San daikaijû: Chikyû saidai no kessen (1964)

Director:

Ishirô Honda

Writer:

Shinichi Sekizawa (writer)

Release Date:

13 September 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The Three-Headed Monster battles Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan for the world!

Plot:

After a meteorite unleashes a three-headed beast upon Tokyo, Mothra tries to unite with Godzilla and Rodan to battle the extraterrestrial threat.

Plot Keywords:

Gojira | Giant Monster | Godzilla | Japan | Monster

Cast

Yosuke Natsuki	...	Detective Shindo
Yuriko Hoshi	...	Naoko Shindo
Hiroshi Koizumi	...	Professor Miura
Akiko Wakabayashi	...	Mas Selina Salno, Princess of Sergina
Emi Ito	...	Shobijin (Twin Fairy)
Yûmi Ito	...	Shobijin (Twin Fairy)
Takashi Shimura	...	Dr. Tsukamoto
Akihiko Hirata	...	Chief Detective Okita
Hisaya Ito	...	Malmess, Chief Assassin
Minoru Takada	...	Prime Minister
Senshô Matsumoto	...	Alien Expert
Ikio Sawamura	...	Honest Fisherman
Kôzô Nomura	...	Geologist
Kenji Sahara	...	Editor in Chief Kanamaki
Susumu Kurobe	...	Moustachoied Assassin
Toru Ibuki	...	Short-Tie Assassin
Kazuo Suzuki	...	Showoff Door-Opener Assassin
Haruya Kato	...	Journalist
Shin Otomo	...	Boss of Assassins
Senkichi Omura	...	Would-Be Hat Retriever
Yutaka Nakayama	...	Tourist with Lost Hat
Heihachiro Okawa	...	Astronomer
Yutaka Oka	...	Meteorite Scientist
Eisei Amamoto	...	Princess Salno's aide
Yoshio Kosugi	...	Chief of Infant Island
Yoshifumi Tajima	...	Heedless Ship Captain
Koji Uno	...	Hotel Clerk
Shigeki Ishida	...	Guy in Crowd
Toshihiko Furuta	...	Villager
Kotaro Tomita	...	Villager
Haruo Nakajima	...	Gojira
Shoichi Hirose	...	Kingugidora
Masashi Shinohara	...	Radon
Katsumi Tezuka	...	Mothra
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ichiya Aozora	...	Little Boy
Senya Aozora	...	Little Boy
Kenzo Echigo
Bin Furuya
Yuriko Hanabusa	...	Shindo's mother
Yoshio Hattori
Toku Ihara
Shôji Ikeda	...	General Hyodo
Kazuo Imai
Daisuke Inoue
Saburo Kadowaki
Keiichiro Katsumoto
Tokuzo Komaga
Jun Kuroki
Oshio Miura
Junichirô Mukai
Haruya Sakamoto
Hideo Shibuya
Nakajiro Tomita
Kenji Tsubono
Mitsuo Tsuda
Tamami Urayama
Koji Urugi

Directed by
Ishirô Honda

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Shinichi Sekizawa		writer

Produced by
Tomoyuki Tanaka	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Akira Ifukube

Cinematography by
Hajime Koizumi

Film Editing by
Ryohei Fujii

Production Design by
Takeo Kita

Art Direction by
Takeo Kita

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Koji Hashimoto	....	assistant director
Ken Sano	....	chief assistant director

Sound Department
Osamu Chiku	....	sound mixer
Hisashi Shimonaga	....	sound effects editor
Fumio Yanoguchi	....	sound recordist

Special Effects by
Teisho Arikawa	....	special effects cameraman
Tadashi Koibe	....	special effects assistant production manager
Yukio Manoda	....	matte photography
Shigeru Nakamura	....	production manager
Teruyoshi Nakano	....	chief assistant director of special effects
Sokei Tomioka	....	special effects cameraman
Eiji Tsuburaya	....	special effects director
Akira Watanabe	....	special effects art director
Taka Yuki	....	matte process

Visual Effects by
Kuichiro Kishida	....	special effects lighting
Hiroshi Mukoyama	....	special effects opticals

Stunts
Haruo Nakajima	....	stunt choreographer

Camera and Electrical Department
Shoshichi Kojima	....	lighting supervisor

Music Department
Hiroshi Miyagawa	....	composer: song "Call Happiness"

Other crew
Joseph Bellucci	....	dubbing director

Production Companies

• Toho Company

Distributors

• Toho Company (1964) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Continental Distributing (1965) (USA) (theatrical) (dubbed)
• Admit One Video (video)
• Filmax Home Video (video)
• GoodTimes Home Video (video)
• Hollywood Home Theatre (video)
• Interglobal Home Video (video)
• International Film Distributors (1966) (Canada) (as "Ghidrah) (the 3-Headed Monster")
• Kuk Dong
• Prism Pictures (video)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (video)
• Toho Video
• VCII Home Entertainment Inc. (video)
• Video Connection (video)
• Video Treasures (video)

Other Companies

• Toho Sound Effects Group  sound effects
• Toho Studios  sound stages

Also Known As:

Earth's Greatest Battle (literal English title)
Ghidora, the Three-Headed Monster
Ghidrah
Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster (USA)
Gojira Mosura Kingu Gidora: Chikyu saidai no kessen (Japan) (reissue title)
Monster of Monsters: Ghidorah (International: English title)
The Biggest Battle on Earth
The Biggest Fight on Earth
The Greatest Battle on Earth
The Greatest Fight on Earth
Three Giant Monsters: The Greatest Battle on Earth (International: English title) (literal title)

Runtime:

92 min | Japan:73 min (1971 reissue) | USA:85 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

This is the final film to feature the Ito Sisters (aka the Peanuts) as Mothra's twin priestesses.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Rodan flies out of Mt. Aso, you hear Godzilla's roar instead of Rodan's.

Quotes:

Shobijin: Oh Godzilla, such terrible language!

Movie Connections:

Edited into Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies (1990) (V)

Godzilla's first time out as a good guy

Grabbing a rare day off from the protracted shoot of Kurosawa's Redbeard, Takashi Shimura returned to the series for the last time, this time as a psychologist, in San Daikaijû: Chikyû Saidai No Kessen/Earth's Greatest Battle aka Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster - or Ghidrah if you watch the US version. Marking Godzilla's first time crossing the line from villain to hero (albeit very reluctantly) which many hardcore fans regard as the beginning of the end for the big feller, while it's certainly enjoyable, like most Toho monster mashes this spends much more time with the humans than it does with the critters. This time the plot revolves around a plot to kill a princess of an obscure kingdom during her visit to Japan which goes awry, as these conspiracies so often do, when she steps out of her plane into a gap between dimensions and emerges as a Venusian prophetess of the end of the world at the claws of Ghidorah, a rather impressive cross between a flying dragon and an economy-price Hydra (half the heads, all the destructive power) with previous for laying wastes to whole worlds.

Godzilla and flying monster Rodan are also back on the rampage, and it's up to the two singing fairy girls from Infant Island and Mothra to persuade them to save the Earth in a dementedly enjoyable monster summit where they translate the surly critters' grievances with the pesky human race that is always picking on them. Unfortunately Rodan is one of the least impressive of Toho's monster roster, and here the model work is particularly bad, turning him into across between The Giant Claw and Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show, while Mothra is still in its larva stage purely because its cheaper to do special effects with a giant slug than a giant flying moth (its twin from Mothra Vs. Godzilla having conveniently died between movies presumably for the same reason). When the monsters do finally slug it out in the last half hour, it's something of a disappointment. The big feller's battle with Rodan consists largely of the prehistoric bird pecking him on the head while he kicks rocks at it, although a sequence where the two throw and head the same rock between each other, Mothra watching like a spectator at Wimbledon, is amusing. Similarly, the final battle with Ghidorah never lives up to its potential, with the beasts considerately having their showdown in the countryside to keep the city stomping to an affordable minimum.

This also ups the comedy: with body language straight out of Oliver Hardy and getting zapped in the butt and the groin, you half expect Godzilla to get a custard pie in the face at times. The special effects are a step down from previous entries, with a lot of unconvincing puppet work, while plot inconsistencies abound - the two singing fairy girls say they don't want to attract attention, yet appear on a Where Are they Now? TV show – but do you really see a Godzilla film for the plot? Unlike previous entries in the series, the US version also included on Classic Media's Region 1 DVD is more a case of trimming and tidying the chronology than a radical overhaul, though it does change the princess from a Venusian to a Martian and adds shots of Rodan to Godzilla's early rampages to make them seem less unmotivated.