The War of the Gargantuas (1966)

[Cimmerian Dragon]

The song is pretty bad but it's an enjoyable kind of bad. Ya dig?

It's just perfect for a wanna-be Westernized club in the swingin' sixties.

[Goji]

Wasn't singer Kip Hamilton a friend of Henry G. Saperstein? I can't recall where I heard that, but that could have something to do with the "pointless" singing number seeming so forced.

Man, it's times like these I really wish we had gotten commentaries on the WOTG/RODAN set..at least Bringing Godzilla Down To Size basically made up for it.

[GotengoXGodzilla]

Wasn't singer Kip Hamilton a friend of Henry G. Saperstein? I can't recall where I heard that, but that could have something to do with the "pointless" singing number seeming so forced.

Man, it's times like these I really wish we had gotten commentaries on the WOTG/RODAN set..at least Bringing Godzilla Down To Size basically made up for it.

Oh, I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for why that song is in there. Maybe by doing it, some company in America promised to give Honda more money to make the film. I don't know for sure, but I bet it's something like that.

However, that doesn't excuse how badly it was incorporated into the film. One thing they could have done is have the romantic leads share a beautiful moment together while that song was going on. Or, they could have had the main cast of characters discuss how Gaira might be the monster that they helped create, and therefore their own fault. These are just things I'm coming up with off the top of my head.

If that song had to be in the film, that's fine. But the sign of good filmmaker is taking things, like a forced song that has almost nothing to do with the film or story, and using it to your advantage. But, they don't do that here, which is why I find the song so utterly destructive to the film.

[Cimmerian Dragon]

^ Of course, one thing I really love about, say, 40s crime films is that any trip to a nightclub was an excuse for an otherwise irrelevent musical number. I absolutely love that.

Of course, the singers were typically a hell of a lot better than this.

[Bentley]

Great film, throughly enjoyable. They need to remake this with someone competent at the helm, this really stands as what good classic kaiju films can be.

Of course, there are the issues already mentioned before me, but they can be worked on in the sequel

[Tohosaurus]

Love this movie. One of my favorite Toho monster movies. It's different than a lot of other ones.

[dustman]

finally just watched this movie and i absolutely loved it! now one of my top favorite kaiju films.

[ScootaVaran]

As a little kid this movie scared the crap out of me. The first Toho monster that made a effort to eat humans.
Now that i'm older I really love this movie.

[Giga Kaiju]

I just watched it a couple of days ago and i have to say that is one of the best Kaiju movies of the Showa series, (and i havent watch the prequel but i think that is better for some reason but i later try to) i liked the interactions between Gaira and Sanda
also with some of the humans. The acting...well it wasnt perfect but i didnt get bored of it, it was ok.
Ps. The scene of Gaira underwater before killing the fisherman...

[Kaiju-King42]

I like this movie a lot. It just clicks with me. I can't really explain why...the words get stuck in my throat.

[Giga Kaiju]

^ I see what u did there...

In all seriousness when i watched that scene it was bad, i dont know the difference of the Japanese and American version
of the song but it sounded so bad is good.

[menschenjaeger]

Kip was terrible. I loved her.

To me, the ending is the ONLY real problem, and not a big one. They both had to die, for the sake of the narrative.

I showed it to a friend in college, and once when Gaira roared, he asked "Did...he just say the brown word?" That pretty much destroyed me for ten minutes.

[kaiju115]

Even though War of the Gargantuas is not one Toho's better movies, & theres some moments that don't help the film at like that woman sing that awful song "words get stuck in my throat" ugh, I like it for what it is. Not as good as Frankenstein vs Baragon, but still fun to watch.

[Goji]

You lost me after that first sentence. This is one of Toho's most beloved monster films outside of the Godzilla series.

The more you know...*ding*

[Captain Aktion]

Haha, I had this DVD on loop for around 12 hours last night and this morning...needless to say, I love this movie.

[menschenjaeger]

Am I the only one who doesn't think Russ gave a horrible performance? He played his character as kind of a dick, but...it was a believable performance if that's what he was shooting for.

After finally seeing the Japanese version, I can say that the interchangeability of the names "Gargantua" and "Frankenstein" got kind of frustrating, making the Japanese version more confusing in the backstory dept (Sanda was supposed to be something that originally grew from Frankenstein's cells and they were studying him in the lab but he escaped? Or were liberties being taken with the ending of the original movie, and Sanda was what Frankenstein became after a while? Maybe I got distracted while making popcorn...)

[edgaguirus]

Gargantuas is thought of as a sequel to Frankenstein conquers the world. While working as seperate films, it's implied by the film that Sanda is related to Frankenstein.

[obsidian1200]

Gargantuas is thought of as a sequel to Frankenstein conquers the world. While working as seperate films, it's implied by the film that Sanda is related to Frankenstein.

Actually, the film implies both gargantuas, Sanda and Gaira, are related to Frankenstein, if not remnants of Frankenstein himself. It's implied that Gaira and Sanda came from genetic parts of Frankenstein that replicated and reproduced on their own, kind of like the heart from the beginning of FCTW, except there were multiple fragments in War of the Gargantuas. And I think the relationship between the three monsters makes quite a bit of sense. Consider the alternate ending to FCTW and the opening scene from WoG. How perfect is it that Gaira fights off a giant octopus in his first appearance? It's almost poetic to a point, like Gaira is getting revenge for what happened to Frankenstein in that alternate ending. Plus, in that scene, there's a lot of cuts to lightning in the sky, which I think might be referencing the lightning that gave the original Frankenstein monster life. But I could be reading a bit much into that

Anyway, on the topic of the thread, I really enjoy this film. The story was pretty good, but it did drag in certain scenes. The special effects were very good, and the set details were impressive. The monster interactions and fights were fun to watch, and I don't recall disliking any specific scenes aside from the "stuck in my throat" part, but I got on the edge of my seat when things went blue screen. But I think that scene would've been fine if the singer in the dubbed version wasn't so horrid.

[Cimmerian Dragon]

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Brad Pitt speak about seeing War of the Gargantuas as a child during the Academy Award broadcast. Pretty cool, and certainly an unexpected mention.

[menschenjaeger]

Expect a slight boost in DVD/Netflix sales.