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.
