suit um monster effects, but also the potential for humor
Speaker 1: with those suits. You know, like if you're going for
Speaker 1: just hard um uh you know, sci fi or really
Speaker 1: serious grim horror with it, it feels maybe you've got
Speaker 1: to be a little, you know, a little more careful
Speaker 1: about how you use the suit and how you show
Speaker 1: the suit, where if you open that up a little bit,
Speaker 1: and there's all this potential for like the goofier stuff
Speaker 1: to take place. Yes, I fully agree with that, though
Speaker 1: there are some films that have managed to do both
Speaker 1: actually and that's one thing I love about shin Godzilla.
Speaker 1: I think it succeeds fully in real grim horror and
Speaker 1: funny camp in the same movie. Yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a careful tightrope to walk though. But anyway, back to
Speaker 1: the film we're going to talk about today. It arrives
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine, and it has long been regarded
Speaker 1: as one of the worst Godzilla films. It seems recently though,
Speaker 1: a lot of critics have kind of softened on it.
Speaker 1: They've kind of started to come around a little bit. Uh,
Speaker 1: And you can see the reasons for both both of
Speaker 1: the for the for the initial harsh reaction and the
Speaker 1: softening and warming up to this movie. There are certainly
Speaker 1: elements that are not as impressive as other films in
Speaker 1: the franchise. The stakes are less all encompassing. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not a world, you know, world defining conflict
Speaker 1: to save the planet from a three headed monster from
Speaker 1: outer space or whatever. Instead, it is a child dealing
Speaker 1: with loneliness and bullying who has dreams about monsters that
Speaker 1: that inspire him to stand up for himself. It's hard
Speaker 1: for that to feel as epic as as the other
Speaker 1: Godzilla movies in either in either an awe inspiring and
Speaker 1: scary way or in a funny way. And I think
Speaker 1: one thing that has to be acknowledged is that the
Speaker 1: original special effects and production values in this film are
Speaker 1: very limited compared to some other films in the franchise,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the special effects sequences that do
Speaker 1: appear are recycled from previous movies. We'll talk more about
Speaker 1: that as we go on. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people have kind of come
Speaker 1: around on this movie today as simply a different kind
Speaker 1: of creature than most other films in the Godzilla series.
Speaker 1: It is a sweeter, more modest, more intimate meditation on
Speaker 1: what Godzilla had come to mean for the children of
Speaker 1: Japan and of the world. Having just watched this film
Speaker 1: this morning for the first time, it's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: people hating it. I mean, it's seventy minutes. It's sixty
Speaker 1: nine minutes long for crying out loud. You mean you
Speaker 1: don't you don't spend too much time in this picture,
Speaker 1: um and uh. And it has a lot of monsters
Speaker 1: in it. I have to come back to the sort
Speaker 1: of the the Glenn Danzig school of filmmaking. I believe
Speaker 1: he was asking an interview what makes a great vampire film?
Speaker 1: And he said, well, a lot of vampires and and
Speaker 1: and so this film takes kind of that impart, like
Speaker 1: what makes a great monster film? A lot of great
Speaker 1: great kaiju film? Well, a lot of kaiju. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of Kaiju in this picture. I don't know
Speaker 1: if all of them are present, as the title would suggest,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are present. And Okay, once
Speaker 1: you've checked that box off, once you're definitely giving the
Speaker 1: audience all the monsters, what else are you going to
Speaker 1: give them? And what can you give them? This a
Speaker 1: little different? What? What? What can you do that would
Speaker 1: maybe be a satisfying and different story while still delivering
Speaker 1: all of the things that this picture has to deliver
Speaker 1: for for the the audience that they're expecting. I think
Speaker 1: that's a great point. And I think you could also
Speaker 1: argue that given the general trends in the Godzilla series
Speaker 1: up to this point, increasingly kind of sillier and campier
Speaker 1: type movies and uh increasing use of Godzilla as a
Speaker 1: face rather than a hell, I think you could argue
Speaker 1: it was inevitable that these movies would end up including
Speaker 1: movies that were explicitly meant for kids, not not just
Speaker 1: movies that kids happened to love. Uh So, just before
Speaker 1: All Monsters Attack came out a couple of years before,
Speaker 1: in nine seven, we get Son of Godzilla, which, true
Speaker 1: to title, introduced a new character to the Kaiju pantheon,
Speaker 1: that is Manila, who is yes, Godzilla's son, and the
Speaker 1: movie deals with parenting themes, showing Godzilla teaching his child
Speaker 1: how to roar and how to blast out his atomic breadth.
Speaker 1: In fact, we see some scenes from that movie of
Speaker 1: this type taken whole cloth and shown again in All
Speaker 1: Monsters Attack. And I have read that the introduction of
Speaker 1: Manila in this movie was the result of a desire
Speaker 1: at studio at Toho to introduce a cute character and
Speaker 1: acute relationship to create a movie that would not just
Speaker 1: appeal to kids, but also to the young parents who
Speaker 1: would be taking kids to see movies. It makes sense, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to introduce your your children
Speaker 1: to these monster movies that by this point you know,
Speaker 1: you've you've you've grown up on. Uh, it helps if
Speaker 1: there's some sort of cute element. I mean, I've I've
Speaker 1: encountered that myself with my my own son. You know,
Speaker 1: is there is there a baby Yoda in there, a
Speaker 1: grow goo that can you know get I mean Star
Speaker 1: Wars has tons of stuff like that obviously, but you know,
Speaker 1: is there some sort of like cute element that will
Speaker 1: definitely catch their attention that they can latch onto and
Speaker 1: then perhaps they'll they'll latch onto the rest of a
Speaker 1: V and franchise as well. Oh yeah, I mean just
Speaker 1: watch the term and like, you know, your your your harsh,
Speaker 1: cynical twentysomething Star Wars geeks hate the e Walks until
Speaker 1: they have kids, and then they watch Return with their
Speaker 1: kids and then they're like, oh, they're actually kind of great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will describe me a lie in a in a
Speaker 1: little bit here. He is cute. He is, in fact,
Speaker 1: more than once we noticed mental It in this movie
Speaker 1: doing specific sort of sounds and postures reminiscent of our baby.
Speaker 1: Uh so, like a donkey sound that he keeps making. Oh,
Speaker 1: of course the donkey sound, but no, he does. At
Speaker 1: one point he does it kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a pose where he's like wiggling his arms and
Speaker 1: legs and he just looks like a human baby but anyway,
Speaker 1: so h A lot of footage from Son of Godzilla
Speaker 1: would end up being reused in All Monsters Attack, and
Speaker 1: in fact, not just footage from Son, but also from
Speaker 1: recent uh kaiju movies like Everira Horror of the Deep
Speaker 1: that came out in nineteen sixty six. That's more of
Speaker 1: your classic meat Slam that's where Godzilla battles a giant
Speaker 1: shrimp crayfish type monster, but also it used footage from
Speaker 1: King Kong Escapes from sixty seven and from Destroy All
Speaker 1: Monsters from sixty eight. Yeah, Destroy All Monsters also has
Speaker 1: man Ala in it. M hm. So why so much
Speaker 1: recycled footage from other Toho movies? Well, the answer appears
Speaker 1: to be extreme constraints on time and budget. I've read
Speaker 1: that this was in part due to cost overruns from
Speaker 1: other movies Tohoa was making in nineteen nine, as well
Speaker 1: as just general money problems at the studio. These were
Speaker 1: hard times at Toho, but for whatever reason, the edict
Speaker 1: came down that this movie had to be made fast
Speaker 1: and cheap, and I think you can say that when
Speaker 1: it comes to special effects sequences, it kind of shows,
Speaker 1: especially to the original ones, and how much footage is reused,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, I don't think this movie
Speaker 1: is hack work. All Monsters Attack was directed by Ishiro Honda,
Speaker 1: the the A list Toho director who had made the
Speaker 1: Origin in Old Godzilla, as well as most of the
Speaker 1: Big movies and the series since then, and despite all
Speaker 1: the limitations on the production, Honda apparently cited All Monsters
Speaker 1: Attack as one of his personal favorites from the entire series.
Speaker 1: I was wondering a bit why this was, and so
Speaker 1: I was reading from Godzilla the Official Guide to the
Speaker 1: King of the Monsters. This was the the official Toho
Speaker 1: licensed book on the series, written by Graham Skipper, and
Speaker 1: uh Skipper writes quote All Monsters Attack was truly a
Speaker 1: labor of love for Honda, a small film that focused
Speaker 1: less on the big monster fights and more on one
Speaker 1: young child learning how to stand up for himself. While
Speaker 1: Honda loved the spectacle and undeniable artistry of orchestrating giant
Speaker 1: monsters rampaging through cities, he also loved the emotional core
Speaker 1: of the people at the heart of these stories. Here
Speaker 1: he was mostly left to do as he pleased within
Speaker 1: the constraints, and thus we get what today feels like
Speaker 1: a small indie film rather than a Kaiju blockbuster. Uh
Speaker 1: And I think that's right on the money. We're we're
Speaker 1: kind of left in the end with a cozy little
Speaker 1: film about childhood struggles, bullying, courage, and the inspiration that
Speaker 1: we take from our myths. Uh. And it's also a
Speaker 1: film in which all the monster slamming is relegated to
Speaker 1: dream sequences. But there is something very charming about it. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: it checks off the box of all the monsters, lots
Speaker 1: of monster stuff happening on screen, but then it figures
Speaker 1: out something very interesting to do with the rest of
Speaker 1: the picture, and in that it has a lot in
Speaker 1: common I think with a rather different Kaiju movie, a
Speaker 1: rather different Godzilla movie that we previously covered on Weird House.
Speaker 1: That's Godzilla versus Hetera, which which which I would say
Speaker 1: is not as memorable from a character standpoint. I think
Speaker 1: this movie has a has more heart, but that one
Speaker 1: definitely had a lot of style, a lot of like
Speaker 1: in a hip message at the core of it. Uh
Speaker 1: while also giving us monsters. Yes, Hetera is I think
Speaker 1: a better movie from the point of view of just
Speaker 1: like weird imagery and having lots of crazy visual flair
Speaker 1: and stuff that stands out like that, but all monsters
Speaker 1: attack has it has a soul and hetera. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe yeah, alright, Well, when we were thinking about elevator
Speaker 1: pitches for this one, I instantly thought The never Ending
Speaker 1: Story but with Kaiju. Oh yeah, and it really does
Speaker 1: remind me quite a bit of the film adaptation of
Speaker 1: Michael DA's nine novel The never Ending Story. I love
Speaker 1: both of these, by the way, um. I know Michael
Speaker 1: Linda did not like the film adaptation, but I have
Speaker 1: removed my heart for both of them. But in um,
Speaker 1: in the film adaptation to The Never Ending Story, we
Speaker 1: have a kind of lonely child in the city with
Speaker 1: a disrupted home life who finds courage in the realm
Speaker 1: of fantasy. And in the film anyway, at any rate,
Speaker 1: he eventually unleashed is a luck dragon on his bullies.
Speaker 1: In this film, we have a lonely latchkey kid in
Speaker 1: late sixties Japan living in a heavily industrialized area, and
Speaker 1: he finds courage through his dream jaunts to Monster Island.
Speaker 1: Instead of actually summoning a Kaiju to defeat his bullies
Speaker 1: and bank robbers, he home alones them as listener mail,
Speaker 1: uh suggested, Yeah, he like he lays traps essentially and
Speaker 1: gets them to fall through holes in the floor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Well let's go ahead and listen to the
Speaker 1: trailer audio on this one. Uh. This is the English
Speaker 1: dub trailer, which I think works best for the podcast
Speaker 1: format here, though this is not the cut of the
Speaker 1: film I ended up watching. Um. Usually I'm all for
Speaker 1: the English dub on a film like this, that lets
Speaker 1: me focus more on the monsters and you know, and
Speaker 1: the human performances are generally less important in a picture
Speaker 1: like this, But HBO Max only offered subtitles, so I
Speaker 1: watched it as if I were viewing a Kurasawa film.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmmmmmmmmmm. Where is the island? Computer? Go on? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: do you take a jet? Take a jet to get there?
Speaker 1: M m m. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome board
Speaker 1: Pan American Flight one Director Monster Island. We'll be flying
Speaker 1: in thirty five thousand eight and we'll arrive on schedule.
Speaker 1: We hope you have a pleasant flight. Thank you. M
Speaker 1: are you watched the island over? What's ther island over?
Speaker 1: We're ready to land, Scott Zuma and come back on
Speaker 1: m all right, it sounds like a party, huh. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I hadn't already watched it, I would bid the is.
Speaker 1: Speaking of advertising for this film, I haven't confirmed this,
Speaker 1: but the Internet alleges that the tagline was see prehistoric
Speaker 1: monsters crawl out of the hidden depths of the Earth
Speaker 1: and take revenge against the living. That's not even closed.
Speaker 1: Doesn't not even remotely describing this movie, not at all
Speaker 1: all Right, if you're wondering where you can watch this picture, well,
Speaker 1: as of this recording, you can watch it on HBO Max,
Speaker 1: but all streaming is subject to change, especially HBO Max
Speaker 1: as of late. Um, so watch it while you can there,
Speaker 1: I guess. But it's also available on Blu Ray from
Speaker 1: the Criterion collection on They're just absolutely worshipful Godzilla the
Speaker 1: Showa era Films, Night nine five. I've looked at the
Speaker 1: physical packaging for this at Atlanta's own Video Drome. They
Speaker 1: have them for rent there, of course, and the packaging
Speaker 1: is just splendid, has all this amazing new artwork in it,
Speaker 1: these very flashy, colorful illustrations of Godzilla and the monsters
Speaker 1: that he battles. I may have to pick that up
Speaker 1: one day. Oh, it's it's it's it's great, it's it's
Speaker 1: a nice package. All right. Well, let's get into the
Speaker 1: people here, uh involved in this film. So, as we
Speaker 1: noted already, Ishu Rojanda is the director left nineteen eleven
Speaker 1: through legendary Toho film director who of course home fifty
Speaker 1: four Godzilla in the Movie that started at All and
Speaker 1: he directed forty four pictures in total, eight of those
Speaker 1: Godzilla films culminating in seventy five Terror of Mecca Godzilla.
Speaker 1: But he also directed Rodan, the Mysteriens, The Human Vapor
Speaker 1: Matango UM which, by the way, if you're out there
Speaker 1: enjoying UM the current mushroom Zombie um horror series on television,
Speaker 1: well you need to go back and watch Matango. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they were the first mushroom zombie
Speaker 1: type picture, but they have to be one of the first.
Speaker 1: If maybe you should do Matango on the show, we
Speaker 1: probably should. Yeah, okay, but oh. Other films he did
Speaker 1: include Frankenstein Versus Bearragon, The War of the Gargantua's Space, Amiba,
Speaker 1: and more. He was a friend of director at Kira
Speaker 1: Kurasawa and served as director counselor or chief assistant director
Speaker 1: on karasas epic Ruyan. His name continues to appear in
Speaker 1: the credits on Godzilla movies and in other homages. He
Speaker 1: also directed nineteen sixty three's at Tragon, which we previously
Speaker 1: covered on Weird House, and of course, as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: we also covered seventy ones Godzilla versus Hetera, which he
Speaker 1: did not direct, but still Godzilla picture. Hondo is a
Speaker 1: masterful director, and you can you can just feel his
Speaker 1: storytelling confidence even when he's working with what appeared to
Speaker 1: be extremely uh limiting constraints on like his budget and
Speaker 1: what he could do with the movie. You just see
Speaker 1: him like kind of just accepting it and plowing straight
Speaker 1: through and making the best movie he could. Absolutely. Now
Speaker 1: getting into some of the other connections, I guess it's
Speaker 1: one of one of the situations when you start looking
Speaker 1: at the people involved in uh, certainly Tohoe pictures, um
Speaker 1: you see like this the Japanese studio system of the
Speaker 1: day in place, so a lot of these uh you know,
Speaker 1: we're frequent Tohoe actors or frequent um Um Honda collaborators.
Speaker 1: So uh. The screenplay here was by Shinichi Sakazawa, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty through a frequent collaborator with Honda inscribe
Speaker 1: of many Godzilla movies, beginning with nineteen sixty two is
Speaker 1: King Kong Versus Godzilla. And he also wrote Adrigan, which
Speaker 1: we it's covered for. He was one of the writers
Speaker 1: on it. I forget how that shook out, but um, anyway,
Speaker 1: getting into the the actors here, of course we have
Speaker 1: to call out Haruo Nakajima, who plays Godzilla. He is
Speaker 1: the man in the suit. He ROWI seventeen. He played
Speaker 1: godzill in twelve consecutive films. He was also in Mathra
Speaker 1: in the War of the gargantuas as well as a
Speaker 1: Cure Kurasawa's Seven Samurai in a bit role and not
Speaker 1: as a giant monster. He's generally considered a legend and
Speaker 1: the rubber monster suit actor par excellence. Was he ever
Speaker 1: a pro wrestler? Like? How did he get all those
Speaker 1: moves down? Um? I don't think he had a wrestling background. Um,
Speaker 1: he just you know, as I think, like a lot
Speaker 1: of these, well, the way these different monster actors end
Speaker 1: up in the suits, that often comes end up to
Speaker 1: to find them. Like sometimes it's a case where they're like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a studied physical performer. Other times they're like
Speaker 1: they're the willing person there. The person that was around
Speaker 1: it was like, yes, I will do this, and it
Speaker 1: became their thing, and certainly Uh Nakajima became like one
Speaker 1: of the most legendary rubber suit I mean certainly the
Speaker 1: most legendary Kaiju actor of all time. Now when it
Speaker 1: comes to Manila, the Little Zilla creature Godzilla's Son, Uh,
Speaker 1: this uh performance is by little Man Machin whose real
Speaker 1: name was u Masseo Fukuzawa, who the ninety one through
Speaker 1: two thousand UM He played Manila in three films, The
Speaker 1: Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters and All Monsters Attack,
Speaker 1: which we previously noted, and he followed this up with
Speaker 1: a couple of Kaiju projects, Ultraman Story from eighty four,
Speaker 1: ultra Que the Movie from nineteen ninety. He also played
Speaker 1: the juvenile version of the title Kaiju in the North
Speaker 1: Korean kaiju movie Pulga Sary from UM. His final film
Speaker 1: was the nine Tokasatsu film uh Mick, a Droid Robo
Speaker 1: Kill Beneath Disco Club Layla. I haven't seen it, but
Speaker 1: you may have seen that the cover art he's getting
Speaker 1: like some dark soldier with red eyes on it. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is not one i'ch steen, but it's a I
Speaker 1: think some people really dig it. But anyway, um, this
Speaker 1: was a diminutive suit actor who according to Godzilla Wiki.
Speaker 1: I looked at Godzilla Wiki in addition to the normal
Speaker 1: databases on this one, because they generally just have excellent
Speaker 1: information about Godzilla pictures. They say that he worked prior
Speaker 1: to this as a mini wrestler, but I couldn't find
Speaker 1: out really anything about that, like where he wrestled, who
Speaker 1: he wrestled for, what his name was. I haven't guessing
Speaker 1: he was a little man when he wrestled, but uh,
Speaker 1: I mean there were there were some Japanese mini wrestlers,
Speaker 1: but I think even the ones that I'm aware of,
Speaker 1: they worked outside of Japan frequently, so I don't know
Speaker 1: how much of a scene there was for this in
Speaker 1: Japanese wrestling during this time period. He played a couple
Speaker 1: of dwarf roles in the early sixties, including the Toshira
Speaker 1: Maffoony Sinbad movie or well, I'm not sure if it's
Speaker 1: actually a sin Bad movie, but it was released in
Speaker 1: the West as The Lost World of Sinbad. I've never
Speaker 1: seen that one. Now a note on on Manila here.
Speaker 1: He's not to be confused with god Zuki, the juvenile
Speaker 1: flying Kaiju from the hand of our Barrack cartoon the
Speaker 1: Godzilla Power Hour from seventy eight. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of you out there, I know exactly what I'm talking about. Also,
Speaker 1: he's not to be confused with Godzilla Jr. Who debuted
Speaker 1: in Toho's film Godzilla Versus Mecha Godzilla two and appeared
Speaker 1: in two pictures after that. Both Godzuki and Godzilla Jr.
Speaker 1: Have baby dragon vibes, while um, Manila here he's more
Speaker 1: I don't know how would you describe him. He's kind
Speaker 1: of like baby turtle without a shell, right, yeah, baby
Speaker 1: turtle baby frog. Kind of like tadpole, a quadrupedal tadpole.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Yeah. Very reminiscent though, of a human toddler,
Speaker 1: not only in his appearance but also in the way
Speaker 1: he moves around. Yes, I mean, I think they were
Speaker 1: really trying to play up that baby angle to make, uh,
Speaker 1: make Manilla as cute as possible. That was the directive. Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: we mentioned that there's a human child at the center
Speaker 1: of this picture. Uh, the child is the character uh
Speaker 1: Ichiro Miki or just Ichiro is uh I don't even
Speaker 1: know this is the case where they really say his
Speaker 1: last name in the picture, but was played by Tomonori Yazaki.
Speaker 1: Dates unknown. He was a Japanese child actor. This was
Speaker 1: his first film, followed by mostly TV roles, some ultraman,
Speaker 1: some common rider through around seventy three or seventy four.
Speaker 1: His other film is the nineteen two monster flick uh
Speaker 1: Diagoro Versus Goliath. I've read that there there's been attempts
Speaker 1: to sort of find uh this actor as an adult
Speaker 1: and you know, get his his take on what filming
Speaker 1: this movie was like. But I don't think any of those,
Speaker 1: uh those searches were ever fruitful. So I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: sure you know what became of him. But I lived
Speaker 1: a private life after his child acting days were behind him.
Speaker 1: Leave Ichiro alone, let him live his life. Now there's
Speaker 1: another character of note in the picture. So again, Ichiro
Speaker 1: is a latch key kid, so his parents were lot
Speaker 1: He's left to go home and look after himself and
Speaker 1: his uh we meet this this friend of his, this um,
Speaker 1: this man who lives in the same apartment complex that
Speaker 1: is a toy maker or toy designer, an inventor of sorts. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he at one point he's building something he calls a
Speaker 1: quote Kittie computer in the subtitles on the version I saw,
Speaker 1: But it's like a computer that shows live footage of
Speaker 1: a moon landing. Yeah, in great quality. I was like,
Speaker 1: in color. Yeah, but yeah, so I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on there, but yeah, he's a toy maker and
Speaker 1: he is he's essentially eros uh friend like he's a friend,
Speaker 1: and he looks after Ichiro sometimes when his when his
Speaker 1: parents are both working and can't come home. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: character's name is Shinpei and Nami played by the actor
Speaker 1: Hideo i'm Amoto, who through two thousand and three. And
Speaker 1: this is a sometimes these these various Toho actors are
Speaker 1: actors that you just kind of see another Toho films,
Speaker 1: and there's kind of like, you know, just an ensemble
Speaker 1: of of of of Toho actors. But there's a very
Speaker 1: good chance folks out there have seen i'm Amoto before
Speaker 1: because he has very distinctive looks. Tall, thin Japanese character
Speaker 1: actor with kind of gaunt features that are maybe not
Speaker 1: accentuated much in this picture because he's just playing a
Speaker 1: normal human and nothing. You know, he's not an assassin
Speaker 1: or anything. But he worked in a number of notable films.
Speaker 1: His work includes Kurasawa's Yo Jimbo from sixty one, Quite
Speaker 1: On from sixty four, sort of Doom, and The Tango
Speaker 1: from sixty six. He was also in Message for Space
Speaker 1: and a Trigon so, two films that we previously covered,
Speaker 1: though I think those were smaller roles in those pictures. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was also in International Secret Police Key of Keys
Speaker 1: from sixty five, which is known to many Western movie
Speaker 1: goers as the movie that What's Up Tiger Lily? The
Speaker 1: Woody Allen picture was as a dub off. That was
Speaker 1: a picture where they took a Japanese film and dubbed
Speaker 1: over it with like new comedic dialogue. I've never seen it,
Speaker 1: but that's the basic pitch. I think I've never seen
Speaker 1: it either. Anyway. Amamoto was in a string of Godzilla
Speaker 1: and Kaiju movies, as well as nix Is Echo Echo
Speaker 1: as a rat to Birth of the Wizard and nine
Speaker 1: seven's Mighty Jack was that featured on Mystery Science Theater.
Speaker 1: It was, yes, Mighty Jack. Well, he's very good in
Speaker 1: this role. It it calls on him to be the kindly,
Speaker 1: understanding adult in in an uncaring world. Yes, let's see,
Speaker 1: I'm going to skip a bit in the cast here.
Speaker 1: Um we we do see at Chiro's father a little bit.
Speaker 1: He's played by Kinji Sahara, who who was born in
Speaker 1: two and is presumably still alive. He's a Japanese actor
Speaker 1: who has the distinction of being in the most Godzilla films,
Speaker 1: or at least was at the At one point he
Speaker 1: was in thirteen of them, which I think puts him
Speaker 1: what one over um the man in the Suit, in
Speaker 1: addition to numerous other Toho pictures. He was in the
Speaker 1: first Godzilla movie as a newspaper reporter and a party
Speaker 1: guy in a boat, and his last Godzilla film was
Speaker 1: two thousand and four's Final Wars, and it looks like
Speaker 1: he was last active around and then finally. The music
Speaker 1: in this one is by Kunio mia Ucci, who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two through two thousand and six, Japanese Toho
Speaker 1: composer whose first big score was The Human Vapor in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. He followed this up with such films and
Speaker 1: TV shows as Mighty Jack, Ultraman, Godzilla Versus Gegan, and
Speaker 1: his stock music was used in Shin ultraman Um, which
Speaker 1: I haven't seen yet, but apparently Joe it gives ultraman
Speaker 1: the Shin Godzilla treatment. Oh well, at least that's what
Speaker 1: the title and and the posters seemed to imply. Oh,
Speaker 1: I've looked this up before, but I always forget what
Speaker 1: it is that the title Shin Godzilla means. And I
Speaker 1: think the deal is that Shin is a war that
Speaker 1: has multiple meanings, Like it could be interpreted to mean
Speaker 1: the word god, or it could be interpreted to mean
Speaker 1: something like original or pure m. Is that right? I
Speaker 1: believe that that that sounds familiar. I haven't looked into
Speaker 1: it recently, but I remember reading about it when Shin
Speaker 1: Godzilla first came out, and it's kind of like taken
Speaker 1: on its own meeting to me, like you put Shin
Speaker 1: on the beginning of something, and I'm expecting it to
Speaker 1: have like a lot of scenes of bureaucracy dealing with
Speaker 1: with UH an outrageous event. So like, I think you
Speaker 1: could apply it to anything Shin Godzilla, Shin King Kong,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Shin Matango there there. You could really
Speaker 1: go crazy with Shin critters s critters shin grimlins too.
Speaker 1: That's what we want to see, all right, You ready
Speaker 1: to look at some stuff about the plot, let's do it. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, we start with that beautiful Toho logo. I
Speaker 1: know I've said this on the show before, but it
Speaker 1: makes me feel so good every time I see the
Speaker 1: Toho logo, Really, something in my chest just relaxes. There's
Speaker 1: something about how it looks like it there's light shining
Speaker 1: through glass on it that it feels like I am
Speaker 1: in the waiting room at at an office for a
Speaker 1: professional that I trust, you know, like I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm going to a doctor in this scenario, or
Speaker 1: or what I'm going to a Tohoe picture, and I
Speaker 1: trust that I'm going to be taken care of. You
Speaker 1: are in good hands now. How to describe the score
Speaker 1: that plays with the opening credits. The music throughout this
Speaker 1: movie is generally rather strange in a way that I liked.
Speaker 1: It's got this opening jazz tune that makes me think
Speaker 1: a little bit of the Pink Panther. But after many
Speaker 1: cups of coffee and then once the singing starts, it
Speaker 1: gets really weird. Yeah, I guess the vibe is kind
Speaker 1: of hip and fun at least until you start reading
Speaker 1: the subtitles for the for the opening same song. Oh,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that in a second. But also I
Speaker 1: love how the opening credits are full of monster fight clips,
Speaker 1: and there was one I genuinely laughed out loud. So
Speaker 1: it's showing Godzilla fighting with one of the spider monsters.
Speaker 1: I think that's the monster they fight originally in Son
Speaker 1: of Godzilla, and they show the fight again in this movie,
Speaker 1: and so it's showing this big spider and then there's
Speaker 1: just a freeze frame on the spider spraying spider juice
Speaker 1: out of its mouth. Yeah. Again, this is a movie
Speaker 1: that knows the kids out there want monsters. They know
Speaker 1: people come to Godzilla to sea monsters, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: start delivering right away. And I enjoy how the spider
Speaker 1: has a Sam Elliott mustache. Yeah, it's very furry. It's
Speaker 1: a disturbingly furry spider. It's a bristly spider. It's got
Speaker 1: like pink crystals for eyes and Sam Elliott upper lip.
Speaker 1: Just because they're using stock footage from old films though,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're not going to go ahead and use
Speaker 1: footage from later on in the picture, which I I
Speaker 1: always feel like it's a little cheap in a in
Speaker 1: a movie, you know, I don't want to see the
Speaker 1: trailer is probably already ruined enough. I don't need the
Speaker 1: film itself ruining itself, because we do see like this
Speaker 1: really sick Judo throw from Godzilla where he drops a
Speaker 1: monster right on its head. And of course this is
Speaker 1: a scene from later on in the film. It's essentially
Speaker 1: like the finishing move Godzilla uses. That's so good. It's
Speaker 1: a triple dip. It's from another movie already, and then
Speaker 1: they show it to you twice in this movie, so
Speaker 1: you could see they were they were trying to pad
Speaker 1: out the run time. I think, Uh, then again, I
Speaker 1: don't know they would have had a credit sequence anyway.
Speaker 1: Maybe they just might as well. They're like, oh, let's
Speaker 1: show that fight again in the credits. Why not. I
Speaker 1: totally accept your criticism of that as a move, But
Speaker 1: a lot of movies we have loved have done that.
Speaker 1: The Really Bloody Sword showed you the entire movie during
Speaker 1: the opening credits. They absolutely did. Yeah, sometimes you can
Speaker 1: you can pin it on like Western distributors of of
Speaker 1: movies from Europe or Asia and clearly, it's just like, well,
Speaker 1: let's keep them interested so they don't leave the theater
Speaker 1: or drive away from the drive in. But yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is the the original vision for the pictures
Speaker 1: that you can't blame it anybody else. Oh, but let's
Speaker 1: come back to So it's singing this song through the
Speaker 1: opening credits and they play it again later on. What
Speaker 1: is the deal with the lyrics here? They're they're intriguing
Speaker 1: an energetic of female vocalist that, according to the subtitles,
Speaker 1: is basically saying, don't be afraid of monsters, kids. Monsters
Speaker 1: are actually themselves shocked by the real threat industrial pollution,
Speaker 1: a theme that would become central to the later film
Speaker 1: Godzilla versus Hetera, which is the one we previously covered
Speaker 1: on on Weird House before Heatera is just a wicked
Speaker 1: pollution monster who like powers up by huffing smokestacks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in that movie, it's like the central theme and the
Speaker 1: threat at the center of the film is the physical
Speaker 1: embodiment of that real world threat. In this movie, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this. I guess it kind of helps
Speaker 1: to ground the film in a world where the monsters
Speaker 1: have lost their power. Later, much later, in the picture,
Speaker 1: the monsters the kaiju are compared to gods, and if
Speaker 1: here to take that and and run with it. Back
Speaker 1: to the beginning of the picture. Here, this is like
Speaker 1: we're living in the twilight of the God. This is
Speaker 1: a world that has lost its faith. The grown ups
Speaker 1: have lost their faith anyway, and the only people who
Speaker 1: really have faith in the gods a k a. Big
Speaker 1: rubber monsters are the children. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Like and but a theme of this song, apart from
Speaker 1: the thing about the pollution, yeah, is explicitly about the
Speaker 1: monsters being weakened somehow. Like one part says, uh says
Speaker 1: the monsters are crying why is earth such a hard
Speaker 1: place to live? That it's the lyric uh, And then
Speaker 1: another part is uh. I'm paraphrasing for this part, but
Speaker 1: it's like wham bam, crash. You can smash everything, but
Speaker 1: still it's not easy being a monster. See. This is
Speaker 1: again why they probably had to have a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of monster footage at the beginning of the picture. You
Speaker 1: can't have this be the first thing kids watch. They're
Speaker 1: gonna lose all hope. But anyway, as the credits finish out,
Speaker 1: we see, uh, we see some setting. It's the industrial
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to be Kawasaki, but it's an
Speaker 1: industrial area of Japan with a lot of I don't know,
Speaker 1: oil refineries and factories and just smoke stacks pouring smog everywhere.
Speaker 1: A barren world populated only by smoke and factories and trucks.
Speaker 1: But amidst this unforgiving landscape, we see a couple of
Speaker 1: sweet kids. Itchy, oh, our our main kid. He's walking
Speaker 1: along holding hands with his friends at Chico and they
Speaker 1: are there. I guess they're trying to make their way
Speaker 1: home after school through this infernal landscape of of suit
Speaker 1: and asthma. It reminds me once again of last week's
Speaker 1: picture let Sleeping Corpses Live, where we start off in
Speaker 1: a very industrial British city and we're supposed to be Manchester,
Speaker 1: I think gives Manchester. Uh. And the only thing that
Speaker 1: really calls out like any kind of like spirit of
Speaker 1: fun or rebellion or anything like that is the streaker
Speaker 1: in this film, it's the children. Like that everything is
Speaker 1: is kind of gross and grinding and busy, but these
Speaker 1: children are just a basket of joy, you know, holding
Speaker 1: the hands um against all the grime behind them, And
Speaker 1: I have to say, I really love these kids, especially
Speaker 1: uh Ichiro played by Yazaki. Here he's he's just so good.
Speaker 1: It's just a really solid kid's performance. Like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of energy and authenticity to it that you don't
Speaker 1: always see in a in a child actor. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a cute kid. I was a little confused as
Speaker 1: to why some reviewers had in the past written stuff
Speaker 1: that they considered Ichiro annoying, but uh, I think maybe
Speaker 1: I know I was reading something that made me understand
Speaker 1: a little better. I think it's possible that part of
Speaker 1: the reaction to this character was that some people were
Speaker 1: hearing a particular dub of the film where his lines
Speaker 1: were dubbed by an adult who did this really nasal,
Speaker 1: whiney voice for all of his speaking parts. And I
Speaker 1: can't be sure, but I think that dub exists, and
Speaker 1: I think that is not the version I saw, So
Speaker 1: I don't know if that is the reason for sure,
Speaker 1: but that would partially explain it, because I thought, I
Speaker 1: Ro is great, that is a great, great point, and
Speaker 1: that that's probably the reason. It reminds me of a
Speaker 1: film like say House by the cemetery where kids. Bob
Speaker 1: is Bob the kid and the Bob, Yes, Bob the
Speaker 1: demon child with an adult voice. Right, Yeah, he's clearly
Speaker 1: dubbed by a grown woman, and it creates a weird
Speaker 1: energy in the film, Like you you kind of there's
Speaker 1: an uncanny nous to him that and there's a certain
Speaker 1: amount of uncanny is that's supposed to be there, And
Speaker 1: I mean there's this added layer of of the uncanny
Speaker 1: and in a picture like this, yeah, Echo is not
Speaker 1: supposed to be uncanny. He's not supposed to be weird.
Speaker 1: And you get the wrong dub on there, and it's
Speaker 1: going to totally change the feeling you get exactly. So
Speaker 1: I think that may very well be what's going on. Um.
Speaker 1: But so we we follow each arro around and a
Speaker 1: lot of the early parts of the movie are just
Speaker 1: sort of establishing his daily life and his struggles, and
Speaker 1: maybe we could talk a little bit about elements from
Speaker 1: from each of these these things that are established. So
Speaker 1: one theme of the movie is bullying. Ich r Oh
Speaker 1: is consistently bullied by a gang of bigger kids who
Speaker 1: are led by this this sadist bully king named Gabbara.
Speaker 1: So we see them knock each er o over on
Speaker 1: purpose as they run by, and they taunt him and
Speaker 1: they call him weak, and they make him feel helpless,
Speaker 1: and you really feel for each Rro Like there's you
Speaker 1: know these moments where the camera just lingers on his
Speaker 1: face as he looks frustrated and sad and and knows
Speaker 1: that he can't really fight back. Yeah, yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know he's a good kid, and and he doesn't He
Speaker 1: just doesn't want to make anything worse. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: to escalate things. Then you've got another theme. So bullying
Speaker 1: is one. Another theme is ich Ro's love of the Kaiju.
Speaker 1: I wonder what you thought about this. Does the movie
Speaker 1: take place in a world basically in the real world
Speaker 1: where monsters don't exist, but the children are familiar with
Speaker 1: the existing Godzilla movies, or does it take place in
Speaker 1: a world where the events of the previous Godzilla movies
Speaker 1: are known of as real events that have previously happened
Speaker 1: in the world. I couldn't tell which, but I think
Speaker 1: maybe it's the former, like he's literally seen the films,
Speaker 1: I think, so if I had to to choose one,
Speaker 1: I would go in that direction. Um, just because that
Speaker 1: basically I mean no particular thing leads me to think
Speaker 1: that though that there is a part where we see
Speaker 1: a Kaiju action figure or doll, but I think we
Speaker 1: saw one in Hetera as well, So that's that alone
Speaker 1: is not an indicator. But I think overall, I get
Speaker 1: the feeling that, yeah, this is a world in which
Speaker 1: the monsters are only on TV and in the minds
Speaker 1: of children. So Ichiro is having monster paradolia. Like a
Speaker 1: car goes by and he's like, oh, that car, the
Speaker 1: screeching it sounds just like Manila. It goes key ki ki.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever heard Nila make a kiki
Speaker 1: key sound, unless that's supposed to be the donkey sound.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're getting into that whole situation where we're not sure,
Speaker 1: uh what or not. It just it varies what sounded
Speaker 1: animal makes based on the language in which you're describing it.
Speaker 1: So maybe donkeys go kiki ki in Japanese. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: I couldn't say okay. So that's another theme. It'syero, he
Speaker 1: gives bullied, he loves the monsters. But also the theme
Speaker 1: of this movie is loneliness, and I think it it
Speaker 1: tackles that in a pretty head on way. It's Erro's
Speaker 1: family here is is working class and both of his
Speaker 1: parents work long hours to make ends meet, and he
Speaker 1: is often home alone after school fending for himself. So
Speaker 1: we see a scene where he's walking by the train
Speaker 1: tracks and this old, you know, busted industrial landscape, and
Speaker 1: a train starts going by, and the conductor in the
Speaker 1: front of the train or the engineer, I guess whatever.
Speaker 1: The guy in the front of the train is his dad,
Speaker 1: and his dad calls out, oh, hey, Zero, I'm working tonight,
Speaker 1: be good till your mom gets home. And then actually
Speaker 1: after this we stick with Ichiro's father for a little bit.
Speaker 1: We see him take a smoke break with his co worker,
Speaker 1: and we we learned that the father wants to save
Speaker 1: up enough money that they can move away from the smog,
Speaker 1: move out to the country or to a place where
Speaker 1: the air is clean. So you see that he's working
Speaker 1: long hours to I guess, try to get his his
Speaker 1: family to this better place. But then also in the scene,
Speaker 1: we learned from his coworker who's reading a newspaper that
Speaker 1: there are a couple of bank robbers on the loose,
Speaker 1: fleeing police with a suitcase full of money, and these
Speaker 1: are Tchekhov's bank robbers. They will show up later, but
Speaker 1: we learned that they took fifty million yen, and you
Speaker 1: can just see Ichiro's father dreaming about what he could
Speaker 1: do with money like that. Now we come back to bullying.
Speaker 1: There's another bullying scene where um Ichiro and and Sachiko
Speaker 1: are are walking around and Ichiro finds a vacuum tube
Speaker 1: in the grass. I guess because this is an area
Speaker 1: that used to be like an electronics factory, and um
Speaker 1: he finds and then the bullies come up on him
Speaker 1: and they take away his vacuum tube, and they call
Speaker 1: him a baby, and they like mock him to his face.
Speaker 1: And for some reason I found something very heart wrenching
Speaker 1: about the theft of each rose vacuum tube. I think
Speaker 1: it's because he found it. And this kind of hit
Speaker 1: me in a strong way, because I have memories of
Speaker 1: being a little kid and finding a treasure of some
Speaker 1: kind just lying out on the ground somewhere. That's a
Speaker 1: powerfully nostalgic kind of memory. And I have one specific
Speaker 1: memory of something like this happening to me. And I
Speaker 1: was out at some event, I think, and I found
Speaker 1: a loose spool of tape from an audio cassette and
Speaker 1: I was like holding it and letting it blow in
Speaker 1: the wind, and then an older kid took it away
Speaker 1: from me and threw it over the edge of a bridge.
Speaker 1: Um and that, Yeah, that that really stuck with me.
Speaker 1: So so anyway, I felt the vacuum tube scene very hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this felt like a very authentic moment in this picture
Speaker 1: or like, because I think we can all we all
Speaker 1: have memories like that where we find some sort of
Speaker 1: weird bit of discarded technology or or a registrate garbage,
Speaker 1: but it's fascinating and we want to want to keep
Speaker 1: it and uh. And then also the childhood insult of
Speaker 1: of him being a baby, Like I definitely I don't
Speaker 1: have memories of this myself, but I've seen that watching
Speaker 1: my my son grow up. Like there's a period where
Speaker 1: to call someone a baby was the was the biggest insult.
Speaker 1: Um to the point where he would call the cat
Speaker 1: a baby if he was snat at a cat sick burn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's clearly you know, it's clearly hurting, Ichi wrote,
Speaker 1: but uh to hear this, But then there's also this
Speaker 1: kind of innocence to it, like these kids are so young,
Speaker 1: even their their cruelty has a certain innocence to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then one more element of Io's daily life we
Speaker 1: learned about is his friendship with Shiny the toymaker. And
Speaker 1: and uh so when when he's coming home, I think,
Speaker 1: I guess Chimpay is like maybe his neighbor. And so
Speaker 1: he comes home and sees him working on this this
Speaker 1: electronic device, the kiddie computer that shows people landing on
Speaker 1: the moon, and h it's clear that you know, he's
Speaker 1: welcome hanging out in this guy's shop and they're friendly,
Speaker 1: and him pays a good, you know, nurturing influence on
Speaker 1: this kid. But it's also funny because he makes this computer,
Speaker 1: he expects each year O to be all impressed. But
Speaker 1: what Ichiro says is the Moon's okay, but there's somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I'd rather go Monster Island. And then he just starts
Speaker 1: listing all the monsters. And I was like, oh, this
Speaker 1: also made me. This seems authentic. Don't don't kids love
Speaker 1: to list all the monsters or list all the whatevers? Uh?
Speaker 1: Oh god, they do. And I'm I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be a hypocrite. I'm also gonna admit I love to
Speaker 1: list the monsters, and I've never grown out of that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like my son will definitely list all the Pokemon,
Speaker 1: all the dungeons and dragons, dragon varieties, um and and
Speaker 1: I think that's great. I love it too. I love
Speaker 1: good monster list. But I think we see one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that Ichiro is so infatuated with the monsters.
Speaker 1: He talks about how they're all stronger than Gabbarra, his bully,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you know, they don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about bullies. They they can do what we want, what
Speaker 1: they want. They're free because they're strong. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: eventually we see Ichiro go back home uh. And there's
Speaker 1: kind of a lonely snack scene where he, you know,
Speaker 1: his mom left out a snack for him. He has that.
Speaker 1: He watches some TV and he watches like the news
Speaker 1: where he learns about the the bank robbers stealing the
Speaker 1: fifty million yen. He switches I think to a soap
Speaker 1: opera or the people are like saying, oh, I love you,
Speaker 1: and then he there's a really funny moment where he
Speaker 1: I can't remember that the phrase he says in Japanese,
Speaker 1: but the translation is he just goes yuck. But then
Speaker 1: it's segways to him playing around with this like toy
Speaker 1: radio he's put together that he dreams like of calling
Speaker 1: Monster Island, which seguys into a dream of him visiting
Speaker 1: Monster Island. And this is going to be one of
Speaker 1: the major themes for the rest of the movie is
Speaker 1: that these recurring visits in dreams to Monster Island where
Speaker 1: all the monsters live, where we're going to see a
Speaker 1: lot of fights between monsters. So much of this is
Speaker 1: going to be footage from other movies, but I think
Speaker 1: some original stuff too. And uh, this is where Ichiro
Speaker 1: meets Manila, the son of Godzilla, and they become friends
Speaker 1: because they have a lot in common. It turns out
Speaker 1: Manila is also being bullied by a monster on Monster Island,
Speaker 1: and that monster has the same name as Ichiro's bully.
Speaker 1: They're both called Gabbarra. Oh. By the way, he initially
Speaker 1: dream travels to Monster Island um via direct flight, which
Speaker 1: I thought was a marvelous dream sequence. Yes, I love
Speaker 1: how in these scenes with Manila, he's he's also as
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, I hear you know Godzilla. Do you
Speaker 1: think you could introduce me to him? Because I'd love
Speaker 1: to climb on his back, and Manila is like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll see, I'll see what Silla talked in this.
Speaker 1: By the way, Manila says, I'll see what I can do.
Speaker 1: But you know, Godzilla, he doesn't like me around all
Speaker 1: the time because he gets onto me for for not
Speaker 1: being strong enough, for not standing up to for myself
Speaker 1: enough and um. And of course that again mirrors the
Speaker 1: situation with I Tiro. Oh yeah, that's right, because we
Speaker 1: actually do see a scene where Ichira's father says, you know,
Speaker 1: he uh, he feels for his son, but he wishes
Speaker 1: he would stand up for himself. So we're gonna get
Speaker 1: some some slams, some smackdowns on the island. I think
Speaker 1: we see Godzilla fighting um Ibira. I think the Ebro
Speaker 1: Horror of the Deep, the shrimp crayfish monster. Uh. We
Speaker 1: see various fights take place, and in a way, Ichiro
Speaker 1: kind of like watches and learns from them. But he
Speaker 1: also learns from watching Son of Godzilla, like like morph
Speaker 1: up and try to fight against Gabbarra. Uh. The like
Speaker 1: he like grows and he and they fight and Gabra
Speaker 1: always wins at first. But you kind of like pick
Speaker 1: up some clues along the way about how he might
Speaker 1: beat him later on. Now, Gabra is is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: He's he's again our our main kaiju antagonist, and he
Speaker 1: is original with this picture. So many of the other
Speaker 1: Kaiju we encounter are aurist clips from other scenes or
Speaker 1: maybe reused puppets even in the films that they that
Speaker 1: they originally appeared in, But Gabra exists for this picture.
Speaker 1: This is his first picture where we see this costume
Speaker 1: um and I think he's pretty great. I've read that
Speaker 1: he's supposed to resemble a mutated frog or toad, but
Speaker 1: he winds up with more feline features somehow, like kind
Speaker 1: of like a green panther. He's like a lizard cat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think these feelings of like cats similarities are
Speaker 1: also accentuated by he's green and scaly, but he has
Speaker 1: the shot cock of orange hair on the top of
Speaker 1: his head amid these various horns like this, this row
Speaker 1: of horns down down his head as well, And I
Speaker 1: feel like the orange hair, the green skin, it kind
Speaker 1: of gives him a cartoon leprechn look, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Ye yea. Though I've I've of course that's
Speaker 1: not what they were going for here. I've read that
Speaker 1: what they were originally aiming for with this design was
Speaker 1: more of a something that alluded to the Japanese only
Speaker 1: you know, kind of an ogre figure. Um. And if
Speaker 1: you go to the Wicked Zilla page for this monster,
Speaker 1: you can actually see some of the preliminary sketches, uh,
Speaker 1: the way they envisioned this creature. And yeah, I can
Speaker 1: definitely see a sense of the only here before it's
Speaker 1: realized in the suit. Oh, that almost kind of makes
Speaker 1: sense with so Gabra being like this bully who just
Speaker 1: uh wayleys each yarrow while he's on the way home
Speaker 1: from school, like sits by the roadside and attacks him
Speaker 1: as he goes past. He's kind of like a bandit
Speaker 1: in a way. And that I think there's classically a
Speaker 1: little bit of overlap between the concepts of some one
Speaker 1: and and like banditry ideas. Yeah, and I think also
Speaker 1: there are often ideas of lightning with the one. And
Speaker 1: indeed Gabra here has an electricity attack that he uses, um,
Speaker 1: but he he doesn't have a breath weapon. I thought
Speaker 1: that was interesting. He doesn't seem to have a projectile weapon, um,
Speaker 1: which I think is an interesting choice, uh, because a
Speaker 1: lot of times in these movies you see some sort
Speaker 1: of like a ranged specialist kaiju, and that's generally the
Speaker 1: that's a weak point for Godzilla or for GAMMERA, whoever's
Speaker 1: facing such a Kaiju, even though Godzilla of course has
Speaker 1: an amazing breath weapon that he can use at range. Now,
Speaker 1: for all of the kind of like sweet elements of
Speaker 1: this movie, there are also some things that ring kind
Speaker 1: of weird. One of them is when we're seeing Godzilla
Speaker 1: training son of Godzilla here training Manila how to use
Speaker 1: his radiation breath. He's he doesn't by like stomping on
Speaker 1: his ale. Yeah, I step on your tail that makes
Speaker 1: you really shoot the radiation. Uh. And until then he
Speaker 1: can only kind of like blow these like rings of
Speaker 1: radiation that don't really do anything. Yeah, So I gets
Speaker 1: like Godzilla's lesson here is that you must feel pain
Speaker 1: and m and give in to your anger, like he's
Speaker 1: basically giving him the dark side of the force field.
Speaker 1: Strike me down with all of your hate. Journey towards
Speaker 1: Monster Island will be complete. So again, there there may
Speaker 1: be a generational divide on on the message here. The
Speaker 1: parenting message of Godzilla, but I mean it's it's a
Speaker 1: music of the picture. Yes, I mean there's several things.
Speaker 1: There's also a real world thing where uh you know,
Speaker 1: there's a very nice message about giving giving each a
Speaker 1: confidence to stand up to his bullies. But I don't
Speaker 1: know if the exact way that he does that in
Speaker 1: the end is the best. But I think he kind
Speaker 1: of like fights them, but then he also at their goating,
Speaker 1: like pulls a mean prank on a guy who's just
Speaker 1: trying to paint a sign and gets him covered in paint.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Oh yeah, and this was what the
Speaker 1: bullies were trying to get him to do earlier in
Speaker 1: the picture. They're like, hey, see that guy painting the
Speaker 1: sign on the top of the ladder, you should go
Speaker 1: blow the horn on his motorcycle. So he falls off
Speaker 1: the ladder and he's like, of course I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do that. I'm a good kid, and they make fun
Speaker 1: of him, and then later he's like, I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: brave kid. Now watch me go make that man fall
Speaker 1: off the ladder, and he does. So. I think that
Speaker 1: something's a little confused there, But there's another major plot line. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm going to go into great detail
Speaker 1: unless there's anything about it you wanted to hit rob
Speaker 1: But a major part of the real world plot, apart
Speaker 1: from what what's happening in the dreams of Monster Island, is, uh,
Speaker 1: the developing story about the bank robbers with the fifty
Speaker 1: million yen who are hiding out in a nearby factory.
Speaker 1: I think it's near the place where Ichero found the
Speaker 1: vacuum tube. And ultimately he is kidnapped by these bank
Speaker 1: robbers because we know it's your loves to like find
Speaker 1: and pick up treasures, and one of the treasures he
Speaker 1: finds and picks up is a driver's license dropped by
Speaker 1: one of the robbers, and oh, now now he knows
Speaker 1: who they are, so they have to kidnap him, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately he has to outsmart them with tricks and traps,
Speaker 1: and after the robbers are caught, there's this very interesting
Speaker 1: scene where it's almost like the movie is telling us
Speaker 1: the moral of the story, and uh, they like the
Speaker 1: press hale, little Ichiro is a hero, and Ichiro gives
Speaker 1: credit for his heroism to Manila, to the monster from
Speaker 1: the Godzilla movies, and uh, and there so there's this
Speaker 1: exchange where the toymaker his friend Shinpei is hanging out
Speaker 1: there near all of the reporters and he explains to them.
Speaker 1: He says, he means Manila the monster. I think I understand.
Speaker 1: He's like a higher power. And one of the reporters
Speaker 1: asks for clarification he's as a higher power, and Shinpai says,
Speaker 1: that's right. Adults believe in God's so why can't children
Speaker 1: have their own God's too, like Manila? And it's kind
Speaker 1: of a funny line, but oh, something stirred in me there.
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree. Yeah, this is this is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite parts of the picture, really, um, because I
Speaker 1: think it's it's rather insightful and accurate, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a thing that we we may be touched on
Speaker 1: to some degree in our discussion of Godzilla and Weird
Speaker 1: House before, but here it's directly brought up in the picture. Um,
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, toy monsters and ultimately monster
Speaker 1: media in general, that these are icons that connect children
Speaker 1: in the natural world to the powerful realm of super beings.
Speaker 1: In this film, localized on Monster Island, which one can
Speaker 1: easily compare to the various sacred mountains of various cultures
Speaker 1: around the world. So the monsters are strength and courage.
Speaker 1: They are the absolute personification or expression of emotion, and
Speaker 1: they have considerable power over the grown up human world
Speaker 1: while not being a part of that world. And of
Speaker 1: course we see a sequence in this where the humans
Speaker 1: come in jet planes to conquer Monster Island and Godzilla
Speaker 1: has to fight them off and destroy some some jet fighters.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing. I think that was maybe a
Speaker 1: scene from a previous picture. I'm not sure. I could
Speaker 1: kind of feel like filler and again checking off the
Speaker 1: boxes of what a monster movie should give you. But
Speaker 1: it also I think works in this sort of vision
Speaker 1: of like what is what is the energy of the
Speaker 1: kaiju and why is it so attractive to children? It's
Speaker 1: like it is big body energy um incarnate, you know,
Speaker 1: and it is the expression of these emotions that that
Speaker 1: that there may be only beginning to understand at certain ages.
Speaker 1: I think that's all correct. And uh, there was another
Speaker 1: angle in which I was thinking about this, and maybe
Speaker 1: this is too much of a reach, but it made
Speaker 1: me think about this is almost kind of painting a
Speaker 1: picture of a world highlighting the difference between like the
Speaker 1: gods of children and the gods of adults, which is
Speaker 1: where many adults might literally believe that the gods exist
Speaker 1: but don't take their lessons in their meaning to heart. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you can have children who can treat known fictional entities
Speaker 1: like the monsters of god Zilla like gods, and even
Speaker 1: though they don't literally believe they exist, they do take
Speaker 1: their their meaning to heart. And so it's it's almost
Speaker 1: like a question of like adults taking their gods literally
Speaker 1: but not seriously, and children taking their gods seriously but
Speaker 1: not literally. Yeah, I mean it brings me back to
Speaker 1: another thing I think we've discussed in the show before,
Speaker 1: like this this space for mythology in our our modern viewpoint,
Speaker 1: like I don't think the world needs to be just
Speaker 1: truth and fiction, that it needs to be just um,
Speaker 1: the real and the unreal. Uh, you know, the difference
Speaker 1: between skeptical and fundamentalist viewpoints, Like I feel like there
Speaker 1: needs to be a room for mythology and under that
Speaker 1: like a very loose version of mythology, which you have
Speaker 1: room for actual myths that have cultural resonance, but also
Speaker 1: fictional things things like Godzilla, things like Star Wars, um
Speaker 1: or any any bit of of media or imagination that
Speaker 1: ends up becoming meaningful to somebody. Yes, I think we
Speaker 1: should take each Euro's attitude to heart right because he
Speaker 1: can find absolutely raw core meaningfulness in his in his
Speaker 1: mythology without it being in fact true that Manila is
Speaker 1: a physical monster that exists in the world. Yea, though
Speaker 1: coming back to my question from earlier, I still don't
Speaker 1: know for sure whether the film is saying that he's
Speaker 1: just a character in a movie in the world of
Speaker 1: the film, or whether he was real. It's not quite clear.
Speaker 1: But assuming it's the former, that it's a character in
Speaker 1: a movie, yeah, yeah, I like the ambiguity though in
Speaker 1: a way it works well with this kind of children's
Speaker 1: viewpoint of of the world, a world in which yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe maybe they are real. Maybe maybe maybe
Speaker 1: they are It doesn't matter at the end because they
Speaker 1: really to him. So this was a really fun one.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we we did this one. I always have
Speaker 1: a certain amount of hesitation with kaiju movies, just because
Speaker 1: you don't want to spend a lot of time on
Speaker 1: one that is just a monster suit film, Like there's
Speaker 1: so many. There are a lot of great monster suit films,
Speaker 1: but they've gotta have something else going on in them
Speaker 1: to really be to to to really be worth talking about,
Speaker 1: and in this film definitely had had other things going
Speaker 1: for it besides some awesome monster battles. Well, I take
Speaker 1: that back. I would say the monster battles are awesome
Speaker 1: in this picture. Don't watch this one just for the
Speaker 1: monster battles, but it provides a nice balance of things.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, well I agree, But I don't know. I
Speaker 1: might feel different. Maybe I'm just more gung ho about
Speaker 1: any any great big monster beat down. I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like Godzilla was ever in real danger in this one.
Speaker 1: I always knew he had this one handled. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just Godzilla's battle. It was also Godzilla's son's battle.
Speaker 1: So uh, there's a different, different dynamic going on here.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're to go ahead and close this
Speaker 1: one out, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there,
Speaker 1: if you have thoughts on all Monsters Attack, if you
Speaker 1: have other favorite Kaiju movies that you would like to
Speaker 1: suggest for the future on Weird House Cinema, or just
Speaker 1: discussed in general. You know, we we read listener mail
Speaker 1: on usually on our Listener Mail episodes on Mondays. In
Speaker 1: the stuff to blow your mind podcast feed, so we're
Speaker 1: having to discuss all of that there. Reminder that we're
Speaker 1: primarily a science podcast with Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: Monster Factor Artifact episode on Wednesdays, and then on Friday.
Speaker 1: We set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
Speaker 1: a weird film on Weird House Cinema. And if you
Speaker 1: want to see a list of all the films we've
Speaker 1: done before, we can go to a couple of places.
Speaker 1: I blog about all these movies. At Samuta music dot
Speaker 1: com there's just a personal blog, but I maintain that
Speaker 1: just mostly weird House stuff these days. And then if
Speaker 1: you go to letterbox dot com, it's l E T
Speaker 1: T E R B l x D dot com. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's a cool website where you can chronicle your own
Speaker 1: cinematic explorations and make lists and so forth. At Mad Reviews,
Speaker 1: we have an account there. Our account is weird House
Speaker 1: and we have a list there that has all the
Speaker 1: movies that we've discussed in order, and occasionally you'll get
Speaker 1: a glimpse ahead at what is about to come up
Speaker 1: for us. Huch thanks to our audio producer J. J. Pauseway.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.
Speaker 1: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.