Gojira, Ebirâ, Mosura: Nankai no daiketto (1966) Reviews

• A good entry in the series

  Bob_Tanaka2004-03-28

  This is one of the first Godzilla movies I saw, and when I see it now after seeing almost all of the other movies, it still holds up pretty well. The main problem is, of course, Ebirah. Definetly Godzilla's worst foe. I mean, really, A GIANT LOBSTER!? But, other than that, the film is quite good, following the usual trend that the Godzilla movies tend to have much better plots than their american counterparts of the time. Here we have a young man trying to find his brother taking his friends with him to look at boats. When they board one to look around, they find a man with a gun to greet them. He claims to be the owner and allows them to spend the night on the boat. When they wake up the next morning, however, the young man has taken the boat to find his brother. It's wrecked in a storm and they are stranded on an island where they discover a secret organisation called the Red Bamboo is using slave labor to make nuclear weapons. Ebirah, a giant lobster, prevents boats from entering or leaving the island, and Okondoru, a giant condor, prevents planes from arriving. The man who claimed to own the boat, Yoshimura, turns out to be both a thief and the most resourceful member of their little group (which now also includes an escaped slave played by the wonderful Kumi Mizuno). They discover that Godzilla is sleeping on the island, so they wake him up in order to stop the Red Bamboo. He trashes the base, defeats the two other, ahem, monsters, and the slaves and group are all saved by Mothra (who really isn't looking to good by now). The thief, Yoshimura, is definetly my favorite character in this, and the special effects are pretty good at times (he may be a pathetic monster, but Ebirah looks great). As a bonus, it also makes for a great MST3K episode.

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• a delight!

  eileenmchenry2004-05-01

  This is one of my favorite Toho monster movies. The action makes sense, the rubber monsters are terrific and the Kenny factor is zero. It also has the Twins of Infant Island singing a duet and, at the very beginning, a boss dance marathon. I often regret the fact that we have never gotten to see Ebirah (the MAMMOTH LOBSTER! as one character calls him) from that day to this -- Toho could profitably have spent years developing a vision of the world's oceans filled with crawdads the size of aircraft carriers, but for some reason they never went ahead with it. The showdown (or is it a handball tournament?) between Godzilla and Ebirah is one of the finest action-comedy scenes ever. This movie also features a spectacular safecracking scene in which the bank robber jimmies a lock on what looks like the door to a bank vault, the plucky castaways nip inside -- and then nip outside even faster, saying, "It's a nuclear reactor!!!" I would recommend this film to anyone.

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• james bond meets Godzilla

  r-c-s2005-10-29

  a very nice monster movie from the 60's. the sets & the photography are very good (compared to other low-budget C Japanese monster movies ). The plot revolves around a James-Bond kind of situation (remember that was 1966 thus James Bond was a new thing as well! ): villains in uniform kidnap natives on a remote island & enslave them on a second island where they're producing atomic weapons. Guardian of the island is a giant lobster (the head, the claws & the eyes etc show it's a lobster, not a shrimp ), kept at bay using some exotic fruit juice (remember the King Kong movie? ). The sets are typical low budget Bond sets. A band of merry simpletons lands there as a result of fortuitous coincidences, a storm & a man wanting to find his brother lost at sea. A pretty fugitive islander woman joins them as they go back & forth chased by the Bond-villains. In an underground cave they find an unconscious Godzilla, promptly woken up in an attempt to jeopardize the villains' plans. Very nice... one of those unpretentious movies you'd watch twice in a row. Godzilla fights the giant lobster, a giant vulture and fails to fight a giant butterfly ( the friendly god-protector of the islanders...remember King Caesar the Dragon from another G-movie ), which rescues the prisoners in the end.

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• A great misunderstood Godzilla movie

  Gigan641999-09-22

  This movie is great, one of the best of the giant monster movies (daikaiju). But sadly this movie is usally overlooked because of the silly opponents that Godzilla fights, like a giant lobster and a giant condor. but if you look past the bad Kajiu designs, and focus more on the plot you will enjoy the movie alot more. Also get the subtitled version, there are too many mistakes in the dubbed version so that it passes on as stupid, and the actors in this movie are really top notch, so get the subtitled version. Defentily one of the most overlooked Godzilla movies.

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• Is it Godzilla, or King Kong?

  jerekra2008-08-28

  A stealing of a boat leads to a rescue mission that ends up on the island of the red bamboo. The Red Bamboo are a militant group intent on taking over the planet. All attempted escapes from the island are halted by the giant lobster monster Ebirah. Soon the group of people who stole the boat come upon Godzilla in a cave and awaken him by using lightning. The group now must rescue their comrades who were captured by the red bamboo all while watching out for Godzilla. This is one of Godzillas least remembered films. It is not regarded as his best film but is not among the list of the worst regarded Godzilla Films. THat is the opinion I have on it, it is a good Godzilla Film, not his best, but certainly not his worst. There are a couple behavioral oddities for Godzilla in this film. That can be attributed to the fact that this film was originally written to star King Kong. That explains a scene where Godzilla is smitten with an island girl and several scenes where he chooses to throw builders rather than use his atomic breath. There is plenty of action in this film. This includes several scenes including the humans who are trying to flee from the evil red bamboo. Godzilla himself gets in a lot of action. This includes two interesting fights with Ebirah, the Sea Monster. Ebirah is just an enormous lobster. He possesses no super powers or anything, just uses his giant claws to smash things. He gets some good hits on Godzilla but for the most part when Godzilla rips off both of Ebirahs claws the threat is over. Godzilla also gets to fight a giant condor. Mothra is in the film in a cameo role and fights Godzilla briefly. I never liked Mothra so his involvement in the film did not make me too happy. So this film does have plenty of action involving both Godzilla and the humans. Not one of the best Godzilla films, but there are others waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse. Watch it whenever you have a chance.

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