Dogora

I remember watching this film when I was a kid and I thought it was a pretty decent film. However, when I read some of the comments I couldn't understand how a lot of people hated it. This might have something to do with the fact that due to the stupid re-editing job that was done to the film after it arrived in America. Ishiro Honda originally wanted this film to be a comedy that brought together two of the genres that he was famous for, gangster films and, of course, kaiju eigas. Unfortunately, the persons in charge of editing and dubbing the film when it reached our fair shores decided that it would be better to make this film into a typical kaiju and make the monster the most prominent element of the film, unlike the Japanese version where the monster takes a secondary role in the film. Thank God for Media Blasters. Because of them the film is now on DVD and it is finally being seen as Mr. Honda had originally envisioned it.

"Atragon," the 1963 offering from the great film-making team of director Ishiro Honda, composer Akira Ifukube and special FX master Eiji Tsuburaya, is an excellent sci-fi movie depicting a Japanese supersub's battle with the undersea kingdom of Mu. The following year, this same team came out with "Dogora," a fun if decidedly lesser effort. In this one, a single-celled organism floating in space is affected by Japan's seemingly ubiquitous radiation and grows to become a humongous, jellyfishlike monster who lives to suck carbon off the surface of our world...along with any buildings, bridges or trucks that happen to be in the area! In a somewhat confusing plot, multiple story lines involving a group of diamond thieves, a mysterious insurance investigator, an aged expert on crystals, and a swarm of bees are conflated, with mixed results. The first time I watched "Dogora" (and no, we never learn the meaning or origin of this particular "kurage kaiju"'s moniker), I thought the film rather hard to follow, and in all somewhat diffused. On a second viewing, the plot seemed to make more sense, but its dependence on coincidence still rather marked. One of the picture's saving graces, for me, is the presence of Akiko Wakabayashi--who I first became enamored with in 1967, as a result of her appearance in the James Bond blowout "You Only Live Twice"--who here plays a moll and who looks more beautiful than I have ever seen her. Dogora itself is a pleasing creation, and the sight of it whirlpooling coal into its giant maw or pulling a Kyushu bridge to bits is actually fairly awesome. Its ultimate demise is brought about in a fairly unique manner, as well. In all, not a bad little picture, as long as you don't go in expecting anything on the order of Honda's "Gojira" or "The Mysterians"!

So look at the cover, read the premise, this is another Toho monster movie right? Wrong.

Dogora tells the story of mysterious creatures that come from space and seem to have an desire for diamonds. Meanwhile the police are after a prominent gang of diamond thieves (What a coincidence).

The latter get's considerably more screen time, this is essentially a crime drama rather than a sci-fi. Sure we have our creature (Though it's nothing like the cover suggests) but it's more of a side character than the movies antagonist.

The usual brand of Toho miniatures being used for sfx are present and I personally like that, it's when they tried to do computer generated effects that it all falls apart. Man are they ugly, it's 1964 so it's to be expected but it doesn't take away from just how much their ugliness takes you out of the movie. On the flip side however their are several effects done which I've not seen before from this period, they look great and are well ahead of their time.

If you can get past that this isn't a creature feature it's passable enough stuff, but I went in with expectations and they weren't met.

The Good:

Some great visuals

The Bad:

Some awful visuals

Isn't what it's advertised as

In space, a big jellyfish destroys a satellite. The thing then comes to Earth and uses its twisting tentacles to get everything in its path. Buildings, trucks, and even a bridge get lifted up from the ground by the thing. The thing also has a craving for diamonds. Also involved in this mishmash are some diamond thieves who only want a truck of diamonds and a day to the beach without getting stung. Pretty interesting with imaginative special effects. The American print is terrible,dark, and scratched up. The dubbing is also bad.

Asides from the strange plot development which we don't know if this movie is a comedy or a kaijyu movie, I think this could be one of the best monster movie of all times. What's great and horrifying about this movie is the monster Dogora. It's kind of a space jellyfish that can defy gravity. The monster makes you think that perhaps somewhere in space there could be a life form like it, and when it arrives on earth, there's no telling how large it could be. None of the Toho monsters have real life creepiness like the Dogora. If the movie was made on a plot about this space monster arriving on earth and terrorizing the world while it multiplies would have made it a unique masterpiece. There's absolutely no movie like it. For its originality, and the special mood this monster brings to the story, this movie is a masterpiece.