Godzilla Vs Hedorah
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Movie Reviews of Godzilla Vs Hedorah
Movie Review: It's Lke Sushi
Summary: 4 Stars
I remember the first time this one showed up on UHF TV as a kid... one of those slow weeks, waiting in anticipation for a new, fresh, never before seen or heard of G flick. Air time - 2:00 PM on a Saturday, 197X - right after 'rasslin on channel 110 UHF. Then...
Whoa! WTF is this! The first thing that struck me was, where's the thunderous, "DUNNNNNN, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, d-d-d-dun" G theme? Instead, there's this strange score, like out of a trippy western, that didn't work at all. I hated the G-costume (though worse were yet to come...) and cringed when G took to the air in that infamous scene. What's with these animations? "Save the Earth..." ahhhh! My ears! My ears! Make them stop! What's those round things that G's ripping out of the monster? Eggs? Vital sludge organs? And why does it kill him? Dunno. Why does G's ray blast power the weapon that kills the smog monster at the end, instead of melt it (the weapon) like it does everything else? And, how does G - as a giant radioactive mutated tyranosaurus, even know how to do this? Boy, japanese hippies sure look weird. It was also jarring to see G get his [...] kicked so badly... third degree burns to the face, had an eye put out, and that high-pithced roar in one scene as it writhes around in pain in the sludge. This boy was in a scrape. But I tuned in to see G kick some [...] against some kaiju jobber - like Mothera or "the sea monster". Is he past his prime? Time to retire?
On the plus side... the sludge monster was pretty cool in its various forms. Something different that the traditional overgrown (fill in the blank). Neat how it inhales fumes from a factory smoke stack. Thumbs up on the kaiju-adversary side.
I turned off my TV at the end, shook my head, and thought I'll just have to watch US-made sci-fi. NOT! US scifi? Talk, talk talk...blah, blah blah. No giant lazer ray spewing monsters. No cool toy arplanes hanging from wires - or miniture cities being demolished, (or classy, exotic, and sexy as all hell japanese babes).
In the subsequent months between repeat airings (UHF station 110 had about nine movies in total in its library - six of which were japanese sci-fi flicks, God bless'em.) I found myself humming "Save the Earth". I was drawing pics of that goofy smog monster in my 6th grade note book, and the little plastic tyranosaurus - that doubled as G, usually, "took to the air" to get from Tokyo to smash Osaka. So, two months later when Godzilla vs the Smog monster aired again, did I tune in? You betchya. Twenty years later am I ordering the DVD? (...for my son, of course) You betchya.
This film is like sushi. The first time you try it, it's a wtf experience. A few weeks later, you're jones'n for a sushi fix and have graduated to uni. Viva la smog monster! ... and while you're up, my saki needs topping off. Thanks!
Movie Review: Learn to speak Japanese with the Big G
Summary: 4 Stars
This review is for the October 19 DVD release of Godzilla Vs. Hedorah, and this film is the eleventh movie in the long-running Godzilla series. The movie is also known as Godzilla Vs. the Smog Monster. Watching this film as an adult, I was surprised how good this film is. I recall it receiving the infamous Turkey Award as one of the worst movies ever made, but this is far from being the worst Godzilla movie ever made. The plot (what little there is) is interesting and the special effects hold up rather well by Seventies standards. Hedorah would be a monster best realized by modern CGI but the costume works well, even if the sludge which oozes from beneath him is so digusting as to be laughable at times. Here Godzilla is a friend to humanity; however the movie is nowhere near as campy as subsequent releases which resulted in the temporary death of the series. One negative aspect of the story, Godzilla does fly in this movie -- embarrassing indeed.
The quality of this DVD is impressive. The image is a 2.35:1 widescreen, and the image is allegedly anamorphic. There are many night sequences in this film which are beautifully rendered on this transfer -- contrasts are terrific, and it's clear to see what is occurring, whereas videotapes of this film made it hard to tell what was going on. Colors are bright and lifelike, but do sometimes look slightly washed out in special effects sequences. The film has been impressively restored, but there are still occasional bits of dust which appear throughout the film. For what it's worth, the image quality of this DVD is far better than ADV Films' DVD release of the 1995 Gamera film.
The disk contains the usual badly dubbed English language track, but more impressively it contains the original Japanese track with English subtitles which appear in clear, large yellow type beneath the widescreen image on an analog television. Sadly there are some musical numbers in this film which are not subtitled or dubbed into English. The transfer also features the opening titles and credits in English rather than Japanese.
There are no bonus features on this DVD aside from a few trailers for other Columbia Tristar DVDs. Still, this is easily the definitive version of this film on home video. Also look for two other Seventies Godzilla movies available in widescreen, restored and having a Japanese track: Godzilla Vs. Gigan and Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla.
Movie Review: Godzilla battles big steaming pile of crud!
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is just plain hilarious. One trick to watching old Godzilla films is to have low expectations. Another is to just be in the mood for one and leave you believability at the door.
Godzilla vs Hedorah is a fun relativly fast paced "epic" with a lot of gratuitous pollution shots.
Pollution is on the rise in Japan and a monster (possibly from some dead planet full of muck, the scientist postulates) arrives in the ocean and begins wrecking fishing ships for no good reason. It is soon named Hedorah by a young poorly dubbed kid who almost worships Godzilla and even dreams about him.
Hedorah is made of teeny tiny tadpoles that join togather to make one big shape-shifting hulk of a creature that enjoys sucking on factory smokestacks (like cigarettes). He flies or walks or oozes around pooping out clouds of acid and gooey toxic crud.
Godzilla appears and tries to defeat Hedorah...agian and agian and again, only to get burned (literally). His atomic breath is useless and his punches go right through the stinky beast!
This film has it's odd moments to be sure: short cartoons, dream sequences, bad seventies songs, and a drug halucination (a guy thinks everyone in the club he's drinking in has fish heads!).
This is definatly a seventies film. Listen to the score and notice the direction style.
The best scene (and argubly the most talked about in the film) is the infamous shot of Godzilla flying after Hedorah! I laughed and laughed at this one. It's very funny, and the music accompanying it (this piece can be found on the Best of Godzilla Volume 1 CD) made it even funnier!
parental warning: As funny as it was, a cautious parent may want to watch this film before letting his/her kid(s) watch. People are turned to skeletons or graphically burned by Hedorah's acidic exaust and Hedorah itself might be scary to really young children. Also Godzilla rips Hedorah's eyeballs out.
All in all, I was surprised at how much I like this film. The only thing I really hated was the dubbing of the little kid (PAPAAAAAAA!!! GODZILLAAAAAAA!!!).
Movie Review: Very good for something the director got fired over
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie is different to other G movies, as it is, despite what many people (mostly teenagers, who aren't exactly known for researching things)would tell you, the only G movie to be aimed at kids*. This is something the director was fired over, mainly because most of the intended audience were given something aimed at people considerably younger than themselves. This also resulted in a lower budget the following years, resulting in G vs Gigan and G vs Megalon relying on more stock footage than usual.
Anyway, this movie involves a pollution monster, Hedorah, who is mutating by absorbing more pollution. At first, many Hedorah's exist ina a tadpole-like form, but they join together to form a large quadruped creature. Although the creature's body is potentially fatal to humans, G is unaffected by direct contact with Hedorah during their battle, although acidic mud fired by Hedorah is capable of burning him. Furthermore, when G tries to punch Hedorah, his arm goes through Hedorah's body with no effect... [more stuff happens after this, obviously, but to avoid spoiling the movie, I am only writing very the general idea of the first 30 minutes or so, and not mentioning anything that happens after that at all.)
Being aimed at a considerably lower aged audience than other G movies, there is considerably more corny stuff that happens in this than in other G movies (although i'm not denying that other G movies have corny stuff in them, but they have a lot less than this). Despite that, the movie does have tension and the the fight scenes are at most times better than what happens in G vs Mecha G. Probably because Hedorah doesn't sit back firing away for almost the whole battle.
* - G movies, not counting this one, have never been aimed at kids. However, Gamera movies are aimed at kinds. While we're on the subject of Japanese TV censorship, despite what many teenages from America and some other countries would try to tell you, there has NEVER been an Amine show aimed at adults.
Movie Review: A decent move but not as good as the earlier movies
Summary: 4 Stars
In godzilla versus Hedorah the citizens of Japan a threatened by a new monster. A gigantic monster made out of sluge and waste chemical called Hedorah or hedra in the japanese version. Who like Destroyer has different forms its can turn into some smaller and weaker than others. In its final form it is a tower giant which emits gases that can scar flease and disolove all humands raims except there bones resulting instant death. He also ahs and acids that crods metal. He also was the first enemy Godizilla though that had any laser beam like weapons. Originally the monster Gigan when he was first created was capable of shout a laser from between his eyes but this power was never used in any of three godzilla movies he stared in. Can godzilla save earth from this vile creature of death and posion. This movie should be fine for kids thirteen in up due to high scifi violence, thematic elements and occasionally guersome images for a movie of its time when it was released back in mid 1969 or 1970 it was graphic. I also thought I'd inform you that the save the earth theme song for some reason I never figured out the save the earth Theme song was not Redubbed into english for the DVD realses. I also thought I'd inform you there are also two new godzila dvd come out on June 5, 2007 one is Ghidorah the three headed monster which up till now has been only avilable in the UHS in the use the other is new dvd verison of Astro Monster or Godzilla versus monster zero as it was renamed in the us which may have both the Japanese and english version of the movie included because that's what there doing for the Ghidorah dvd release. If you like this see the other godzilla films the only ones you might not want to see unless your a extreme godzilla phanatic our the son of Godzilla our Godzilla revenge which may seem to little kidish due to the lack of destruction of buildings and vehicles that was seen in the earlier movies and few brief occasional scenes of violence.