Gojira tai Hedorâ (1971)

Director:

Yoshimitsu Banno

Writers:

Yoshimitsu Banno (writer)
Takeshi Kimura (writer)

Release Date:

February 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Our environment is doomed!

Plot:

From Earth's pollution a new monster is spawned. Hedorah, the smog monster, destroys Japan and fights Godzilla while spewing his poisonous gas to further the damage.

Plot Keywords:

Kaiju | Part Animated | Pollution | Sequel | Surreal

Cast

Akira Yamauchi	...	Dr. Yano
Toshie Kimura	...	Toshie Yano
Hiroyuki Kawase	...	Ken Yano
Gara Takatori	...	Miki Fujiyama (as Keiko Mari)
Toshio Shiba	...	Yukio Keuchi
Yukihiko Gondo	...	Mean general
Eisaburo Komatsu	...	Fisherman
Tadashi Okabe	...	Scientist
Wataru Omae	...	Helpless police officer
Susumu Okabe	...	Interviewer
Haruo Nakajima	...	Gojira
Kenpachiro Satsuma	...	Hedora (as Kengo Nakayama)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Teruzo Okawa

Also Known As:

Godzilla vs. Hedora (International: English title) (informal literal title)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (UK) (video title)
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (USA)

MPAA:

Rated PG for sci-fi monster violence and brief mild language.

Runtime:

Germany:96 min | USA:87 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG | USA:GP (original rating) | USA:G (re-rating) (1972) | West Germany:12 (nf)

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

In the scene where a piece of Hedora comes down the stairs of the club during Godzilla and Hedora's first battle, there is a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hanging on the wall behind it.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Dr. Yano and Yukio are discussing going to rescue Ken, fish can be seen swimming in the aquarium behind them even though all the fish in it were destroyed by the acid mist a few minutes earlier.

Quotes:

Yukio Keuchi: There's no place else to go and pretty soon we'll all be dead, so forget it! Enjoy yourself! Let's sing and dance while we can! Come on, blow your mind!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Frogs (1972)

Soundtrack:

Kaese! Taiyô wo

Godzilla: Environmentalist. Not great, but still my favorite Godzilla flick

Godzilla vs Hedora (AKA The Smog Monster) is less slick than many of the later productions. It is also somewhat less serious, and features a Godzilla who is more mythic than consistent with his earlier and later portrayals. The Godzilla in this film is a force of nature in more than just a figurative sense. She is also highly intelligent and a defender of the earth and, to some extent, its people.

Even from the title, its easy enough to figure out what this film is about. Tadpoles mutate because of the mutagenic properties of pollution in Tokyo Bay (interestingly, this somewhat silly idea is far less absurd than most of the latter pseudoscience used in Godzilla scripts - almost as bad as Star Trek Voyager sometimes was). The mutant tadpoles fuse at the cellular level and grow into a giant tadpole which then mutates three or four times, spewing out its own toxic pollutants, first as terrestrial and eventually as air pollution. The visuals are good, but the special effects are admittedly below even Toho's usual standards.

Created in the early 1970s, this film is metaphorical and symbolic, although it is still, at heart, a Godzilla film. Hedora is an unsubtle metaphor for the ecological state of the world, and is, in that sense, a monster of our own making. Godzilla is an embodiment of nature, and is to be viewed as a positive force for all life on earth. These symbols are particularly apparent in the use of cartoons as transitional devices from one plot point to another.

Godzilla Vs Hedora walks a very thin line between giant-monster violence and a kid-oriented film. As somebody who has since his early teens, been interested in the environment and as somebody who always liked Japanese Monster films, I developed a sentimental attachment to this film very early on. In fact, this is my all-time favorite Godzilla film, and more than any other film, it is the reason why I consider myself a fan of the big green lizard. This is the film which establishes Godzilla as an environmentalist and a friend to young people - his two best roles.