Gigantis the Fire Monster

Gigantis the Fire Monster

Released: 1955 (Japan) 1959 (America)

MPAA Rating: None

Genre: Two titanic super monsters battle it out through the streets of Osaka. One goes down but one survives to wreak even more havoc. Will the Air Defense command be able to stop the threat of Gigantis?

Summary: All right, let me start off by saying that despite the fact that this movie is called Gigantis, it is actually a Godzilla movie. The only real difference between this Godzilla and the one that died in Godzilla, King of the Monsters is that this one has bigger teeth.

Shoichi Tsukioka and Kobi Kobayashi are spotter pilots that scout schools of fish for the Kayo Cannery Company in Osaka Japan. Kobayashi spots a school of Tuna and heads towards nearby Iwato Island. Experiencing engine trouble he lands the plane near a series of caverns on the island. Tsukioka follows him in and pontoons his plane in the lagoon. He finds Kobayashi and the two make a campfire. As they make plans to return to Osaka, they find themselves caught in the middle of a pitched battle between two gargantuan monsters. The first is Godzilla, who really needs no introduction. The second is Angilas, who is basically a large mutated version of an old Anklyosaurus dinosaur. The two are in a heated fight at the top of a ravine. Although Angilas is primarily a quadroped, he rises up on his hind legs to knock Godzilla and he off the cliff into the sea below. Tsukioka and Kobayashi decide to jump in Tsuki’s plane and get the hell out of there.

Returning to Osaka, they tell the regional government what they encountered. The defense council calls in acclaimed paleontologist Doctor Kyohei Yamane to offer advice on how to combat the creatures. Yamane tells them that they are pretty much fucked and that there is nothing they can do. He reveals that Godzilla and Angilas are creatures based on the element of fire and as such are attracted to bright light. Like moths to a flame, bright light apparently makes these guys quite randy. Initiatives are taken to evacuate Osaka while plunging the island into a full citywide blackout.

Killing the juice to the entire island, the army begins igniting flares out at sea in an attempt to lure Godzilla away. Godzilla counters them in the waters near Shikoku-Kishu and has a dandy ole time shooting planes out of the sky with his atomic breath.

Now while all this is going on, the Japanese officials have decided to transfer prison inmates off the island for safety. A group of convicts riding in the back of a paddy-wagon stage a breakout and commandeers the vehicle. Police are soon engaged in a high-speed chase, which leads them to a power plant. The convicts lose control of the vehicle and crash into one of the high voltage receptacles. An explosion occurs that can be seen from miles off shore. This effectively renders the blackout useless, as Godzilla now knows where the city is.

Godzilla comes ashore and the army sends out a squadron of tanks. Bombs are blasting all over the place, but this doesn’t stop Godzilla one bit. Angilas appears again and seems to have followed Godzilla to Osaka. They begin slugging it out much to the chagrin of Osaka’s citizens. The fight levels many buildings and hundreds of people are killed (mostly military personnel). Angilas tries to rip into Godzilla’s throat but the big lizard rolls the little fucker around in the dirt and debris. Godzilla has a strength and weight advantage over Angilas and he manages to pin him to the ground. Bearing down on him, Godzilla sinks his teeth into the back of Angilas’ neck. The spiky dino twitches a bit before finally falling over dead. Godzilla celebrates his victory by unleashing his atomic breath on the few buildings left standing in Osaka. An inferno ensues and the whole island erupts into flames. Feeling pretty good about himself, Godzilla returns to Iwato Island.

The city of Osaka now begins the slow process of rebuilding. The Kayo Cannery Company relocates its business to Hokkaido. Tsukioka and Kobayashi continue scouting for fish until one day Tsukioka sights Godzilla. He sends the warning back to Osaka and the word is spread around the world that Godzilla is still at large.

Tsukioka’s old air force squadron is reunited and they take off to inspect Iwato Island. Kobayashi attends them in the single engine plane that he uses for spotting. Godzilla uses his atomic breath to blast Kobayashi’s plane out of the air. The pilot crashes into the mountainside breaking up small chunks of ice and debris. From this the air force pilots come upon a plan. Swooping in low, they drop a volley of bombs at the base of the canyon. The resultant explosions cause an avalanche, which succeeds in burying Godzilla beneath a ton of ice and snow.

Acting/Dialogue: What I liked about this movie is that instead of having the voices dubbed over by phonetically perfect American voices, they instead used Japanese actors with broken dialects. Now while it may seem kind of silly that a bunch of Japanese people would walk around talking to each other in English, I think it helped make the film that much more realistic.

Gore: We see a fairly liberal amount of blood coming from Angilas throat as he dies.

Guilty Pleasures: None. This movie was created before the days when you were legally allowed to show a sumo wrestler’s ass crack.

The Good: This film is probably the second best of all the old-school Zilla flicks. It really works well as a transitional movie bridging the gap between the disturbingly apocalyptic first movie and the campy monster fests of the later films.

This movie has one MAJOR thing going for it. The fight between Godzilla and Angilas is the single best throw down since Hulk Hogan whooped Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania. As opposed to other films, these two actually fight within the downtown area of an actual city. Most times the critters throw each other around somewhere in the countryside where the only things that get mangled are some evergreens. But in Gigantis, these two are smashing and bashing their way through building after building. We see showers of concrete and glass showering down on hapless citizens and people are running for cover.

I really liked the part where Doctor Yamane illustrates the history of the dinosaurs. We’re treated to some pretty interesting looking pyrotechnics and the plastic dinosaurs they used for the recreation weren’t completely shitty.

I was really disappointed that Kobayashi died towards the end. He was a fairly fun loving sort of goof ball and you really felt for him as he bumbled around mooning over his one true love. The romantic aspects to this film are a thousand times more enticing than the hackneyed angst-ridden romantic drivel we were forced to suffer through in Pearl Harbor.

The Bad: If there’s one thing I hate about these Japanese kaiju flicks is that they can never just name something once and leave it at that. The original monster was named Gojira, which was later Americanized to Godzilla. The second one was also known as Gojira, which became Godzilla and was then Americanized into Gigantis. Angilas is likewise referred to Anguirus, Angorus and even Anzilla in some versions. Even the title of the movie has sported ten different names. It has been known as the following: Gigantis, Gigantis the Fire Monster, Counterattack of the Monsters, The Fire Monster, The Volcano Monster, Godzilla Raids Again, Gojira’s Counterattack, Gojira Strikes Again, Godzilla’s Counterattack, and the Return of Godzilla.

Whoever did the editing for the American version of Gigantis did a really piss-poor job. Characters in the film refer to the monsters by their names interchangeably. If one didn’t know better, it would become really difficult to tell which one was supposed to be Godzilla and which one is supposed to be Angilas. They also can’t seem to decide which monster-roar belongs to which creature. At times Godzilla busts out with his trademark growl and at other times he makes noises traditionally attributed to Angilas.

Although this movie has excellent pacing, there’s one really slow part in the last third of the film. Kobayashi is seen flying around Osaka waving to his friends in the Tasuko Maru. His friends wave back to him and he drops them off a little good luck note. Then they wave some more to him and he waves back at them, at which point they surprisingly and not altogether ironically begin waving back to him.

Great Lines:

“All men are like fish in a woman’s net.” --Yasuko Inouye

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10 severed heads.

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