San Daikaiju Chikyu Saidai no Kessen (1964)/Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1965), Part 1: Statistics and Background
Reverend Matt
Statistics
Japanese Title: San Daikaiju Chikyu Saidai no Kessen (“Three Giant Monsters – the Greatest Battle on Earth”)
Toho Studios’ Official English Title: Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
Other American Titles: Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster (original release)
Noteworthy International Titles: Alien Monster (British); Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Chikyu Saidai no Kessen (Japanese Champion Festival release, “Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: the Greatest Battle on Earth”)
Director: Ishiro Honda
Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka
Screenplay: Shinichi Sekizawa
Music: Akira Ifukube; “Shiawase Wo Yobou” (“Let’s Call for Happiness”) composed by Yasushi (Hiroshe?) Miyagawa, with lyrics by Tokiko Iwantani
Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya
Japanese Release: 12/20/64
American Release: 9/13/65, 9/29/65 or 9/30/65; reports vary
U.S. Distributor: Continental Distributing / Walter Reade-Sterling
Review Copy DVD Distributor: Classic Media
Running Time: 92 min./ 85 min. (American version)
Monsters: - Godzilla (Japanese: “Gojira”)
- Rodan (Japanese: “Radon,” a contraction of Pteranodon – PteRAnoDON – a sort of pterosaur) – A colossal, red-brown pterosaur, with a small, two-horned head and a spiky front
- Mothra (Japanese: “Mosura”) – One of the caterpillars, this time
- Ghidora (Japanese: “Gidora”; will later be called “King Ghidorah,” presumably after a coronation of some sort; also called “Ghidrah” and “King Ghidora”) – A huge, golden dragon, with three heads perched on the ends of long necks, a forked tail, and vast, fanlike wings
- The Shobijin (“tiny beauties” in Japanese)
Principal Cast: - Godzilla – Haruo Nakajima
- Rodan – Masaki Shinohara
- Mothra – Katsumi Tezuka
- Ghidorah – Shoichi “Solomon” Hirose (previously “King Kong” in King Kong vs. Godzilla)
- Shindo – Yosuke Natsuki
- Naoko Shindo – Yuriko Hoshi (previously “Junko Nakanishi” in Mothra vs. Godzilla)
- Professor Murai – Hiroshi Koizumi (previously “Tsukioka” in Gojira no Gyakushu, “Dr. Miura” in Mothra vs. Godzilla)
- Princess Maas Doulina Salno – Akiko Wakabayashi (previously “Tamiye,” a minor character in King Kong vs. Godzilla; known to American audiences as “Aki” from You Only Live Twice)
- Dr. Tsukamoto – Takashi Shimura (previously “Dr. Kyohei Yamane” in Gojira and Gojira no Gyakushu)
- Detective Okita – Akihiko Hirata (previously “Dr. Serizawa” in Gojira, “Mr. Shinagawa” in King Kong vs. Godzilla)
- Malness - Hisaya Ito
- The Shobijin – Emi and Yumi Ito
Now, now, don’t crowd around just because he’s new…
Background
The very astute reader, who has been paying very close attention – closer attention, perhaps, than is recommended – will have noticed that San Daikaiju Chikyu Saidai no Kessen (which we’ll call simply “Ghidorah” for convenience) was released in Japan the same year as the previous Godzilla film, Mothra vs. Godzilla. Just eight months later, in fact. Said hyper-attentive reader might also have noticed that this film has pretty much exactly the same production crew, and even some of the same cast, as its predecessor. “Wow,” such a reader might have thought, “busy year for them.” Well, reader, you don’t know the half of it.
In between these two Godzilla pictures, Tanaka, Honda, and the whole gang made yet another sci-fi pic, Uchu Daikaiju Dogora, known in the U.S. as Dagora, the Space Monster. Toho was going with a sort of scorched-earth policy with the giant monster movies right about then, putting out as many as possible, minimizing the risks involved in moviemaking by aiming for a large number of minor hits, rather than seeking rare major ones. And so Honda and his people made different movies, simultaneously. It presumably helped that the Japanese film industry was, shall we say, authoritarian, at least by Hollywood standards. Honda and his people were told to churn out product, and by God they did so.
Mr. Tanaka! The publicity art department’s off its meds again!
Ghidorah itself. Here, as in King Kong vs. Godzilla, Honda was told to lighten the tone, to make the film more ‘kid-friendly.’ Kong had made a good deal more money than the more-serious Mothra vs. Godzilla, and so the studio decided that zany was the way to go. And as in Kong, Honda didn’t like it, but he did it anyway. (It should be noted that certain of his colleagues – notably screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa and effects-master Eiji Tsuburaya – were all for this change in tone, however.)
So. A hastily-made movie, with very heavy studio interference. A recipe for failure, right? Wrong - Ghidorah is one of the very best films of the Showa period. In spite of the odds.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Awesome poster.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
So was Honda like the Roger Corman of Japan?
July 16th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Hey, Rev. Your NAME is in the MOVIE TITLE! Did you squeal like a little girl the first time you saw that?
July 17th, 2007 at 7:03 am
I did gape wide, yes! I’m in a couple of other Godzilla titles, too! (”Kessen” means roughly “battle” in Japanese.)
Tyrell: I don’t know much about Corman, but part of my point here is that Honda did as he was told by the studio system, in spite of his own opinions. Which is the opposite of Corman, yes? He did churn out the product, true, but I don’t think that’s too uncommon in Asian cinema. Craig?
July 17th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I was more referencing his ability to make movies in a quick fashion, not to the quality of those films or influence by the studio. Using the same sets, production crews and cast was also common move by him.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Ah! Very good, then. As I say, I don’t know much about Corman.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
There are, to be sure, high levels of productivity in each of the major Asian film centers. Japan is usually one of the slower countries (relatively speaking), but the trend of having a single production crew working on two or three films at once was common in Hong Kong, and in Taiwan there are actors who averaged 70 films per year for a decade. I have a few flicks by a terrific Taiwanese director, Lee Tso Nam, and in one of them, the last sequence suddenly, inexplicably, takes place in a totally new set with a psychedelic sunset matte painting in the background. Later, I found another film where there are several scenes filmed on the same sound stage with the same painting in the back. Looks like Lee got a bit harried, and had to tear down one of his sets to make way for another, but still needed to shoot the climactic battle for the first film. In Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea, some really interesting skill sets evolved from the time pressures. Directors were expected to keep shot lists in their heads (often for multiple simultaneous productions, or for five or six episodes of a TV series), and cinematographers and set dressers were often expected to quickly recreate the feel of an environment that was in use a few days ago in order to grab a pick-up shot. (See Moon Warriors, and note that practically every shot of Maggie Cheung was a pick-up shot; she was almost never on set while the other actors were working.) There was also the legendary “in-camera” editing. In Hollywood, directors often cover a scene with two or three cameras for long shots, close-ups, or over-the-shoulder shots of dialog. The alternative is to play the scene several times, at least one take for each camera position. In East Asia, one camera operator would jump around between all of the different angles, and the actors would have to freeze between shots. If anything was out of focus, there was no backup angle to revert to. I regret that I don’t know to what extent any of these techniques carried over to Japan. Kurosawa was infamous in the business for taking as long as he needed to get the shots he wanted, but I gather he was very much an exception. Likewise, Jackie Chan would have been truly notorious for dispensing with the notion of “on schedule” during his early directorial efforts, had they not all been huge box office hits.
Still, I have mad respect for a crew that can turn up the tempo on a monster movie. Setting up even a single effect shot with a couple of actors in suits, dozens of models, flames… It could easily stretch to a full day. Watch the “making of” features for Matrix or LotR to get an idea how long a contemporary studio takes to put together their big effects sequences. Expectations have risen, but they also have years of experience and far more advanced technologies to rely upon.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Uh, sorry if I’m a bit long-winded.