Uchu daikaijû Girara (1967)

User Rating:

3.7/10   

Director:

Kazui Nihonmatsu

Writers:

Moriyoshi Ishida (writer)
Eibi Motomochi (writer)

Release Date:

1968 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Plot:

The spaceship AAB-Gamma is dispatched from FAFC headquarters in Japan to make a landing on the planet Mars and investigate reports of UFOs in the area...

Plot Keywords:

UFO | Exploding Airplane | Nuclear Power Plant | Food Poisoning | Giant Monster

Cast

Eiji Okada	...	Dr. Kato
Toshiya Wazaki	...	Capt. Sano
Itoko Harada	...	Michiko
Peggy Neal	...	Lisa
Franz Gruber	...	Dr. Berman
Mike Daneen	...	Dr. Stein
Shinichi Yanagisawa	...	Miyamoto
Keisuke Sonoi	...	Dr. Shioda
Hiroshi Fujioka
Ryuji Kita
Takanobu Hozumi
Toshiyuki Watanabe
Torahiko Hamada
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Toshinari Kazusaki	...	Capt. Sano

Also Known As:

The X from Outer Space (International: English title) (USA) (TV title)
Big Space Monster Guilala
Gilala
Girara

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG

Company:

Shochiku Kinema Kenkyû-jo

Trivia:

This was Shochiku's first monster movie.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Otoko wa tsurai yo: Torajiro shinjitsu ichiro (1984)

Guilala, Mon Amour

As a grown-up, I look back on this movie and cringe. EIJI OKADA is in this, for crying out loud! What a comedown from "Hiroshima, Mon Amour". We have to wait half the movie for the monster to even show up. And a long, long wait it seems to be, as mankind's advance into space turns out to be a succession of cocktail parties and lame jokes.

Just when terminal boredom is about to set in, out pops Guilala: a huge bug-eyed rubber chicken with wings growing out of his cheeks, and the kitchen sink on the top of his head! He can turn himself into a ball of fire and do cannonballs into lakes! Suddenly I'm eight years old again and this movie is Really Cool!

Thankfully, the rest of the movie is just a pretext for scenes of that wonderfully cockeyed beast, destroying some of the worst models in monster movie history (example: there's a jet fighter Guilala smashes that looks to be larger than the oil tanker he's just sunk).

Do yourself a favor: watch the opening credits for the bouncy theme song ("The stars are our destiny...") which you will NEVER get out of your head. Then fast forward to Guilala's first appearance, turn off your brain, and prepare to laugh your head off. Just brace yourself for Peggy Neal's inane "What I learned from the monster" speech at the end.