Girara no gyakushû: Tôya-ko Samitto kikiippatsu

From time to time i like to immerse on films like this. Those are the moments in which one enters a film for pure relaxation. I guess it's the same kind of spirit such filmmakers as Kawasaki put into creating this.

Some of these rides are actually very profitable, and i think it is a mistake to excuse every unconsidered element of a film just because it is a B-flick or because the budget was close to zero. Some great, intelligent work has been that over that.

Here we have a film made out of two elements: the will to freely play with known faces of the political scene these days, and the will to produce special effects that deliberately looking false and old-fashioned. I think this crew must have had a lot of fun making this, and in certain moments i too enjoyed being there. But it is the kind of fun a group of adolescents has making fun of an unlikable teacher or painting obscene messages on a wall. I'm OK with that, but something better could be put into this. It was nice to be watching a Power Rangers kind of fight so many years later, but 'nice' is not good.

You know what this is now. It's your choice to embrace it or not. I did it with some interest, but i won't do it again.

The pace is slow, cinematic rhythm was not also in the mind of these folks.

My opinion: 1/5

http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

Today I had the good fortune to catch the new "Monster X" flick on the big screen here in NYC. Although there could have been some more monster action, it definitely was not a disappointment.

The original "X From Outer Space" from 1967 starred newcomer Guilala, a monster who looked so ridiculous, that there was no way they could have made this sequel anything but a comedy. At least I think it's a sequel - while the title indicates Guilala does indeed "strike back" after being beaten 42 years ago in the first movie, there is a scene here with a kid (who looks like he walked out of a 60's Gamera movie) who names the creature "Guilala," as if he was never named or seen before.

As for the movie being a comedy, believe it or not, it's actually a decent comedy. Eight world leaders meet in japan for a summit, and take turns offering (failing) suggestions on how to kill Guilala. But the jokes aren't random - there's actually a lot of clever writing here. This isn't a movie full of dumb jokes.

There's also two reporters (including a hot girl) try to uncover the secret of Guilala through an odd jungle cult, who do a strange dance to worship a god named Take-Majin, who they later convince through their dancing and chanting to fight Guilala.

My main gripe is that there really isn't much destruction by Guilala. Actually, his best scenes come right at the beginning of the film, just minutes in - he lands on Earth, destroys some buildings and walks off. We then see Guilala fend off the occasional attempt to kill him, and of course his fight with Take-Majin, but the destruction ends right at the start.

The special effects are pure 1960's retro, from the buildings to the fire that Guilala spews out of his mouth, to the cheap-looking costume. This was all obviously done on purpose to pay homage to the charm of the original film.

Funny monster, pretty girls everywhere, and clever writing make "Monster X" a good bet for giant monster fans. And before the film, we had a 17-minute original giant monster comedy called "Gehara - The Long Haired Giant Monster" and a great preview of the new "Kappa" (Gappa) film coming out, and it won't be a comedy.

What can I say? I thought this film was funny! Some of the humor may get lost in translation, and kaiju fans looking for epic scenes of city destruction will be disappointed. The locations are limited and the scope is small. I do not mean these as criticisms, just facts.

The acting from the Western stars is decidedly awful, but endearing in a hilarious way. The various schemes the leaders devise are quite comical and struck a humorous cord. There is enough tributes and homages to daikaiju eiga for fans to appreciate.

Before Grindhouse was released and completely ignored by American audiences, Quentin Tarantino had talked of his plans to make a few more B-movie revisits with Robert Rodriguez and other directors, expanding the concept to all possible genres. It's sad that such a project will not materialize, because The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit is definitely a movie QT would enjoy, and it director the kind of guy he would love to work with: an energetic, grown-up child who loves every single frame of the films he makes, no matter how much crap he has to take from the critics (which is why he's called "the Japanese Ed Wood"). Monster X, which was shown Out of Competition at the 2008 Venice Film Festival, is a quintessential B-movie: geeky, cheap and aware of its silliness. In plain English: a lot of fun.

The film acts as a sort of low-budget Godzilla reboot, with the big reptile replaced by an alien of sorts named Girara. The seemingly invincible creature awakes suddenly from a very long sleep, and starts destroying everything in sight. Too bad this happens at the exact same time as a G8 summit in Kyoto: given the disastrous situation, the participating nations (USA, Germany, France, Italy, etc) do their best to stop the monster, only to fail each time. Perhaps the key to sorting out this mess is hidden in a freaky temple in the woods, where people worship a being with a strange fascination for his, uh, private area.

The G8 subplot would indicate some sort of political intent behind the movie, but that's just a load of rubbish: any kind of satire requires subtlety, and when the French President tries to seduce a woman with the phrase "I'm the Eiffel Tower and I want to penetrate your Arch of Triumph!", you know that's the last thing you'll ever find in the blatantly trashy script (by the way, since when do Brits speak with an American accent?). The "plot" is just an excuse for two silly-looking freaks to beat the hell out of each other, in scenes that could have been shot by a toddler in anyone's back yard or in an average workshop. It's that shameless "bag of dirt" quality that makes Monster X a guilty pleasure like few others. It's a movie made by geeks for geeks, and by not aspiring to any higher artistic consideration it actually manages to bring back the eight-year old hidden inside all of us, much like Peter Jackson's aptly titled Bad Taste, while more "noble" attempts to achieve the same effect have a tendency to fall flat on their backs.

So yes, it's incredibly, incontrovertibly silly, cheap, whatever you want to call it. But it's also one of the most enjoyable "bad" movies that one can find. Plus, it has the additional treat of Japanese auteur Takeshi Kitano voicing the "good" monster: how much more can one ask for?

It's not always easy to track down a Minoru Kawasaki film, but it is always worth the effort. This one is exactly what it sounds like it would be from the title: The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit does indeed feature Monster X attacking the G8 Summit. I didn't even realize it was a sequel/parody of sorts to a much older giant monster movie I'd seen some time ago, but it was fun to learn that after the fact in any event.

This isn't as good as Calamari Wrestler or Executive Koala (those two are so slept on it's absurd), but it's still quite good. It's got some pretty funny satirical stuff on top of being an intentionally goofy homage/parody of classic kaiju flicks. It's pretty funny, and I found it entertaining for the majority of its runtime.