Godzilla vs. Hedorah

Ah yes! Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster. Thank God for AMC, The SciFi Channel, and cable in general.

I was 9 years old when this movie came out in the theaters back in my home town, a suburb of Cleveland, OH. 9 year olds didn't go to the movies often because there were none of the multiplexes we have today. To my surprise, my mom offered to take us kids in the neighborhood to see Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster at the Lake Theater matinée. I was so excited. I was going to see Godzilla (loved all his movies as a kid), have popcorn, and be inside a huge movie theater!

This experience was 32 years ago! Until last Saturday, I could only remember 4 things: 1) Waiting in my seat seaming like forever for the movie to start, 2) The Smog Monster sucking on a smoke stack, 3) The Smog Monster sliming down a flight of steps, withdrawing, and a cat being stuck in the slime residue, and 4) A psychedelic discothèque.

Fast forward 32 years to 2004. Last Saturday night I was surfing cable and stumbled upon Godzilla vs. Hedora. I said to myself "Hmmmmm…I don't remember this movie and thought I saw them all. What the heck…it's Godzilla and I am up for some cheese."

To my utter surprise, fascination, and joy I quickly saw the monster suck on a smoke stack and I said "Oh my gosh!!!! It's the Smog Monster!!!!"

I had sudden flashbacks of my childhood. All of my memories returned!

OK, it's a bad movie. But so what? It served its purpose. It was designed for a 9 year old child and gave him memories of a lifetime. As bad as it is, it must have entertained more children than just me because it has stood the test of time returning to AMC and The SciFi channel.

I say, "Thanks for the memories."

This film has a really post modern feel to it. It begins with a song in Japanese called Save the Earth that (like The Lost Continent song) you won't stop singing (Kaishan! Kaishan! Kaishan!). The opening credits mix in shots of a girl singing the song with shots of a sludge clogged Tokyo harbor. Things get stranger from here. It opens with an annoying kid and his dad going swimming. The kid's father's face is disfigured and the kid gets his hand burned off by a smog monster named Hedorah who spits acid balls and inhales the fumes off smokestalks. Things get even stranger from there. Theres a Save the Earth concert or something with this girl in spandex with stuff painting on singing, this lava lamp like thing on the wall (definitely hippies) and this teenager who gets drunk and starts halucinating and sees everyone with fish masks on (when I saw this the first time when I was six, couldn't get why everyone started wearing fish masks and why the teen seemed so disturbed about it) until Hedorah suddenly attacks after sucking up fumes. Well Godzilla comes and saves everybody and they start fighting really bizarrely (similar to the Saturday night wrestling scenes from King Kong vs. Godzilla. They wrestle and wrestle some more. Though released in 1971, this is very sixties. Director Yoshimitsu Banno blends mind twisting images, real scenes of Tokyo bay covered with sludge, the scenes with the hippies, disturbing scenes with dying babies on mutiple screens, gory scenes of Hedorah's victems being reduced to skeletons, scenes with the kid and his scientist father trying to figure out how to stop the monster, and scenes with a newscaster. This is very poetic, bizarre, beautiful, and sometimes extremely disturbing and has about the strongest anti pollution messages I've ever seen (Japan was polluted the most back then). This is one colorful film. P.S. I don't know how this film got a G rating with all the disturbing images in it.

When Dr. Yano (Akira Yamanouchi) investigates a strange tadpole like creature found near the coast, he and his son are soon attacked by a larger version of it that comes to be known as Hedorah. Hedorah is an alien monster who has fed off the various pollutants of the air and sea and is growing at an exponential rate with Godzilla soon appearing to fight against the creature.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (aka Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster) is a 1971 kaiju film and the eleventh installment in the Godzilla franchise. Inspired by growing concerns of Japan's issues with pollution at the time, the film marked the feature debut of Yoshimitsu Banno who opted to make the film with an environmental bent. Working with Treuyoshi Nakano on the special effects, the two attempted to make a film as ambitious as the reduced budget and tight filming schedule would allow as Godzilla movies continually saw themselves moving to lower tiers among Toho's production schedule. While Banno sought to make a children's film with environmental messaging, Nakano sought to make something with the impact of the 1954 Godzilla with the two often compromising where needed. Critical reception at the time was very mixed with some offering praise to the film for adding some weight back to the series after All Monsters Attack/Godzilla's Revenge, while others responded negatively with some claiming it one of the worst films in the series and even series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka would accuse Banno of having killed the series. At its core Godzilla vs. Hedorah is very experimental in its approach to the Godzilla formula and like any experiment there's some success and there's some failure.

Despite the movie prominently featuring a child character, in this case Ken Yano played by Hiroyuki Kawase, the movie mostly avoids the pitfalls that befall this character type such as those seen in the Gamera movies. The characters aren't given the greatest amount of depth but for what their place in the story is, they do it well enough. Conceptually speaking Hedorah has a good design being a shapeshifting mound of sludge who feeds on pollution and excretes poison and the movie offers some pretty horrific imagery (at least by the standards of this kind of movie) that even if you don't like this movie you at least have to give it credit for "going there". This is however where the problems arise because it feels like the movie's going in two directions trying to be a serious cautionary tale about the effects of environmental pollution but also trying to cater to that lighthearted sense of "fun" from entries like Destroy All Monsters. The Kaiju battles feel a lot slower this time around and often play towards emphasizing the collateral damage of Hedorah's sludge than the impact or choreography of the monsters, and the Kaiju battles often go on way longer than you want them to with numerous false stops only for the battle to keep going. The movie also takes a very "arm's length" approach to pollution with the primary focus being on the evil of the pollution itself rather than discussing the sources or human indifference that lead to it being there in the first place so it feels like it's only addressing half the issue.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah is the kind of movie I wish I liked more than I actually did. Despite working with the ever decreasing budgets that dogged this era of the franchise you can tell there was some desire for ambition and experimentation with the film even if it doesn't quite pay off. Definitely worth a viewing if only for curiosity's sake in some bold moves for this entry, but no guarantee they'll work for you.

"Godzilla vs. Hedorah" is probably my favorite Godzilla from the 1970s (the others being the one with Gigan in them, he RULES TOO!). There sure is alot going on in this crazy movie.

There are:

ACID TRIPS! Strange anime sequences! Really upbeat soundtrack and theme song (KAAAAAAAAISEN!)! Kids in hot pants! Ecology made fun! Haiku! Nightclubs! Hippies galore! Godzilla flying! Hedorah, the strange looking beast of Smog!

This film has everything a B-movie enthuaist wants!

Even though a lot of people hated Hedorah, but I don't. He is one of the most interesting looking and powerful foes in Godzilla's old days. He pretty much hacks up on Godzilla a lot, changes shape at will, plus, it FARTS out acid!

Anyways, watch "Godzilla vs. Hedorah"! You'll have a B-movie blast!

When the Godzilla series entered the 1970s, a retro and hippie feeling could be seen in this movie. This film starts off with a singer, played by Keiko Mari, singing a song titled "Save the Earth." Like 1964's Godzilla vs. Mothra, this film delivers a message of environmental danger. The story's about heavy pollution problems occurring in Japan. When an alien spore from outer space enters Earth and lands on a pile of toxic waste in the sea, a towering monster of sludge, crap, smog, and goo attacks Japan. This is the first Godzilla (Gojira) film in many years that depicts numerous human casualties. Scenes of humans deforming are a gruesome sight and echo elements in the original Gojira film. Like a viewer said, the fish tank scene is a similar scene of the fish tank in the original Gojira film.

The central character in this movie is a boy, played by Hiroyuki Kawase, who idolizes Godzilla. Godzilla, by this time, is portrayed as a "defender of Earth," rather than a destructive force. Mostly, there are no hints of fears from the people upon Godzilla's appearances. The line "Get'em Godzilla!" is a real charmer, making the monster look more and more like a hero and defender of Japan.

Yoshimitsu Banno did a good job directing and assembling the cast out, staging them in places like nightclubs, hills and amusement parks. The retro feel could be seen in the nightclub scene, where the singer sings the title song as blobs of retro paint move in a movie screen behind her. Also, the scene of the teenagers "celebrating" on a hill like a woodstock is also a retro feel.

Takeshi Kimura gave us a dark and scientific story, but some lighthearted scenes can be seen, like the scene where Godzilla flies (I think this is the only time we see Godzilla fly). Teruyoshi Nakano's special effects were believable; plenty of monster battles, albeit slow in some parts. Some of the problems I have with the monster battles is the part where Godzilla and Hedorah virtually move towards each other, staring at each other for several minutes. The movie's cinematography lacks a little spirit and color, making this movie look a little dull, and the overall momentum of the film was a little slow. And, this film lacks an effective music score. The music is not really harmonic or melodic and lacks charm to it. Riichiro Manabe composed a theme for Godzilla-a theme played by overblown trumpets. Though somewhat wacky, this theme sounds heroic for Godzilla.

Overall, a somewhat slow but an interesting Godzilla movie, returning you to the darker and more serious themes of the series.

Grade C+