War of the God Monsters

This is one of the worst movies I have seen. Mostly shots of the 'scientist' walking along the beach, and shots of his little girl mugging for the camera. The special effects are just awful, even for 1985, although the designs of the airplanes were interesting. There are a number of scenes that make no sense, they are not explained or have any follow up. Continuity is pretty much non-existent, and the editing looks like everything was just patched together. The monsters don't really show up until the end, and they are all imitations (mockeries?) of Japanese kaiju. The characters do random things at random times and for the most part seem to have no reason to do the things they do. I have seen worse movies, but this is definitely for fans of grade z movies.

There is something every filmmaker must learn before making a Kaiju film, and is: MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MONSTER FOOTAGE!!!!! Seriously, why the hell did they use footage from Ultraman?!?!?!?! And no, don't dare you saying "They had no budget to do it", because I saw people using Lizards, LIZARDS, and make that work, look at One Million Years BC, they made their own creature footage with real animals, and that worked, the same can be said to Journey to the Centre of the Earth(1959) and The Lost World from the 60s, there is no excuse to don't make your own monster footage, this movie is crap, but there could still be a hope for this movie, somebody could take this movie and make a new cut without Ultraman Footage, that would make it much better.

Never having heard about the 1985 South Korean kaiju movie titled "Bicheongoesu" (aka "War of the God Monsters") before now late in 2022, as I had the opportunity to watch it. And having sat through a lot of the good old "Godzilla" movies in my time, of course I opted to watch South Korea had to offer with this movie.

I must say that it was an overly dramatic title for a not so very dramatic movie. For a kaiju movie made in the mid-1980s, it was strange how poorly it managed to turn out in comparison to the kaiju movies from the 1960s and 1970s from Japan. Yeah, "Bicheongoesu" wasn't exactly a great movie experience.

The storyline was rather mundane, nay, strike that. The storyline was actually boring and unappealing. It was simply too generic and simplistic, and it offered nothing to challenge the viewers. And that made for a rather dull movie experience.

And it didn't help much that the monsters in the movie looked like something that director Jeong-Yong Kim had just walked into the nearest toy store and picked off of a toy shelf. The creature design in "Bicheongoesu" was just laughable. Poorly created and was so painstakingly fake to look at. Especially the scene with the flying monster that flew without moving its wings while being chased, and bumping into, oh-so-obvious toy fighters.

The special effects in "Bicheongoesu" were questionable. The monsters, as mentioned above, looked laughably fake and like the rubber props that they were. And the toys that they used for portraying man-made vehicles was just equally bad.

But there was a certain 1980s charm to the movie, given the hairstyles, the clothes, and the tacky overall feel of the 1980s, so that at least counted for something.

"Bicheongoesu" is not a movie that I would recommend if you enjoy the old "Godzilla" movies. Better stick with the Japanese movies, as they at least knew what they were doing. But "Bicheongoesu" wasn't even bad in a way that it became a fun and enjoyable movie to watch. Nay, it was just plain and downright bad.

My rating of "Bicheongoesu" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

I got this movie strictly for the kaiju and I wasn't disappointed.

What I want from kaiju movies are monsters, and lots of them, preferably knocking over buildings and brawling with each other. That's exactly what you get with War of the God Monsters.

Not only are there plenty of monsters, but the designs are unique and wild. This movie is recommended for fans of vintage sci-fi, especially if you're watching past midnight or on a Saturday morning with a big bowl of sugary cereal in your lap. These are the kinds of films I salivated for as a child.

The only thing preventing me from rating it higher was a lack of likeable characters, but that doesn't bother me. These are the scenes you play with your Thundercats toys during.

Don't come here looking for the Citizen Kane of giant monster films, come here to have fun.

War of the God Monsters is an extreme oddity of kaiju media, a small independent Korean kaiju film that has been reversed engineered from extensive stock footage of Japanese TV shows. For ages, it was considered a lost film, given it had never seen the light of day until it was released on Blu-ray by SRS Cinema in 2020. It makes for a rather baffling viewing experience but the film isn't without merit.

A young reporter named Kang Ok-hee is writing a story about the theories of Dr Kim, a scientist who believes that dinosaurs still exist in the modern world. When gigantic creatures suddenly appear and cause massive destruction, the doctor and journalist must find a way to save the world.

It's rather important to understand just what on earth War of the God Monsters is before we dive into the qualities of the production. An independent Korean made film about a single father, obsessed with proving a scientific theory, while intermixed with stock footage taken from the Tsuburaya Production, Return of Ultraman.

Understanding War of the God Monsters' situation and knowing that the monster footage makes very little coherent sense, it's in keeping with its own budgetary restrictions with the focus on an isolated and singular family. There's no big government or military meetings and is only concerned with documenting what a disaster like this would do to an already strained relationship between father and daughter.

The film blames climate change for its kaiju rampages, arctic ice melts from carbon emissions and out these creatures go to the sea. The father's theory is ultimately proven right via the disjointed and wonky stock footage which ultimately doesn't blend with the rest of the film given they are taking place at two vastly different locations. Regardless, there is a genuine effort to build a compelling narrative minus the financial backing but the passion shines through nonetheless.

Perhaps director Kim Jeong-Yong's most well-known film beforehand he was known for directing many kung-fu and Brucesploitation flicks then seemingly vanished from the face of the earth after War of the God Monsters. The dramatic scenes are all competently directed and display the occasional beautiful beachfront which takes up a lot of the film's runtime, there's barely any variety but it does work. Honestly, if you take out all the kaiju sequences then you could have an even better story. It's not special or memorable, but honest and sincere in depicting a necessary balance between work, compulsion, and that which matters above all else.

The music isn't original and is recycled from other films and TV shows, the most obvious to me was the use of Das Boot's score for the opening titles which gave me quite the giggle. But it all surprisingly works well enough together.

The Blu-ray itself is an okay one, the picture looks way too clean and waxwork-like and the audio has this horrible echo and reverb which makes it sound like it was recorded in a poorly soundproofed booth. There's a lot of room for improvement on SRS' front here but the compression is next to invisible so that's somewhat of a plus.

Overall, War of the God Monsters is a somewhat-earnest attempt to tell a small scale story without a budget which can often lead to disjointed kaiju scenes that don't affect the main characters at all given their distance apart. Still wholeheartedly recommend giving it a watch though.