Godzilla vs. Gigan
Short description
A manga artist named Gengo Odaka takes a job at a new amusement park called World Children's Land. When a distorted message turns up on a tape, his suspicions about the park's operators grow. He and his colleagues begin to investigate, while Godzilla and Anguirus, alerted by the same message, take action of their own. The park is a front for alien invaders whose own world has been ruined, and they intend to take Earth for themselves, sending the space monsters Gigan and King Ghidorah to attack Japan. Godzilla and Anguirus are drawn into the fight against the two creatures controlled by the invaders.
Jun Fukuda directed the film, which followed Son of Godzilla and Ebirah, Horror of the Deep among his earlier Godzilla entries and came before Godzilla vs. Megalon and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Shinichi Sekizawa wrote the screenplay, Tomoyuki Tanaka produced, and Hiroshi Ishikawa leads the cast as Gengo, with Tomoko Umeda, Yuriko Hishimi and Minoru Takashima among the twenty credited performers.
The film was released in Japan in March 1972. Its worldwide box office stands at around 2 million dollars, a modest figure for the series at that point. On IMDb it rates 5.6 out of 10 from roughly 6,500 votes, while on TMDB it holds 6.4 out of 10 from about 237 votes, so general audiences there are somewhat warmer toward it than IMDb's larger sampling.
What's left behind the scenes
- By the time the film was released, Godzilla had already achieved worldwide popularity, as few cinematic monsters had survived the transition from the 1960s to the 1970s. In honor of this fame, composer Akira Ifukube, who created the musical score for Toho's most famous films, released a collection of songs and melodies from Expo '70. A new song, "Godzilla March," performed by Kunio Miyashi, was included at the end of the film. The album also featured some new songs: "Go! Go! Godzilla!" and "Defeat Gigan."
- After the international version of "Godzilla vs. Gigan" was released, the film came out in the US in 1978 under the title "Godzilla on Monster Island," despite the fact that this island only appears briefly in the film. The poster for this version of the film resembles the poster for "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1964).
- This film features cameo appearances by monsters that have previously appeared on screen: Gorosaurus, Mothra, Minilla, and Kamacuras.
- This is the twelfth film about Godzilla, the fourth about Anguirus and King Ghidorah, and the first about Gigan. It is also the last film from the Showa era featuring Ghidorah; this monster does not appear again until another series of films (1984–1998).
- In the United Kingdom, the film was released under the title "War of the Monsters".
- This is the last film since 1954 in which the role of Godzilla was played by actor Haruo Nakajima.
- In Japan, the film was seen in theaters by 1,780,000 viewers.
- The film was released on DVD in October 2004.
- Following the atypical film for the genre, “Godzilla vs. Hedorah” (1971), Toho began work on a more spectacular film featuring space monsters. Initially, according to producer Tomoyuki Tanaka’s vision, the film was to feature six monsters, including three new ones: Gigan, Megalon, and Majin Twol, resembling the statue Daimajin. However, the idea of these monsters was not well-received, and two of the last creatures were abandoned (although Megalon appeared in a sequel), and the film was titled “Return of King Ghidorah.” The plot involved Godzilla, Rodan, and Varan facing off against Gigan and Ghidorah, but due to budget constraints, Varan and Rodan were replaced by Anguirus, who last appeared fully in “Godzilla: All Monsters Attack” (1968). Ghidorah’s name was removed from the title, and the film became known as “Godzilla vs. Gigan”.
- Godzilla is shown here as he was in the film “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster” (1964).
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
