One of the hand-full of Godzilla movies available on video in the UK prior to the big-budget American disaster, Godzilla Vs. Gigan is one of my earliest Godzilla experiences, and I still own the VHS tape of it(double billed with Godzilla Vs. Megalon) to this day, but opted to upgrade to the recent Columbia Tristar Region 1 DVD of it, basically for the sake of space on my self, as well as the ability to see the movie in subtitled format, to compare notes against the dubbing job.

My first experience with Gigan actually didn't come in this movie, but instead, as with most of Toho's less famous monsters, I first met him as an enemy in the Nintendo game Godzilla: Monster of Monsters, before stumbling accross the Double Feature VHS one day.

Godzilla Vs. Gigan is much maligned by some G-Fans, despite the fact it was actually producer Tomoyuki Tanaka's attempt to get the series back on track after what he believed was a disgrace to the series in the form of 1971's Godzilla Vs. Hedorah. His initially commisioned script was for a movie called Ghidorah's Great Counter Attack, bringing back the fan-favourite evil monster, who came to Earth along with new monster Gigan and the Mogera from The Mysterians under alien control to destroy humanity, only to be opposed by Godzilla, Varan and Rodan.

When issues arose(most probably over the budget, Godzilla, Ghidorah and possibly Mogera were the only suits they could attempt to re-use, with Gigan being new, and the existing Varan and Rodan suits unusable) this script was doctored into Godzilla Vs. The Space Monsters, and altered into an even more bizarre plot, involving a battle in a children's amusement park based around Monster Island where Godzilla, Anguirus and a new monster named Majin Tuol, who was a blatant rip-off of rival studio Daei's Daimajin character, square off against Ghidorah, Gigan and the then also new Megalon.

Once again, budget probably played a part in the axing of new monsters Megalon(who would appear in the next movie) and Majin Tuol, who would be reworked into King Seesar for Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, so the movie that became known as Chikyû kogeki meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan was born, shipped to the US as Godzilla on Monster Island and to the rest of the world as Godzilla Vs. Gigan not too long after.
The movie's main character is a struggling comic book artist named Gengo(Hiroshi Ishikawa - The Golden Bat Shows Up) who, pushed by his black-belt girlfriend Tomoko(Yuriko Hishimi - Ultraman Zearth 2) is trying to sell his designs for monster characters such as Shukra 'the homework monster' and Momagan, the 'monster of too strict mothers' to various companies without success.

He lucks it in an interview with the director(Zan Fujita - The Battle of Okinawa) of a new theme park opening up, named Children's Land. He makes a speach about how the goal of children's land is 'absolute peace' and reveals that there is going to be a monster exhibit in the life-size Godzilla tower in the park. He then reveals that they then plan to destroy Monster Island, because Godzilla, Rodan and company simply aren't peaceful enough.

Gengo doesn't like him, but he has to make his money some how, but one his first day he gets a lot more than he bargains for when he bumps into a girl being chased by the director and some heavies. She drops an unlabelled tape which he collects, before telling the director she ran the opposite way from which she did.

When inside, he meets the chairman(Toshiaki Nishizawa - Abduction) of Children's Land, who himself is only in his teens, yet seems to be solving fantastical mathmatic equations.

On his way home, Gengo is stopped by the girl and her fat hippy friend, who, after trying to rob him of the tape, reveal themselves to be Machiko Shima(Tomoko Umeda) and Shosaku Tagasuki(Minoru Takashima - The Surf). Machiko claims that her brother works for Children's Land, but hasn't been seen in days, and she believes they are holding him hostage. After playing the tape, the gang discover that what is on it is quite unintelligable, so turn it off. However, whatever the signal noises on it were, it was heard by Godzilla and Anguirus on Monster Island, and the little spiky one goes off to find out what is happening.

When snooping around Children's Land, Gengo manages to find Machiko's brother locked in a cupboard, and it isn't long before he manages to get himself and Tomoko kidnapped along with the man we now know as Takashi Shima(Kunio Murai - Godzilla 1985). The Children's Land leaders reveal their intentions and history, and as it turns out they are alien cockroaches who hail from a planet that is almost identical to Earth, and the man-like species died out, but also killed the planet, and they had to find a suitable home, and chose Earth to be it. They have called their base at Nebula Spacehunter M to send in their two pet monsters, Gigan and Ghidorah, whom they plan to use to level all of the world so they can create a society of perfect peace for themselves.

When Gigan and Ghidorah appear and start smashing up Tokyo, it isn't long before Anguirus reports back to Godzilla and pair head for the city, where the ultimate tag-team battle is about to commence.

Yeah so sue me, Godzilla Vs. Gigan was one of the dumbest plots ever. I love it. Before I even comment on any other aspect of the plot, this movie features the single greatest moment in cinema history, which I think deserves to be discussed before all else.
Now, before I talk about it, I have to instruct you that on the recent DVD, you must listen to the dubbing track. Not just to hear the Chairman's hilarious voice, but because there, and only there, will you hear Godzilla talk to Anguirus.
Now, I've heard that in the Japanese print of Son of Godzilla, the big G and Minya talk in speech bubbles. Apparently the same thing happened to the original version of this movie. However, the dubbing job actually dubs in voices for the two monsters, in what is easily the most hilarious interchange of dialogue I have ever, and probably will ever see. For a start the pair of them talk in the most ungodly drunk sounding voices, where in god's name they got enough alcohol to not only intoxicate two giant monsters I don't know, but they went beyond the call of duty in doing so, because this pair sound like they have been on the sauce all night. What's funnier is what they say, "Angila, somethings going on....(ten second pause)...you better check it out" to which Anguirus mumbles an incoherent reply of some sort. It's easily the funniest thing I have ever witnessed in all the movies I have watched, and it reveals how much of a boring place Monster Island must be. You'd think it would be a hell of a riot with all of these monsters kicking about, but no, they just get drunk and commentate on life.

Yes, so back to the rest of the movie, it's ridiculous, no point in denying it. Cockroach people who wear human skin, and over it orange jumpsuits and pink shirts, planning to take over the world with their two monsters. What I find odd is their confidence that they can just do away with all of the monsters on Monster Island just like that. When you consider that they were planning to beat them all with nothing but Ghidorah and Gigan, who got beaten by Godzilla and Anguirus, it's pretty comical thinking they could swagger in and deal with Gorosaurus, Rodan, Mothra, Spiega and all the rest as well as those two.

Like I say, I actually love the story, simple for how silly and well, 1970s, it actually is. Instead of the usual group of heroes, consisting of Scientists, soldiers or astronauts, we have a motley crew of a chubby hippy, his pretty friend, a comic artist, his hot karate girlfriend and an electrician, all of whom appear to be chain smokers. While the Alien invasion plot had been done before, twice actually, I feel this is easily one of the more likeable attempts at it, basically because of how ludicrous it is. I mean their theme park looks, for lack of a better word, crap. Sure the Godzilla tower is cool, but apart from that all thats there is a weird looking building and what appears to be a giant Smurf house. I'll stick to Universal Studios and Disneyland. Come to think of it, exactly why they chose to build a theme park I have absolutely no idea. The core of the plan was to have Ghidorah and Gigan attack, so what the hell was the point in the theme park?

Silly plots aside, another reason the movie scores big from me is the monster battle. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that probably about half of the 90 minute running time consists of the monsters fighting. While that probably sounds boring, it is intercut with scenes of the Hero gang escaping to keep things exciting, and in general this movie never lets up. As well as the uber-sexy karate girl(comic people rarely have girlfriends that awesome in real life, come on) the Kaiju battle is pretty cool as well, even if Godzilla and Anguirus take quite a stomping before pulling out a second wind that Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior would be proud of. This battle is around as silly as the series could possibley have got fighting wise(until the next year's installment anyway), but it's great fun to watch Godzilla holding Ghidorah's heads while Anguirus jumps backwards, and therefore spikes first, into his exposed gut, before Godzilla, holding his long-necks, bodyslams him repeatedly off the ground. It's also the first movie where Godzilla is seen to bleed, as Gigan cuts him open. This was a pretty clear attempt to once again ape Daei's imitation Gamera series, which, despite being kiddie orientated almost always had some monster gore on show.
Speaking of Gigan, what is this fantastic new monster? Gigan is like a giant, cycloptic,Cyborg/Reptilian chicken. He has a beak, with pincers at either side, one red eye, a red-laser shooting gem in his forehead, hooks for hands, a buzz-saw in his chest and three protruting wings from his back that fold down into what looks like a cape so he can fly. It's certainly one of Toho's more unique designs, and while you could say it was maybe a bit Daei-esque, by this time I don't think people were looking for overly realistic monsters. And this is about as cool as a spiky Cyborg Chicken can get.

To be honest, I actually feel that in the original series, few Godzilla movies managed to blend the human plot and monster action as well as Godzilla Vs. Gigan does. Sure both of them are rather silly, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't find either one fun.

Watching this subtitled or dubbed is actually quite a tough choice to make. While the subtitles are pretty good, the fact they don't have the most hilarious scene in the movie takes the shine off them.
As far as these things go, the dubbing is actually pretty decent for the most part as well. While the voice they have given the chairman is absolutely hilarious, and the drunken voices of the monsters side-splitting, the rest of the cast are actually voiced quite well.
There isn't really much to talk about in terms of acting. There are no kids around to be annoying, and most of the performances are really just acceptable. Only real notes to be taken are that the hot karate girl really should have had a better career, and that this would be the last movie where Haruo Nakajima stepped inside the Godzilla suit.

Speaking of the Godzilla suit, it's in pretty bad shape. It's the same suit used 3 movies ago, and pieces are quite literally falling off it in the fight, which actually kind of adds an effect of Gigan cutting lumps off of him with his hooks. When swimming though, it seems to change to the absolutely horrendous Son of Godzilla costume, which really, really stings it's that bad.
Anguirus is the same suit used in Destroy All Monsters, so he isn't in too good condition either. Most odd is the fact that someone appears to have spilt a few pots of black and yellow paint over his head.
Ghidorah is presented in two forms, one a really stationary, stiff and terible looking puppet used for the flight scenes, and the puppet-suitmation model which also appeared in Destroy All Monsters. It's also pretty beaten up around the heads, but in general it's holding up quite well.
Because he is the new monster, Gigan gets all the special treatment, and there is no point in trying to deny that his suit is pretty cool. The metallic parts look solid, and the flesh parts look organic, all in all he is probably one of Toho's better 70s costumes.

What I don't think anyone is happy about is the amount of stock footage used. It becomes quite clear that the choice of Ghidorah and Anguirus to appear in the picture was probably made so that they could use as much stock footage as possible, and scenes from not only Destroy All Monsters and Invasion of the Astro Monsters are rehashed, but even stuff from Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster appears. Some of it, such as Ghidorah's destruction of the city, slots in quite nicely, as do the scenes of him and Anguirus fighting. It's lazy and cheap using stock footage, but it isn't bad in these cases. What is bad is the part clearly lifted from the almost decade old at the time Ghidrah where the three-headed one shoots Godzilla. Not only is the Godzilla suit in this scene visibly very different in design to the one in this movie, the shot is during the day, but is inserted into the middle of a night-time battle!

Music is excellent, on the grounds that it uses pieces composed by the series most famous composer, the legendary Akira Ifukube. Sadly, it's once again stock, as all of the music was actually composed for older movies, but it still fits, the rousing, militaristic scores still apply to this film as much as they do any other Godzilla, and they are once again one of the movie's strongest points, even when used in second-hand fashion.

At the end of the day, Godzilla Vs. Gigan is a pretty frustrating movie to try and score. While most of it's entertainment comes from humour, it never took itself all that seriously to begin with, and it does feature some nice monster action. With that said, the tight budget is far too apparent in the over-use of stock footage and the terrible state of the Godzilla suit. What I know for sure, is that I'm going to recommend it. The movie is light-hearted fun, and a change of pace from the rather somber preceding entry. Sure it's dumb, but hell I find it hard to believe that anyone couldn't find something enjoyable in it. I think 3-Stars is a decent score to issue it. A lot of elements in it work, a few don't. Some don't work to the point it's brilliant. It isn't quite the all out, balls to the wall hilarity of Godzilla Vs. Megalon, but I feel it's a lot better than even the best entry of the original Gamera series.

Year: 1972
Titles: Chikyû kogeki meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan
Godzilla Vs. Gigan
Godzilla On Monster Island

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Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups