Gojira, Ebirâ, Mosura: Nankai no daiketto (1966)

Director:

Jun Fukuda

Writer:

Shinichi Sekizawa (writer)

Release Date:

1969 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

This is one lobster you don't want to order!

Plot:

A young man steals a boat to find his brother, but he and his shipmates become shipwrecked on a mysterious island inhabited by a giant sea monster and a slumbering Godzilla.

Plot Keywords:

Boat | Island | Godzilla | Monster | Mothra

Cast

Akira Takarada	...	Yoshimura
Kumi Mizuno	...	Daiyo
Chôtarô Tôgin	...	Ichino
Hideo Sunazuka	...	Nita
Tôru Watanabe	...	Ryôta Kane
Tôru Ibuki	...	Yata Kane
Akihiko Hirata	...	Captain Yamoto
Jun Tazaki	...	Red Bamboo Commander
Ikio Sawamura	...	Elderly Slave
Pair Bambi	...	Mothra's Little Beauties
Eisei Amamoto	...	Red Bamboo Naval Officer
Hisaya Ito	...	Red Bamboo Scientist #1
Tadashi Okabe	...	Red Bamboo Scientist #2
Kazuo Suzuki	...	Escaped Slave
Shôichi Hirose	...	Escaped Slave

Also Known As:

Big Duel in the North (International: English title)
Big Duel in the North Sea (International: English title)
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (UK)
Ebirah, Terror of the Deep
Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster (USA)
Godzilla, Mothra, and Ebira, Horror of the Deep (USA) (subtitle)
Operation Robinson Crusoe (International: English title) (working title)
The Great South Seas Duel

MPAA:

Rated PG for sci-fi monster violence.

Runtime:

87 min | USA:83 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | West Germany:12 (nf) | USA:PG

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

After destroying the Giant Condor (Dai-Kondoru), Godzilla rubs his nose. This is an homage to Yûzô Kayama's popular "Yuichi Tanuma" character (from Toho's popular Wakadaishô/Young Guy movies, starting with Daigaku no wakadaishô (1961)), who did the same thing.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the beginning of the American version, there is a scene supposedly showing Yata's boat being destroyed. Yoshimura is on the boat which is called "Yahlen" and is the boat Ryota steals later in the film.

Quotes:

Yoshimura: [he has just opened a giant safe-like door] I did it, it's unlocked! Hurry! Let's go inside!
Ichino: [everyone scrambles to go inside until they hear Ichino] Ow! Don't come in! It's a nuclear reactor!
Yoshimura: So that's it, it's a heavy water factory.
Nita: Huh? What can they do with that?
Yoshimura: Atom bombs are made with it.
Nita: Huh? I'm getting out of here!

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (#3.13)" (1991)

Soundtrack:

Samashite Mosura

fluff, with not much monster bite

This was obviously made because Toho wanted to discover new plot elements for their kaiju film formula, which was falling into something of a predictable rut (humans fight humans, humans fight monster, monster fights monster, sayonara). But simply limiting the amount of time the monsters appear on screen offers no improvement.

"Sea Monster" is one of the weaker entries in the original Godzilla series. Much of the film is directed as light comedy, a mild satire on the James Bond films. Actually, the comedy works pretty well; it's never knee-slapping laugh-out-loud, but it finds and sustains a level of humor most viewers should find fairly easy to live with.

The monsters here are almost tossed in for deus-ex-machina plot devices, saving the day at the last moment. To be sure, it's amusing to see Godzilla sit around pondering what to do with the woman he's just saved from bad guys, but there really isn't much for him to do here. He zaps a giant vulture, pulls the claws off a lobster and smashes a nuclear power plant - and that's about it. For a minute towards the end, it almost looks like things will get complicated by a battle between Godzilla and Mothra, but this doesn't really amount to much either.

For Godzilla completists, it's a relatively harmless sub-par entry - it certainly doesn't scrape the same bottoms as "Godzilla's Revenge" or "vs. Megalon". But if you are not yet a Big G. fan, this should not be your introduction to the series.

Entertaining fluff, nothing more.