By Joe Gibson
Here at Plan9Crunch, it
is now freshly March, which means the Godzilla film release date anniversaries
have begun anew for 2025. Notably, Godzilla vs Gigan (12th), Godzilla vs
Megalon (17th), Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (21st), Terror of Mechagodzilla (15th),
Godzilla vs Kong (31st) and Godzilla x Kong (29th) all released in March. We
have reviewed some of these already more in depth, but, because this month is
kind of defined by a campier vision of Godzilla, that is what we will be
examining here. (On our YouTube channel Plan9Crunch, the month of October 2024
was our Bela Lugosi Month, and, we will not be carrying out an undertaking of
that level, but you can expect another blog post and possibly a video centered
on these films.) The majority of these March releases were by prolific Godzilla
director Jun Fukuda.
The simplest way I can
describe Jun Fukuda as opposed to Ishiro Honda in terms of their Godzilla
movies to a cult movie fan in 21st century America is the difference between
Adam Wingard’s Godzilla x Kong and Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One. As
you likely know, Ishiro Honda was the primary director of the Showa Godzilla
Series (1954 to 1975). He thus worked on the first two films, Godzilla 1954 and
Godzilla Raids Again 1955, both of which explore heavy themes of the effects of
war and self-sacrifice, with the former being focused on destruction and the
latter more about optimism and reconstruction (though far more sloppy due to
rushed production). If you mash those two movies together, you will get
something like Godzilla Minus One (though that is not to say that Yamazaki does
not bring his own ideas to the table. As we will explain in any hypothetical
Minus One review, Yamazaki has his own creative DNA).
Honda was more at ease
making dark intellectual Godzilla movies. Though he would make whatever the
studio demanded of him, the reason we think of a delineation between 60s (Honda
dominated) and 70s (Fukuda dominated) Godzilla films is because for whatever
reason, Honda’s films are technically more dramatic (tragic romances come to
mind and Honda’s own thoughts that each monster is a tragedy, just too big to
live peacefully in the world). Jun Fukuda, for whatever reason, made the
noticeably wackier films (with occasional gore comparable to the concurrent
Gamera films but rarely any child characters). The bright colors and
fantastical elements of Godzilla x Kong and spy-esque storming the castle Apex
subplot in Godzilla vs Kong from Adam Wingard seem directly inspired by
Fukuda’s films. At its most malleable, Godzilla can be both wacky and grounded
at the same time in the same year, because specific men direct specific
Godzillas in specific ways.
Jun Fukuda directed
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep 1966, Son of Godzilla 1967, Godzilla vs Gigan 1972,
Godzilla vs Megalon 1973, and Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 1974, and, similarly to
most cult directors we discuss here, these films are so oddly specific that
they necessitate either a bizarre imagination, bizarre life or both.
In Ebirah…, originally a
Kong movie though that is a longer story than we have time for, the terrorist
organization The Red Bamboo kidnap Infant Islanders and anyone else that
stumbles upon them, prompting one man to move heaven and earth (steal a boat
with two beach bums and a career thief played by Akira Takarada) to find his
brother, crossing paths with monsters Godzilla, Mothra, crustacean Ebirah and
inexplicably a Giant Condor. Son of Godzilla follows Goro Maki interrupting a
weather experiment on Sollgel island that happens to contain mutated praying
mantises, a completely naturally occurring giant spider, a baby Godzilla, an
island girl taking care of the baby Godzilla, and Godzilla himself, who steps
up to raise the child. Godzilla vs Gigan features a Scooby Doo cast of
characters uncovering an alien conspiracy in an amusement park, involving giant
cybernetic chicken monster Gigan and the return of King Ghidorah, while
Godzilla vs Megalon is about destructive underground Seatopians, who somehow
have the Nebulan aliens and their monster Gigan from the previous movie on
speed dial. Finally, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla establishes a new alien race of
ape men and their robot Mechagodzilla, who impersonates Godzilla, all while ape
men and James Bond spy characters follow the unwitting human ensemble. Those
are the shortest possible descriptions I can give that still communicate the
dreamy childlike quality Fukuda’s films entail, and that inspired me to look
more into the man. But…
It has been very
difficult for me to find properly cited information on Jun Fukuda, which is a
shame, because, due to the quirks of this director in his “canonical 5” films,
he is inevitably a very interesting figure in the cult genre space. The common
motif of trying to save a missing or kidnapped sibling gets explored in all of
these films except Son of Godzilla, which is an oddly specific trope to use
that often unless something happened to his sibling (again, I was not able to
find anything).
More specifically, he
directed in the crime genre, including spy films, which explains the James Bond
type characters in Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, as well as the plot beats of
infiltrating the base of a hostile (terrorist or alien) enemy faction present
in not only that film but also Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (also called Godzilla
vs The Sea Monster) and Godzilla vs Gigan (and even the constant chase scenes
in Godzilla vs Megalon).
It is actually surreal
to me that Honda made King Kong Escapes and Jun Fukuda made Son of Godzilla,
because, with the espionage elements to King Kong Escapes and more serious (by
comparison) monster characterization in Son of Godzilla, it strikes me as
following the tropes of the opposite guy. A better point of comparison though
in gauging their different creative visions is Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla by
Fukuda compared to its direct sequel Terror of Mechagodzilla by Honda. Both
feature apelike aliens creating a giant robot while Interpol chases them down,
but Fukuda’s film has a large and fun cast carrying out a spy thriller while
Honda’s has realistically impotent leads struggling along a tragic romance.
Jun Fukuda was cynical
about his own work on Godzilla as well as the franchise in total. In Fukuda’s
view, Godzilla should have been all social commentary with no goofy personalities
for the monsters. Far from internally inconsistent though, he hated his own
Godzilla films and did not watch them even though he put his all into making
them. Fukuda, despite this disdain for his own projects, was a competent and
responsible director, employing both series mainstay Akira Ifukube and Masaru
Sato for the music (based on his statements, it was to avoid a kind of moody
monotony that would not have fit with his tone). Godzilla vs Gigan, due to
studio interference, did feature some Ifukube tracks that do seem out of place
within the tone, so he was onto something (the Ifukube tracks are great; they
just don’t always fit the tone of every movie, and that is okay).
If any of this sounds
interesting to you, you can watch all of Fukuda’s Godzilla films, Ebirah Horror
of the Deep, Son of Godzilla, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs Megalon, and Godzilla
vs Mechagodzilla on Max, which houses the 60s and 70s Godzilla movies
(including Honda’s Terror of Mechagodzilla, also celebrating its anniversary
this month). Wingard’s Godzilla and Kong films (Gvk and GxK) with their late
March anniversaries are streaming on Netflix, and GxK is also on Max.
Though my thoughts here
may reflect my opinion that Honda made more great Godzilla films, I feel that way
because he had the opportunity to make more Godzilla films in general. Fukuda’s
films are very unique and fluctuate wildly in quality, including some that were
better than what Honda put out around that time. The simplest way to articulate
that will be to rank these March releases, since that includes three of
Fukuda’s best known films alongside Wingard’s films and Terror of Mechagodzilla.
Below are some relevant videos and blog posts about these movies (especially
Godzilla vs Megalon, Godzilla vs Kong and Godzilla x Kong), so you can look
forward to using our established thoughts on Wingard’s films to contextualize
the quality of some of Fukuda’s on this blog very soon. Because that might not
be enough to really share our thoughts on this man and his Godzilla films, we
may also have a video ranking just Fukuda’s films on our YouTube channel
Plan9Crunch. Stay tuned and check us out wherever and however you’d like.
https://youtu.be/1HMV1hMPgzs?si=RSh91EaxZgxufHFe
https://youtu.be/pSosxtg51oM?si=yXrhVo8nOGFlo1jC
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2023/06/review-godzilla-versus-kong-2021-remake.html
https://youtu.be/AI_FMxtTlIk?si=u6m7KvQj1eVYYFqR
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-nuanced-deconstruction-of-godzilla-x.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/part-two-nuanced-deconstruction-of.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/07/part-three-nuanced-deconstruction-of.html
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