Godzilla Vs. Hedorah
What the hell did I just watch?
(I ask that question frequently as I perform my revieweress duties for Horrorview, but I never expected to say it about a Godzilla movie. See, I grew up watching Japanese monster movies on the local TV station’s “Monster Rally” show every weekend so I fully accept that giant turtles can fly while spinning like one of those ground blooming flowers you get in your fireworks box set, or that international government agencies will immediately defer to the wisdom of short-pantsed boys named Ken. I can take the normal insanity of a Godzilla movie in stride. But this movie is a whole new level of wackadoo.)
I ask again: What the hell did I just watch?
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (or as it’s known in America, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster) is a truly odd Godzilla film, and that’s apparent from the opening credits: As oh-so-trippy psychedelic oil lights flash and the theme song "Kaese! Taiyô wo" – it WILL get stuck in your head and there’s nothing you can do about it – plays, we watch scenes of sludgy, filth-covered water. In one rather effective shot, and the first of many uneasily creepy moments, the sludge contains a broken mannequin that at first glance resembles a corpse. And I hope you like those scenes of the creeping pollution, because you’ll see more of them. A lot more.
We meet up with our standard little kid Ken and his scientist Dad, fretful Mom, and some guy who hangs around with them and whose relationship to the family isn’t entirely clear. Anyway, soon a grizzled old fisherman brings a strange tadpole to scientist Dad to examine, and sooner than you can say, “Prophecy totally ripped off this story angle” it’s clear that the tadpole is one of a new kind of monster that’s created from and lives off pollution.
Soon the monster, dubbed Hedorah by Ken, is giving anyone who touches it an acid burn, sending toxic sludge into a nightclub, and climbing up on top of a factory to suck on the smokestacks and breathe in the fumes. He also starts flying around and spraying sulfuric acid in his wake, causing people to have reactions ranging from coughing fits to dissolving away to a skeleton in mere seconds. Yikes. That guy who hangs around with Ken’s family thinks the answer is to hold a rave on Mount Fuji (no, really) but Ken knows what’s really needed is for Godzilla to show up and kick some butt.
The plot as described above is only slightly nuttier than many other Godzilla movies. But what puts Godzilla vs. Hedorah into its own weird area is its combination of obvious sincerity and batshit lunacy. The latter is demonstrated in many ways.
There’s the wildly inconsistent tone, which veers from typical Godzilla kiddie fare to preachy message movie to horror film. There are the baffling artistic decisions: Who can explain the odd little animated sequences that pop up in the film’s first two thirds? (They’re like Gerald Scarfe’s animation segments for Pink Floyd The Wall except that they’re not good.) What about that nightclub hallucination sequence, in which the guy who hangs around with Ken’s family imagines that all the people in the club have fish heads? What’s with the bit with all the TVs (including yet another disturbing image, this one of a crying baby up to its neck in sludge), and with the use of Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa at the ending (just before blatant bid for a sequel)? And who decided to have the music for the film be so wildly inappropriate? Godzilla in particular gets a bizarre theme that’s heavy on the horns and sounds like a drunken burlesque band trying to play a Spaghetti Western tune.
Speaking of Godzilla, this movie isn’t the big guy’s finest hour. This was into his “big cuddly” phase when he’d show up to bail out mankind’s (or at least Japan’s) ass from various threats. (Note to self: Get to work on scholarly treatise of Godzilla’s character arc from vicious monster to friendly big lizard.) His first smackdown with Hedorah is indecisive; his second takes place mostly on a barren plain, at night, with no buildings to knock over or set fire to. In a departure from established form, the monsters spend relatively little time with fisticuffs and a lot of time staring each other down, doing odd little sidesteps and hand gestures. Oh, and Godzilla demonstrates a newfound talent. He can use his atomic breath as a sort of jet engine and fly through the air. I’m not making any of this up.
I suppose I have to give props to screenwriter and director Yoshimitsu Banno for trying to do something outside the box. It’s clear he’s very sincere about the film’s ecological message, and the film does look very polished for a Godzilla film. Unfortunately, “different” does not always equal “good” and Godzilla vs. Hedorah isn’t a good movie.
All the tonal and artistic flaws mentioned above are combined with the inherent silliness of a giant monster movie, giving the film the overall quality of a fever dream. But what really does the movie in is its reliance on gruesome imagery – not bad in itself but sufficiently out of character with other Godzilla films to make the viewing experience uncomfortable. It’s too juvenile to be taken seriously and too dark and creepy to be fare for children. Parents take note of the high onscreen body count and numerous scenes of people being reduced to skeletons by Hedorah’s acid. I won’t let my six-year-old watch it, and he’s been watching other Godzilla movies for years now.
Still, I’ve got a soft spot for interesting failures, and Godzilla vs. Hedorah definitely qualifies. It’s worth a view if you’re a fan of the genre, if only to see its nutty peak/nadir.
The DVD offers both the English and Japanese dubs; extras are limited to trailers. Frankly, it being the redheaded stepchild of Godzilla movies (producer Tomoyuki Tanaka reportedly despised the film and Banno has had only one directorial job since), I’m surprised it’s on DVD at all.
Oh, man...I'm still laughing like hell. This is one I'm CERTAIN Big McLargehuge will weigh in on. LOL!! Nice review, S.B.!
That just sounds amazingly insane! Loved the review!
Go on then, as an (almost) self-professed Godzilla expert: As someone who has never watched a single Godzilla movie which should I see first and where should I go from there?
Godzilla vs. Hedora (1971)
These films showcase three directors and three completely different approaches to the Godzilla series. So let’s begin at the beginning with Godzilla vs. Hedora, the only Godzilla film directed by Yoshimitsu Banno and were it not for a single scene, probably the best of the post 1965 Godzilla movies (more on that later).
Yoshimitsu Banno understood the pulse of youth. He draws influences from the film Woodstock and a growing Japanese environmentalist movement, and spices what could have been a standard issue monster slug-a-thon with go-go dancing, psychedelic rock music, bizarre imagery, animation, and a dark foreboding pessimism regarding youth’s power to change a damn thing.
When the pollution, rampant in Japan following the reconstruction and post-war industrialization, spawns a giant pollution-eating, sulphuric-acid-spewing monstrosity only Godzilla has the power to stop.
Dr. Tano, is a marine biologist. During a dive where he’s studying the effects of pollution on Sagami Bay a giant tadpole monster attacks him. His face and arm is badly burned. Before he can get the government involved the creature makes landfall and begins sucking nourishment from factory smokestacks.
Ken Tano, like most young boys in Godzilla movies, is fascinated by Godzilla and insists that the monster will come to Tokyo to dispatch the creature from Sagami Bay. He also hopes that Godzilla will destroy the pollution in the bay as well, and dreams of Godzilla setting the water alight with his atomic breath. Ken has a limited understanding of the issues that relate to pollution. He isn’t old enough to remember the reconstruction and sees the world like pretty much any ten-year-old would he doesn’t understand that the pollution is a byproduct of Japan’s progress, while his father does.
Yukio Kiuci is older than Ken, 19 years old maybe, and like so many of the 1970’s generation is full up with youth power and change-the-world vim. His girlfriend Miki is his female equivalent, and when not spending time with Dr. Tano and Ken, entertain themselves by hanging out in a go-go dancing club. Their signature song is “Save the Earth”.
Yukio’s solution to the pollution problem is to hold a million-teen dance on Mt. Fuji. Like the end of activism in the United States, when the hippy movement devolved into stoner laziness and a convenient excuse for free love, Yukio’s energies are astoundingly naïve. Illustrating the futility of dancing as social change, only 100 or so kids show up to their mountainside rave, and punctuating it, Hedora kills all but a handful of them.
Once Dr. Tano discovers Hedora’s weakness the military sets about creating the electrical discharge machine needed to kill him.
But, and here’s the really cool bit, the human characters demonstrate the sea-change in how different generations deal with big issues.
Dr. Tano represents the old school of hard work and deep thought to solve a problem, Yukio represents unfocused energy, and Ken represents idealistic innocence. The dynamic of these three characters shows a level of detail missing from all preceding and following Godzilla films.
Banno, who cowrote the screenplay, uses a myriad of techniques to separate this Godzilla from those that came before. He shoots a whole lot of it at night, in part to obscure the budgetary restraints, but also to increase the sense of doom and foreboding present in the original 1954 Gojira. But that’s where his similarity to Ishiro Honda ends. Banno embraces the avant-garde and uses psychedelic animation to move the story along, and a wonderful multiple screen sequence to show the debate over how to deal with the monsters. There’s also a whacked-out scene where Yukio has hallucinations of everyone in the go-go club dancing around with fish heads in place of their actual heads. It’s trippy and weird and I love it.
Another interesting aspect of Banno’s film is the constantly increasing body count, AND the fact that his main characters are injured during the Godzilla battles. He doesn’t hint at death either. We see it when Hedora sprays his sulphuric exhaust all over a schoolyard or flies through a half-erected building. But it’s better when he shits on people. Yes, Hedora shits and it’s nasty acidic sludge. We get to see a baby half submerged in the stuff, a kitten covered it in, and a whole field of hippies sent to the Spirit in the Sky courtesy of Hedorah shit. This inclusion of the human toll amplifies the dark tone of the film too, and really raises it above the others.
Yoshimitsu Banno will always be remembered as the man who made Godzilla fly, and a recent interview with G-Fan Magazine reveals that he asked Tomoyuki Tanaka whether or not to shoot the scene as written. Tanaka was hospitalized at the time and didn’t answer. He shot it, Godzilla flew, and Yoshimitsu Banno was cast away from the franchise.
It’s a shame that history remembers this film so poorly because the message that it takes more than dancing and radioactive monsters to reduce pollution is a good one and still applies today. Also, Banno’s style behind the camera would have added so much more life to the films that followed.
The special effects in Godzilla vs Hedora are on par with the films of the 60s. They had a new Godzilla costume for this one and it’s a little more cartoony but doesn’t have the Cookie-Monster look of the suit in the two films following this one.
Another great touch is the use of Riichiro Manabe’s score. Aside from the annoying “Save the Earth” song the rest of the music has a wonderful jazzy theme that defies the established franchise tunes and themes so beloved by fans. Still, Manabe’s score with its lilting horns and electric guitar really gives the film a new and fresh feel.
Godzilla vs. Hedora is definitely worth rediscovering.
Big, we could have a Siskel & Ebert type quibble about the movie. Perhaps Head Cheeze can do a videocast or something?
The film wasn't boring, i'll give it that. I've never seen anything quite like it, so I definitely give it props for trying to be different. Oh hell, now that theme song is stuck in my head. Again.
put people in 'monster' movies?
Godzilla vs the Smog Monster suffers from many of the flaws that other films in the franchise suffer from. Scenese that attempt to be 'relevant' to the times--a few years too late! An example of this in "Godzilla Final Wars" is the Matrix style motorcycle fight. No one wanted this sequence that reminds the audience of better movies. Anyone who has ever hummed along to 'March of the Monsters' was bothered that they used special effects budget on this instead of monsters vs monsters.
Hedorah is a metaphor for pollution and consequence, just as Godzilla is a metaphor for nuclear power--and consequence. In the sixties there was hope for the promise of nuclear power for more them bombs, thus Godzilla had became a more heroic figure. Pollution, long ignored but now in a forefront, was a looming byproduct of reindustrialized japan. However, I suspect the entire 'Godzilla needs to be heroic' was a veiled effort to sell nuclear power to the Japanese, and therefore the world.
The dual of the metaphors is very entertaining. Godzilla really seems challenged here, he even loses an eye! Although it grows back eventually. Hedorah is a versatile opponent, shape changing, flying, launching explosive pods, and spraying toxic acid that devastates the fleeing crowds. Yes, the parts of this movie best ignored are vast--but this is generally true for all films in the franchise. This is one of Godzilla's better 'duel' movies.
I am genuinely sorry that Hedorah does not reccur in the franchise. The scenes where he flys over crowds who are fleeing the carnage (a genre staple) are unique here, the masses fall down and die due to the toxic spray that is Hedorah's thrust. Very intense for the kids in the audience, this scared me when I was small a long time ago.
And Hedorah hates hippies. All you have to do to get Hedorah to show up and attack, is sing the annoying 'save the earth' song. Some monters it's harvest fish. One Godzilla is drawn to nuclear power plants at full production.
Hedorah goes after hippy extremists. Gotta love it.
Then there'd be no Renaissance Fairres, Burning Man, stinky patchouli wearing trust-fund babies art shows, or Phish concerts as they'd be outlawed on the basis that they attract giant monsters, thus forcing the hippies to exist underground, once again making public parks and downtown streets hippie-free for the rest of us.
Watch Carnosaur. Great scene in which the Carnosaur chows down on some Earth First types who've chained themselves to construction equipment.
I haven't seen that film in ages. Such horribly executed fun! :P
Watch Raptor, which is also extensively reviewed in the Hall of Shame (nudge nudge), and that contains all of the best (and some of the worst) scenes from Carnosaur and it's associated sequels.
...and I think that's enough!! LOL. Although, for those who haven't seen either, a "greatest hits" compo like Raptor serves its purpose nicely! :P