Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

A Godzilla film that steps outside the series' usual pattern. Japan suffered an attack fifty years ago. It has been quiet since, and the defence forces assume nothing like it will happen again. Then strange incidents begin. A tunnel collapses, something is seen in a lake, and bodies are found on a mountain. Yuri works for a military television channel. She makes cheap programmes about the supernatural and her father is an admiral in the defence forces. An old man explains. According to him three sacred guardians sleep in this land and can be woken against the danger coming. From there the film is a story of defence. The three creatures wake in turn and stand in front of Godzilla. The film's real difference lies in what Godzilla is. In this account the creature is not an animal born of radiation; it is described as the anger of those who died in the Pacific war, and its eyes are drawn entirely white. That reading takes the series somewhere political. The creature punishes the country for forgetting its past, and the film says so openly. King Ghidorah changes places too. The series' best known villain is on the guardian side here for the first time. The effects rest on suits and models. Computers are used only in support and the destruction scenes were shot with city models built by hand. Chiharu Niiyama, Ryudo Uzaki and Masahiro Kobayashi are in the cast. Shusuke Kaneko directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes classical Japanese monster films and model effects. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the narrative rests on a supernatural explanation and the human line is weak.