Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)

The 1970s were not too kind to Godzilla.  Although still quite silly in parts, the series got off to an interesting start in 1971 with Godzilla vs. Hedorah, causing the producer in charge of the series - and Toho in general - to clamp down on doing just about anything.  That anything, to the disappointment of special effects artist Teruyoshi Nakano, included pretty much doing any new effects.  Godzilla vs. Gigan relied heavily on stock footage from previous films, and everything except the finale of Godzilla vs. Megalon and the sequences with Jet Jaguar was recycled footage.  

The attitude was that the movie series was now for kids and, because neither kids nor adults were going out to see Godzilla films anymore, no one would care anyway.  Still, the big guy's 20th anniversary was coming up, so Toho figured it ought to do something different and, much to Nakano's delight as well as the audiences that had stuck around, they did.  Kind of. 

While observing an Okinawan ceremony by Nami Kunigami (Bellbella Lin), the last surviving member of the Azumi royal family, Keisuke Shimizo (Masaaki Daimon) is shocked to see the woman go into fits and start screaming about monsters.  While exploring a local cave system he finds strange drawings and an idol of what appears to be the Azumi family's guardian.  Archaeologist Saeko Kanagusuku (Reiko Tajima) is called in to translate, and it turns out to be a prophecy about a monster that will try to destroy mainland Japan, only to be thwarted by two guardians that will save the planet. 

While traveling back to Tokyo Saeko meets Keisuke's brother Masahiko (Kazuyo Aoyami), whose uncle just happens to be Professor Hideto Miyajima (Akihiko Hirata), the man Saeko is working with.  When part of the prophecy is revealed, Godzilla erupts from a mountain and, to everyone's surprise, is attacked by his friend Anguirus (Kinichi Kusumi).  The reason soon becomes apparent when the real Godzilla (Isao Zushi) shows up, and the imposter is revealed to be a cyborg dubbed Mechagodzilla (Ise Mori).  Mechagodzilla is controlled by a race of aliens led by their Supreme Leader (Gorô Mutsumi) that intend to conquer the earth.  As the other parts of the prophecy fulfill themselves the creature in the idol, King Caesar (Kusumi), is called upon to help Godzilla fight this latest threat to humanity.

Although a few explosions and an incongruous scene of King Ghidorah (who does not appear in this movie) were recycled from Godzilla vs. Gigan, the majority of the effects in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla are new.  Director Jun Fukuda, in his last time working on the series, was given a decent budget, and it shows, largely in the design for Mechagodzilla.  The suit looks great, and the cyborg version of Godzilla comes with rainbow rays shooting from the eyes, fire breath, lightning from the chest and missiles shooting from his fingers and knees.  He can also fly due to rockets in his feet.  Despite some of the effects looking a bit cartoonish, this is how a giant robot is done right rather than something like Jet Jaguar.  

Anguirus still looks good and, though it was an interesting concept making King Caesar a specifically Asian guardian monster, based on the lion-dog statues, the design is terrible.  It doesn't help that, despite being introduced by a long sequence of Nami singing a song to awaken him, he doesn't do much.  He has some mirroring powers that work well in the beginning, but then he proceeds to get the snot kicked out of him until Godzilla shows up.  The good news is the new suit doesn't look as ragged as the ones from the previous two films, but Godzilla's dorsal frills look like giant glossy throw pillows. 

This movie also suffers from a problem that a lot of later Godzilla films have, which is a lack of the main monster.  I think it gets overlooked due to how great Mechagodzilla's design is and the fact that the two battles the main monsters have are worth it, as is Godzilla recharging his own batteries after his first fight with the cyborg.  This also tries to be a more serious attempt to attract the audience the more kid-friendly versions of the films left behind, featuring a lot more violence, including those famous Japanese blood sprays.  

As for the rest, this story is heavily focused on the conflict between our human heroes and the aliens.  Like most of Fukuda's entries what should be a simple story sometimes gets a bit hard to follow because of choppy editing, and this time around he was more integral in writing the script.  The aliens are once again weak, and it is disappointing to be going over this same plot for what is the fourth time, but this time around there seems to have a James Bond influence.  This is reflected in the involvement of two Interpol agents, Nanbara (Shin Kisida) and Tamura (Takayasu Torii), who aid our main characters, as well as one of those unnecessarily slow and complicated death contraptions the aliens try to use.

There are a lot of fans that consider this to be up there with the original Godzilla as one of the best in the series.  I disagree because, even in its original Japanese version, there is too much of what spoiled the later movies still hanging around.  The effects may be great, Mechagodzilla may be one of the best foes the big lizard goes up against, but there are still unnecessary musical numbers as well as a lot of lazy writing.  Though the effects were not reused this time around too many of the ideas were and, once again, Godzilla is conspicuous in his continued absence in the films that bear his name. 

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)

Time: 84 minutes

Starring: Masaaki Daimon, Kazuya Aoyama, Reiko Tajima, Akihiko Hirata, Gorô Mutsumi, Isao Zushi, Ise Mori, Kinichi Kusumi

Director: Jun Fukuda