Author: ma/anitama Cover Source: Son of Godzilla
On December 21, 1966, toei Tokyo Photography produced the film Golden Bat (金バット), toei Kyoto Photography produced the movie Armageddon (Strange Dragon Showdown), and Toei released two feature films in one go. "Dragon Armageddon" and the 1955 film "Ninjutsu Reiya" (Ninjutsu Reiya) adopted the famous allusion of the Japanese historical drama Ray Ya (Shiraiya) to make the film theme, but added large monsters and city destruction scenes into a monster movie full of big scenes. At the same time, 1966's "Strange Dragon Armageddon" and 1955's "Ninjutsu Reiya" are both based on the Edo period as a background story, and are also the follow-up to the historical story combined with monster close-up films favored in Japan at that time.
Poster of The Golden Bat.
On March 15, 1967, Daiei Tokyo Photography produced the film "The Great Monster Air Battle Gamera vs. The Chaos Bird" (大魔獣空戦 ガメラ対ギャオス), which also began with this film, in which Gamera incarnated as a companion of human children. The enemy monster Chaos Bird attacks Gamera with an ultrasonic knife, and the scene where Gamera is beaten and bruised with blood and flesh is very realistic, while on the other hand, the picture of the car being cut in half is very funny. Following the tactical performance of the Self-Defense Forces in the previous film "Gamera vs. Baru gang", the self-defense forces in this game implemented a rotary combat method, which became a unique point of view for human troops to maneuver with monsters. Aikis Productions, which made Chaos Bird, later produced original monster holsters for other feature films.
During this "first monster boom", Keiji Kawakami, the stunt director of Marutani Productions, and Akira Watanabe, the stunt artist of Toho Films, resigned to establish The Japan Special-Action Film Co., Ltd. The emergence of this company has helped major film companies to complete a variety of close-up films. On March 25, 1967, even Shochiku Film released the monster movie "Cosmic Monster Kirara" (Cosmic Monster Monster Kirara), which was assisted by the Japanese special film company in terms of close-up technology, with Keiji Kawakami as the film's close-up director. The production staff of this film also adopted a juxtaposition of two lines appearing at the same time as the director and the close-up director, and the status of the special director was further recognized. The film also has a lot of plots that depict the universe, which can be regarded as not a simple monster close-up movie, but a science fiction movie with a complete grand world view.
Poster of Kirara the Great Monster of the Universe.
On April 5, 1967, a color television special shot of Toei Kyoto Photography, "Kamen Ninja Aka shadow" (仮面の忍虎影), began screening, and the theme of hero close-up was adopted like Ultraman. At the same time, the broadcast of "Ultraman" ended, although the Tokyo Broadcasting System hoped that "Ultraman" could continue the story, but the production schedule of Round Valley production could not catch up with the screening, and finally had to usher in the finale. On April 16, 1967, as a close-up to Ultraman and the third in the Otter series, Toei Tokyo Photography's Cosmic Close-Up Series Space Adventures (Cosmic Specials) began airing. The film is set in the universe and is directed by Nobuo Yajima and Sadao Uemura. On July 22, The movie "King Kong Escape" (キングコングの逆襲), which celebrated the 35th anniversary of Toho Films, was released, and the TV version of "The Long Monster Movie Ultraman" was released. Eiji Marutani created King Kong Escape with reverence for the American film King Kong, in which the battle between King Kong and the primitive dinosaur (ゴロザウルス) is a tribute to the classic scene of King Kong. On the other hand, the Ultraman film version is also in the context of the mainstream of black-and-white television, the return of color TV close-ups that children eagerly await on the movie screen.
King Kong Escape poster.
On October 1, 1967, the fourth installment of the Otter series, "Seven Ultraman" (ウルトラセブン), which focuses on the story of alien aggression against Earth, the monster in "Seven Ultraman" is no longer a wild creature in nature, but a puppet created and manipulated by the cosmonauts to invade the earth. Based on the background setting of "the war of aggression between the planets is constantly intensifying, and the earth is invaded by various aliens", the film appears as a worldwide anti-alien invasion military organization, similar to the nature of the Earth Defense Force, and the "Otter Guard" where the main characters in the film are located is a special combat unit inside the Earth Defense Force. In addition, there are spy battles with enemy aliens in the film, making the story more military, and the dramatic content of each episode makes The story of Seven Ultraman more fascinating than the original. On October 2, Tokyu's subsidiary and p production jointly produced the TV special film "The Monster Prince", and the special director of this film was displayed separately on the subtitles of the production lineup, which was the first time in history that the special director with exclusive subtitles was raised. On October 11, Toei Tokyo Photography's "Iron Armor Man" (ジャイアントロボ) was released, which is a close-up version of a classic manga by Mitsuki Yokoyama, with Nobuo Yajima as the special director of the film.
The Prince of Monsters poster.
On December 16, 1967, as the finale of the first monster boom, Toho Film launched "Monster Island Showdown Godzilla's Son", and director Arikawa also officially served as the stunt director of this game. Echoing the title of the game, the character Of Godzilla's son, Mini Ra (ミニラ), appears in the film. Since the story of "The Great Duel in the South China Sea", Godzilla has long lived on an isolated island in the South China Sea, and Godzilla began to settle down in an environment far away from humans. Although "Monster Island" appears in the title of the film, the setting of Monster Island, which actually exists with various monsters at the same time, appeared in the later Monsters Total Attack (Monster Total Attack) (Monster Total Attack) and Godzilla vs. Gaigang (ゴジラㄆガアガン), and Godzilla vs. Megalo (ゴジラ対メガロ). Godzilla in this game is still an anthropomorphic character, Godzilla who plays like a father, and mini-la who plays jump rope with Godzilla's tail all add a humane and warm color to this film.
In order to solve the food crisis in the film, the research team with Dr. Nanmi Tsunezo as the core used synthetic radiation energy detectors to conduct experiments on the International Joint Meteorological Control Program. Reporter Zhencheng pretended to be a member of the experiment and mixed into the research team to spy on the truth of the experiment. In the official experiment, it was disturbed by mysterious radio waves, the radio energy detector failed to launch, the temperature of the island rose abnormally, and the praying mantis that lived on the island mutated into the monster Jamakiras. Transformed into a monster, Gama kiras accidentally finds a huge egg, and it is Godzilla's son, Mini-Ra, who hatches out of the egg, and just as Gama Kira attacks Mini-Ra, Godzilla appears to guard Mini-Ra. What caused the failure of the radiation detector experiment was the telepathic radio wave that Mini-La summoned Godzilla. The laboratory is destroyed, Dr. Nammi also escapes to a cave on the island to survive, and the other side of the reporter, Masamune Goro, meets the mysterious beautiful girl Sayiko on the seashore. Sayako and Mini-Ra have a very close relationship, and also use the island's "Red Swamp" water to cure the team members of the strange fever. The experimental team recovering from the crisis is obsessed with conducting a second radioactivity experiment, while The father and son of Gama Kira and Godzilla Minira are in a fierce conflict, and the spiders on the island suddenly awaken and attack the caves of the institute, forcing humans into a desperate situation. Humans finally had to count on weather control to freeze the island and let all the monsters hibernate to escape once and for all. Finally, the second launch of the radioactive energy detector was successfully launched, freezing the climate of the island, watching the snow cover the island, humanity can finally escape the crisis on the island, and Godzilla father and son gradually went from people's sight to hibernation.
Monster Island Showdown Son of Godzilla poster.
Mini-Ra, who appeared as the son of Godzilla, also brought up a new topic of discussion about whether Godzilla is male or female. At the beginning of the film's publicity, in fact, the words "Daddy Godzilla" have been indicated, and the director of this film, Jun Fukuda, also mentioned in the interview that "Godzilla of this film is male". At that time, Masamasa Arikawa also mentioned in the back of the film that as a second-generation stunt director, he thought of the setting of Godzilla's son when shooting godzilla and put it into proposal. The last snow on the island in the film is made with styrene instead of the effect, but the stunt director Arikawa emphasizes the effect of snow melting on the body, so he uses a higher paraffin wax in the close-up to simulate the effect of snowflake melting, which is used to shoot the storyboard close-up of the snow melting on the father and son of Godzilla Minira. It is particularly worth mentioning that the actor who served as the godzilla leather jacket actor of this film is not only The full-time actor Nakajima Haruo Nakajima, who has always been Godzilla's leather jacket actor, but also the close-up godzilla leather jacket performance played by the legitimate actor Kiyoshi Ōjo. In fact, in the opponent scene with Mini-Ra, it is required to reflect the size contrast of Godzilla Mini-La, which requires a more robust Godzilla body shape than Nakajima, so the director chooses the more robust Dazhong as Godzilla's holster actor. Nakajima was only responsible for performing Godzilla holsters in the water scenes, and in the middle of filming Nakajima also injured his fingers in his spare time, and his role had to be performed by another professional leather jacket actor, Yutaka Sekida.
This was also the first Godzilla film to be filmed overseas, and the main characters were taken to the location of Guam for filming, except for Tadao Takashima, who played Dr. Nammi, who did not go to Guam, but instead hired a stuntman from Takashima, and the filming of Dr. Nammi on Guam was completed by a Chinese-Filipino mixed-race stuntman. Takashima later stated that he had to turn down overseas filming assignments because of his phobia about airplanes. The music for this film is also played by Katsushi Sato, and after "The Great Showdown in the South Sea", the film also uses more light soundtracks, combined with director Arikawa's good close-up shooting skills, and brings to life the models of Gama Kiras and Spider Monsters performed by actors without leather jackets. Even the trailer features comic-style line frames to complement the anthropomorphic monster lines as a highlight.
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