Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on May 8, 2007, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Godzilla may be King of the Monsters, but for a lot of us kids who grew up loving Japanese monster fare, the coolest of the kaiju was Ghidorah, a.k.a. Ghidrah and King Ghidorah. With his golden scales, giant wings and three heads spitting destructive yellow lightning bolts, he remains the most eye-catching creation of Toho Studios’ prolific FX department—and, quite simply, one of the baddest monsters the Big G ever faced. Heck, it always took the concerted efforts of Godzilla and at least one other creature to defeat Ghidorah—at least, until the incongruous Godzilla vs. Gigan—and the triple-domed dragon always remained the most serious of the Toho bestiary, eschewing both the outrageous conceptualizations of later additions to the stable and the slapstick antics that characterized the Japanese giants’ behavior in the mid- to late ’60s and early ’70s.
It was, in fact, in his 1964 debut vehicle Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (which opened in the U.S. in ’65, with the creature’s name spelled “Ghidrah”) that physical comedy started to find its way into the kaiju smackdowns. And Invasion of Astro-Monster (a.k.a. Monster Zero), produced the following year but not released Stateside till after several subsequent Godzilla features, introduced the famous/notorious celebratory leap alternately known as the “Godzilla Shie” or the “Highland Fling.” The two features are paired on special-edition DVDs from Classic Media and Genius Entertainment that restore the movies to their widescreen Tohoscope luster, include both the Japanese and U.S. versions and contain commentaries by experts in the field (David Kalat and Stuart Galbraith IV respectively), both of whom address the Godzilla films’ much-debated turn toward targeting younger viewers at this juncture of the franchise.
Kalat makes an especially impassioned case in favor of this new emphasis, insisting that the juvenile appeal gave younger audiences a way into these movies that didn’t exist previously, and helped cultivate a fan base that could grow up enjoying them (even defending the sometimes awkward English dubbing as essential for allowing American kids to join the party). He credits screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa as a key architect of this approach, citing his embrace of the “fun” of writing monster pictures, and some devotees might take exception to Kalat’s corresponding characterization of director Ishiro Honda as a journeyman filmmaker who simply took whatever jobs Toho offered him. Others might have a problem with the way Kalat seems a little too enamored of his own voice, his forced-sounding enthusiasm and use of conversational colloquialisms (“Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”).
But there’s no denying his passion for and knowledge of the subject matter, and even seasoned fans will likely learn plenty from Kalat’s track, as he alternates cultural and narrative analysis with plenty of interesting facts. The most surprising of these is FX master Eiji Tsuburaya’s disappointment with some of the Ghidorah sequences, which rank among the most spectacular cinematic sights of the artist’s long and distinguished career. Kalat’s commentary plays on the English-language version of Ghidorah, and he details the numerous alterations made to the ordering of scenes (the title beast’s entrance was moved up for the States—yet still doesn’t occur till the midway point) and how they impact the story, as well as to the score (a good deal of Akira Ifukube’s music was replaced with stock cues). Both editions sport good colors, though the image on the Japanese one is significantly sharper; during the monsters’ “conversation” scene, kaiju diehards may be amused to find that in the subtitled dialogue, there’s no equivalent to the twin fairies’ English-dubbed cry, “Oh, Godzilla—what terrible language!”
Similarly, the Japanese dubbing of Nick Adams’ English-spoken performance in Astro-Monster omits a translation of his memorable “You stinkin’ rats!” directed at the film’s evil aliens. That sanitized outburst provides an indication of how, as opposed to Ghidorah’s busy human storyline involving gangsters, assassination and alien reincarnation, its follow-up’s plot seems simplified for the kiddies by comparison. Galbraith even points out in his commentary that the story’s one major plot twist doesn’t make logical sense! Seeming rather less eager to please than Kalat, Galbraith nonetheless delivers an engaging talk chock full of background on the movie’s contributors, particularly the cast, and how this film came to have the most direct American involvement of any of the classic Godzilla entries. Without sounding like an apologist, he additionally notes that the unreality of these films’ FX took the edge off destruction setpieces which, viewed realistically, would be claiming thousands of lives—thus making them more palatable for their smaller fans. There are great trivia bits dropped here too—did you know that Tsuburaya and perennial Toho actor Akira Takarada were both involved in a spectacular Japanese stage production of Gone With the Wind?
Beyond dialogue discrepancies, the differences between Astro-Monster’s two editions are negligible, amounting to about a minute’s length and no apparent shuffling of scenes, and both transfers are equally fine. The discs also include biographical featurettes by Ed Godziszewski on Tsuburaya (Ghidorah) and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka (Astro-Monster)—just-the-facts in approach, albeit stocked with great vintage stills—plus annotated poster and photo galleries and the original trailers, all wrapped up in Classic Media’s super-classy packaging. With this double-header of discs spotlighting a triple-header of a monster, the company once again knocks one out of the park.
