terror of mechagodzilla (ishirō honda, 1975)
Wednesday, October 09, 2024
This is the sixth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 6 is called "Strange Beasts Week":
An excerpt from "What is Kaiju?", an essay by Kenta McGrath:
"Although the origins of kaiju can be traced back to long before Godzilla and indeed, cinema itself, the fact remains that the rise of kaiju in popular culture occurred in tandem with the rise of the kaiju eiga ('Japanese monster movies'). But first, we must be attuned to the fact that the kaiju eiga spans decades, covers many aesthetic trends, and varies widely in its use (and non-use) of allegory and socio-political commentary. It is not static but, like Godzilla, always evolving and adapting, according to when, how, and why it is produced, and who is behind the wheel. As with any genre, it has produced formidable works that will stand the test of time, and forgettable efforts designed to do little more than cash in on what came before it.
"Where many saw only the strange, giant monster, others recognized the art and craft behind the strange, giant monster. More than anything else, it is the art of cinema—the combination of image and sound, the collaboration of artists and craftspeople, and the considered use of the resources at their disposal—that allowed the meanings and allegorical potential of kaiju to be articulated in the first place. Beasts, creatures, monsters, and yokai—strange, giant, or otherwise—never needed cinema; it is just one medium in which they have appeared and flourished. Meanwhile, discussing kaiju as separate from cinema seems to me a fruitless exercise. Without cinema, kaiju are relatively unremarkable—just another variation of monsters of which there have been many throughout history.
"From King Kong to Clifford the Big Red Dog, the world of kaiju is vast. For this week's challenge, let's focus on the films in David Haddon's What’s That Coming Over The Hill? - Kaiju Films list and bask in the spectacle that decades of gigantic strange beasts on film have wrought."
Terror of Mechagodzilla has some historical significance in the franchise. It's a sequel to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. It marked a return for director Ishirō Honda, who had directed the very first Godzilla movie, as well as six subsequent films with the iconic monster prior to Terror of Mechagodzilla. It was his last film as a director, but he wasn't done in the industry ... he worked on five late films with Akira Kurosawa.
Sadly, Terror isn't a very good movie. It's nice in that it avoids the appeals to kids that had marred many Godzilla movies ... it's a movie for adults, with adult characters. And if you like kaiju battles, the final sequence between Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, and Titanosaurus is fun. Criterion thought enough of this one to include it in their 15-film box set of Godzilla movies.
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