| --------------- |
This sequel to Frankenstien tai Chitei Kaiju Baragon (1965) is better than the first, but even more unusual. The Frankenstien monster's heart grows into Sanda, the brown Frankenstien giant (Gargantua). He is found as a small baby by Dr. Stewart, his assistant Akemi, and Dr. Sagawa. They study the animal and examine it. Later, the beast escapes and lives in the forest. While swimming in a lake, it scrapes off some of it's flesh on a rock. The flesh floats out to sea and grows into Gaira, the aquatic and man eating green Gargantua. Five years later, a fishing boat is sailing on a dark and stormy night. Suddenly it is attacked by a mammoth octopus. The mammoth octopus soon battles an angry Gaira. The fisherman is in total shock he can only say one word, "Giant!". Finally, he manages to tell his story. Gaira tipped over the boat and ate all the crew members except for him, who managed to escape. Dr. Stewart is astounded by this strange story. Later, a salvage team manages to obtain the clothes of the dead sailors. They are chewed up beyond recognition. Dr. Stewart and Akemi are sure this is not their Gargantua they raised because he was extremely gentle. Gaira soon appears at an airport and causes immense destruction. Then he appears at a Japanese nightclub where a bunch of horny, drooling idiots sit and watch Arch Hall Jr-esque Kip Hamilton sing "The Words Get Stuck in my Throat". He tries to put Kip in his mouth and she goes into shock, thank god. It is discovered that Gaira is afraid of light. Gaira is kept away from Tokyo via lights while new impressive light weaponry is constructed. The impressive masers (which became so popular they went on to appear in countless Gojira movies) attack Gaira in a long, epic attack scene. Gaira is just about to die when Sanda, the brown Gargantua of the mountains saves him. However, he soon discovers about his clone's human eating ways. Soon the beasts begin a war between each other. Dr. Stewart, Dr. Sagawa, and Akemi are all convinced that Sanda is innocent when he saves Akemi from a deadly plunge off a cliff. She recognizes him as the Gargantua she raised years ago. The two monsters meet in Tokyo when Gaira loses his fear of light. Stewart and Akemi are both injured when they try to communicate with Sanda and the military napalms them, which causes a local volcano to erupt. Both monsters are killed in the eruption.
This has even better technical stuff than Toho's first Frankenstien movie. It has even better effects and miniatures by Tsuburaya and even better music by the maestro Ifukube. Kumi Mizuno is even sexier than before. The script is better too. It's a sad story of nuclear clone against nuclear clone, one good and one bad, both having a war. Neither good nor evil wins in the tragic ending. The script does lack in human character development. Nick Adams was apparently going to appear in this and reprise his original role but was unavailable so Russ Tamblyn was the replacement. He was not nearly as good as Nick Adams. Kumi Mizuno ALMOST reprises her first role, and she's as good as if not better than her acting in the first Frankenstien movie.
The American version's biggest crime is to remove Akira Ifukube's wonderful Maser March and replace it with cheap music that I've also heard in one of the worst movies of all time: Blood Waters of Dr. Z.
|
--------------- |
