Review: War of the Gargantuas (1966)

I'm not ashamed to say it: my love for War of the Gargantuas knows no bounds.

Maybe it's because seeing War of the Gargantuas takes me back to those Friday and Saturday nights spent curled up on the gold-upholstered couch in the family room of the apartment on Ohio Street, watching Creature Features on the tiny black & white TV.

Or maybe it's because this movie is the most action-packed of the '60s giant Japanese monster flicks, with lots of buildings being smashed, stepped on or otherwise abused and little in the way of Stupid Human Story (you know, ehere the human characters have to deal with jewel thieves or greedy entrepreneurs or political assassins or whatever.)

Or maybe it's because this movie features what may be the single worst musical number in the history of cinema.

Whatever the specific reason, War of the Gargantuas makes me happy. It's like comfort food, if comfort food could roar and punch holes through downtown Tokyo.

The movie opens at sea during a violent storm, where a boat is being attacked by a giant octopus. (This must be a problem particular to the coastal waters of Japan, as I can think of at least three other Japanese monster movies where the same thing happens.) The octopus doesn't get much of a meal, though, since it gets attacked by a creature from the deep that looks a lot like the Frankenstein Monster covered in seaweed. This green guy called Gargantua (think Bigfoot with a much, much bigger foot) starts popping up all over the place, hassling fishermen and generally scaring the crap out of the general public.

Concerned military authorities call in scientists, including Dr. Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) and his lovely assistant, Akemi (Kumi Mizuno, who also appeared in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster), who cared for a baby Gargantua years before. Could that Gargantua, who subsequently escaped, be the same one munching on civilians, like the dudes on the boat (who turn out to be smugglers, so I guess they deserved it) or a poor cleaning woman caught at the airport (Gargantua spits her shredded clothing out--ew!)? Are there two of them?

Gargantua runs back to ocean when the sun comes out--turns out he's sensitive to light, having lived in the depths all his life)--but comes out again at night, especially when the lights go down on the outdoor deck of a downtown Tokyo nightclub for an awful musical number sung by Kipp Hamilton called "The Words Get Stuck in My Throat" (if only they really did, Kipp, if only they really did). Fortunately, Green Gargantua toddles up and tries to eat Kipp, thus ending her song (and sparing our ears from any more hemorraging).

The bright lights of the big city drive off the mean green eating machine again, though, and he runs into the forest, where the military attacks with damn near everything--tanks, rockets, lasers, electrodes, you name it. And you know what? The barrage actually works! Green Gargantua is down and nearly out when an even bigger Brown Gargantua shows up and saves the green one's mossy ass. The scientists analyze the cells of both and find that the brown one was the one Stewart and Akemi had found so kind and gentle years before and that the green one grew from cells torn off the brown one. So they're not really brothers, but more like clones.)

This would probably make slightly more sense if the American distributor hadn't removed footage and dialogue that connected War of the Gargantuas to its predecessor, the even more ridiculous Frankenstein Conquers the World, which had nearly the same plot (two monsters, one of them innocent) and roughly the same conclusion.

Brown Gargantua, who breaks his leg saving his old friend Akemi from falling off a cliff, tries to help hide and heal Green Gargantua until he figures out that his "brother" has been chomping on the tourists, at which point he smacks GG with a tree and the title fight is on. This leads to an all-out kaiju smackdown in Tokyo, with the two monsters body-slamming one another while the military tries to kill both of them. They needn't have wasted the ammo, though, as a conveniently erupting volcano (in Tokyo Bay?!?) destroys both Gargantuas. (Or we assume they were destroyed, since there wasn't a sequel to War of the Gargantuas.)

Unlike a lot of other kaiju classics, War of the Gargantuas never even pretends to take itself seriously. It's blissfully silly, fast-paced and colorful--just what you need to go with your bowl of popcorn on a Saturday night.