Kaijûtô no Kessen: Gojira no Musuko |
  • Japan • 1967 • 86m •   • Directed by: Jun Fukuda. • Starring: Tadao Takashima, Akira Kubo, Beverly Maeda, Akihiko Hirata, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Kenji Sahara, Ken'ichirô Maruyama, Seishirô Kuno, Yasuhiko Saijô, Susumu Kurobe, Kazuo Suzuki, Wataru Ômae, Chôtarô Tôgin. • Music by: Masaru Satô.     A group of scientists are on tropical Solgel Island in the Pacific to conduct weather control experiments. Just before they begin, they find giant preying mantases measuring 25 feet tall called Kamakaras. They decide to go ahead with the experiments, but a malfunction in one of the devices and as a result a radioactive storm that pushes the temperature up to two hundred degrees. The storm also causes the mantases to grow even bigger to 100 feet tall. The manatases then make their way to a huge mound where they uncover a giant egg which contains a young Godzilla, later named Minilla. Eventually, Godzilla shows up and saves his offspring. The rest of the movie features Godzilla taking care of and teaching his young son the skills that will eventually help him to become the new "King of Monsters".
|
Trailers:
| Length: | Languages: | Subtitles: |
Review:
The film really belongs to a genre that has largely been forgotten - the "tropical romance". It was once popular enough for Crosby and Hope to make a parody of it, The Road to Bali. The film that trashed the genre beyond recognition was the wretched (and wretchedly popular) Brooke Shields film, Blue Lagoon. But it has been revived from time to time, most recently in the Harrison Ford film Six Days Seven Nights.
AS a 'tropical romance', Son of Godzilla is pretty good, certainly throughout the first hour. The characters are charming - and well acted; the story is neatly, if loosely, held together, with appropriate dialog; the film evidences a broad and warm sense of humor. Some of the photography of the island is pretty, and the sound-stage work is blended into it nicely.
So do the rubber monsters fit in with such a genre? Well, to be sure, they are not necessary here; yet they do provide a plot twist that hastens the plot along; without them, I suggest the film would become tedious eventually. And of course, they provide some of the humor here; with this film, Toho Studios effectively revealed that they knew exactly what they were doing with the Godzilla films, and weren't afraid to allow one of their own directors to poke fun at the series; after-all, it's neither parody nor sarcasm, but a bit of gentle rib-nudging. I find it hard to dislike the scenes where (a highly anthropomorphized) Godzilla trains his son, even though I know it's a transgression of everything the series had seemed to stand for previously.
Yes, the film is an odd mix, and a bit uneven; still, it's the one Godzilla film that can rightly be said to provide "fun for the whole family", children and adults. I think that says something special about it - even if it really isn't a Godzilla film at all.
Review by winner55 from the Internet Movie Database.
Off-Site Reviews:
Movie Database