King Kong vs. Godzilla

A pharmaceutical company head is not happy with the television ratings and wants to boost it with the help of a giant monster at Faro Island which is none other than King Kong. Meanwhile, an American submarine named Seahawk crashes into an iceberg freeing Godzilla. As Godzilla moves towards Japan, even King Kong is being brought to Japan. Circumstances make way for an unplanned wrestling match between King Kong and Godzilla. Who emerges as the winner and what new lesson Japanese learn out of this battle, forms rest of the story.

For all the hype, it's fascinating to see the makers pull this off back in 1962. The human characters especially the the pharmaceutical company head was cartoonish and over the top. It is when the monsters are introduced that film gets interesting and the gigantic octopus scene with Kong stood out. King Kong capturing a girl is again repeated here for a brief period, before setting him on the path of Godzilla. However the electricity powering Kong was not something I could get onboard with and it happens twice. Barring that, the film is all about the wrestling match and the humans picking their sides without betting. All in all, it delivers on the fun and is a decent watch.

Like Mothra, here also, Toho produces a movie that criticizes nuclear war and consumerism at the same time but on a whole another level. Bringing the most famous monsters together, one from Hollywood and one from Japan, it was really a huge event even back then. The first half of the story in the monster part is similar to both monsters' first outing but the human element is a pharmaceutical company using monsters for advertisement. Initially, I thought the humor element there was simply like a comic relief moment but the movie manages to be hilarious throughout. The King Kong suit design itself is very whacky. Then when the final battle ensues, it's just two people in rubber suits wrestling and throwing props at each other. The whole battle is just stupid and hilarious. The initial Island rituals and music were actually engrossing but with the cigarette gift to the blackface kids it is consistently funny. Even though there's so much stupidity in this movie, a lot of it is clearly intentional and they know what the audience wants. Even all the posters are hilarious. Still, better than the modern Hollywood version.

From the beginning scenes you can tell this is a little different. It's almost like a proto-Verhoeven film. It has a satirical edge to it that you dont see in other Godzilla movies. And just overall it's a little zanier and kind of wild compared to previous Godzilla films.

It's still Honda directing and still a TOHO film with the same technical crew as most other Kaiju. It was just this one script and a few actors that made this one a tad more enjoyable than many others.

I will be blunt though. It's not as amazing as a lot have made it seem. I guess if you saw this once when you were a kid then had to wrok to find it again in the pre-internet era of video rental stores. That would inflate the spectacle of the film a lot.

It is better than most Kaiju films. It does have some memorable characters and some moments of the Kaiju fights that are remarkable. But really it's only about 10% better than the average Kaiju film. There are others like Mothra that are much better in a number of ways.

It is kind of a turning point for the franchise in a few ways. This starting the change of Godzilla from an evil monster to a kind of antihero. Antimonster maybe?

The pitched up his roar a bit. Made the suit less scary looking and had him dance whenever he scores a good move against King Kong.

King Kong is a little weird. He looks nothing like the classic Kong. Very crude and rough. Not to my liking at all. But the suit actor did a great job of mimicing ape like movements.

The fight choreo is recognizably influenced by pro wrestling. I thought that was a great idea, but there are a couple spots I really didn't like how they went about it, but it worked.

Overall it's enjoyable not to be taken seriously fare.

The original Japanese Toho cut of 'King Kong Vs Godzilla' has a much more developed sense of comedy imbued throughout its runtime: the entire film is satirical and scatty; it just isn't really any better than the heavily altered American/International cut that features truly dreadful added United Nations scenes alongside necessarily dubbed and re-edited scenes.

I find this version needs significant further attention from an editor to improve its pacing and the construction of action scenes: the American film does slightly improve in this area despite it causing terrible damage to the satirical comedy of the original.

In the comedic premise of the story 'King Kong Vs Godzilla' has its best strength. There is a great degree of poking fun at television and corporate cultures and some of this is well put across.

The action part of the film is less ably done and the narrative pace is off by a considerable degree.

The same failings of really poor and unconvincing monsters that afflict the American version are naturally in this film also.

They look, sound, and move badly, individually, and even moreso, in tandem together.

The film score is better in this version as is the overall sound design.

I rate a 5/10 for a version that has more brains but less pruning than the more often seen English language cut.

The script is good and you can see a lot of events in the movie. After watching the film, I learned that Ishiro Honda is a amazing director. What I didn't like was working with this graphics and effect maybe it was good in a short time, but I've seen it now nor can I say that there are no badly done scenes in the film. In short, the film is better than I expected and good for its time!