Alternate Titles: Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
Year: 2001
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Special Effects Director: Makoto Kamiya & Shinji Higuchi
In The Suit: Mizuho Yoshida (Godzilla), Akira Ohashi (King Ghidorah), Rei Ota (Baragon)

It seems like at some point in every new Godzilla continuity, someone realizes that you have to stop messing around and bring back the old classic villains. This movie brings back King Ghidorah and Mothra, and also Baragon who must have a terrible agent since he didn't manage to get billing in the title. And by the way, they're the good guys in this film; even King Ghidorah.

Already i don't like where this movie is going. First off, Godzilla is always the good guy. But fine, he smashes stuff up, and you're mad at him. Whatever. But King Ghidorah as a good guy? That is just so fundamentally wrong.

It seems director Shusuke Kaneko actually wanted to dig a little deeper into the back catalog and use Anguirus and Varan instead of Ghidorah and Mothra, but Toho made him go with the more "commercial" monsters. That may also explain Baragon's lack of billing, but (per Wikipedia) it seems that Baragon is actually more popular in Japan than, say, Anguirus, who American audiences know better from the many Godzilla films he appeared in. Varan is still with us in spirit, because the redesign for King Ghidorah included making his faces a little more like Varan's.

Unbelievable.

And of course when i say "new Godzilla continuity", that's with the important caveat that we're in the Millennium era, so (nearly) every film is really in a continuity unto itself. This film does seem to accept the original 1954 film as canon with one seeming exception that turns out to not really be an exception. The seeming exception that it's said that the Japanese Self-Defense Force, as part of a joint Japanese-United States military action, destroyed Godzilla (i.e. he wasn't destroyed by Oxygen Destroyer). But it's later revealed that that was a lie, propaganda to justify the continued existence of the JSDF. In fact, Godzilla was destroyed by scientists who had invented some chemical (the quote is literally, "50 years ago, Godzilla sank into the Pacific Ocean by scientists who found some chemical to destroy it. We never figured out that chemical composition again.". I love "some chemical".) The formula for the chemical is now lost. That, of course, sounds a lot closer to the original film. I'd also hypothesize that another reason for the JSDF's lie was because the scientist(s) wanted to keep Oxygen Destroyer a secret.

There are other deviations in history besides that, though. A little confusingly, it's said that the joint Japanese/US mission against Godzilla was the eleventh such mission (it's not clear what the other 10 were). Godzilla's arrival is definitely said to have happened in 1954, so it's not clear if the previous 10 missions were unrelated to giant monsters, or if maybe Godzilla attacked in 1954 and there were 10 missions against him before the 11th (supposedly) defeated him. And then it's said that since then, the creatures that have fought against Godzilla have appeared in the United States, and there's been additional reports of unknown monsters appearing all over the world. This despite the fact that the person relaying this information - a JSDF military officer Admiral Taizo Tachibana (played by Ryudo Uzak), to a classroom of JSDF cadets - says that there's been peace since Godzilla's original attack.

It's kind of intriguing to hear about all these additional monsters, and the idea that Godzilla has fought other monsters doesn't seem to jibe with the fact that he was killed in his initial first appearance in 1954. So clearly i'm missing something, possibly because of the translation. You might think that the fact that King Ghidorah, Mothra, and Baragon appear in this film might relate to all of this, but it's not the case; their appearances will occur for unrelated reasons and it's clearly meant to be the first time that they've been seen, at least in modern times.

One reason for this opening sequence and the discussion of other monsters is to take a jab at the American Godzilla film. It's said that a monster recently attacked the US, and it was thought to be Godzilla, but all the Japanese scientists have denied it.

But that's not the whole point of the scene, since Taizo's lecture indicates that there have been multiple monsters.

Anyway, in addition to bringing back some of Godzilla's old opponents, Toho announces its return to form for me and Min specifically by starting things off with an announcement that a submarine has been destroyed. Yes!

I got my hopes up further when it was announced that a smaller experimental sub, the Satsuma, was being sent to investigate the first sub explosion...

...but the Satsuma manages to survive despite spotting the dorsal fins of Godzilla near the wreckage.

Booooo!

At least the first sub was destroyed.

After the opening credits, we find reporter Yuri Tachibana (played by Chiharu Niiyama), the daughter of the JSDF guy that was lecturing to the class earlier, working on a fake horror documentary for a small television station. I've noted before that you can easily tell which movies were popular prior to the release of the Godzilla film that you're watching, and in this case it was The Blair Witch Project. Yuri alludes to that movie when convincing a village chief (played by Koichi Ueda, a guy that normally plays military roles) to allow her crew to film in his village (that movie was popular, ergo her documentary will publicize the village and bring young people to it), and portions of this movie use the hand-held camera style that was popularized by that film. There's also a ghost (although we don't know that yet) in the form of an old man that lurks near where Yuri and her crew are filming.

Upon seeing the old man, the first thing i thought of was the creepy people that lurk on the edge of the forest towards the end of Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (me, too!). It was never clear what they were about, so now i guess we can say that they were all ghosts.

He's been wandering around the studio since they filmed that scene, trying to find an exit.

An earthquake occurs while Yuri is talking to the village chief. Later, we see the chief in a car, putting the moves on a woman, when a group of bikers show up causing trouble (hooligans!), including knocking over an ancestor statue. The bikers ride into a tunnel, and then another earthquake occurs. This time we see a glimpse of a creature that is obviously Baragon to us Godzilla fans, but which a witness thinks is Godzilla.

The JSDF shows up the next morning to demonstrate its new D-03 drill missiles.

They fire these at the caved in tunnel, and the missiles drill in and then explode. The monster that caused the cave-in is not found.

Later, more rowdy kids are shown breaking into a store to steal beer, and also messing with ancestor statues. The creepy old man is shown watching them. Some of the kids even take one of the ancestor statues and put it in a box, and then take an adorable dog that was barking at them. They put the box in a rowboat and start rowing out into the middle of a lake. The boat is suddenly overturned, and the kids are pulled under the lake, one by one.

What about the dog?!? The dog was in the box! These assholes moved up from just being rowdy kids to being murderers.

The creature that is doing this then surfaces. I know the image is very dark, but it's the only shot we'll get of Mothra in larva form.

The next day, the television reports that kids have been located, wrapped up in cocoons. And the dog is fine.

Mothra should have eaten those jerks.

The army isn't sure what's going on, but they're taking the possibility that Godzilla has returned seriously. They don't know why he'd be returning after 50 (or so) years. But they're confident that 50 years of technological improvements on their weaponry will make it easier to handle Godzilla. Well, that's what they say, but they don't look so sure, for reasons that will become apparent later (but which i already mentioned; it wasn't the army's weapons that defeated Godzilla).

Yuri manages to get an interview with the old man, who tells them to wake up Ghidorah, king of the dragons. He tells her to go to the place where Ghidorah is sleeping. Does he mean space? Because Ghidorah is a space monster! But no, it's not space. It's a spot out in the woods.

Yeah, me too.

Well, let me try to address Yuri and Min's confusion. In this movie, according to a book that Yuri's quasi boyfriend Teruaki Takeda (played by Masahiro Kobayashi) gives Yuri, which is called Legend of the God Monsters, Baragon, Mothra, and King Ghidorah are ancient spirits that protect the "country" (it's emphasized that by "country" they mean less the nation and more the land itself).

Bullshit! Ghidorah does not protect anything.

Something is said about ancient kingdoms having trapped their enemies and turning them into guardian spirits. And then it's said that it's only been 2,000 years, so King Ghidorah is not yet fully formed. He grows slowly but when he's an adult he's very powerful. It's a lot to absorb especially since it's all so different than anything we've heard about King Ghidorah before.

But we then switch to some kids waiting out a tropical storm while playing ping pong in a clubhouse of some sort. It's said that they are near the island where Godzilla first attacked back in 1954, and there are some photos on the walls.

I'd guess those were scenes from the original Godzilla film but there's nothing easily recognizable.

Godzilla then resurfaces, stomping on the house.

He's just walking. He didn't mean it.

We go back to Yuri and her news crew. There's also her editor, Haruki Kadokura (played by Shiro Sano, but with much longer hair than when he appeared in Godzilla Millennium).

They are watching footage of the interview they did with the old man. He says that Godzilla is possessed by those that died in the Pacific during World War II. Both Americans and Japanese, (and?) "innocent" people killed by the atomic bomb. He represents the aggregate feelings of anger and resentment of the people that were killed, and he is resurfacing now because people are forgetting.

So in this movie, Godzilla isn't quite as explicitly a warning about the dangers of nuclear power, although that's in there too. There is also a lot of talk of honoring soldiers in this movie, so it's almost like Godzilla is an angry reminder to take Memorial Day seriously. But it's all much more mystically themed than usual. There's also some crazy talk about how rocks are the CD-ROMs of the past, imbued with electricity that represents the spirits of people who have died. Or something. I have to admit that i didn't get much help from Min on interpreting all of this, because she was still stuck on the fact that Godzilla rose up and stomped on that clubhouse.

Min: They saw him at the submarine. How are they not tracking him? How is Godzilla sneaking up on people again?
Fnord: I can't believe that's what you're stuck on with all this mystical mumbo.
Min: Why, what's wrong with that?

Min is right to be concerned. Three days later, Godzilla has yet to be relocated after his attack on the island. We get a flashback of Yuri's father Taizo, in 1954, showing him as a young boy wandering the streets of Tokyo, his parents having been killed by Godzilla. Godzilla isn't shown in the flashback. Back in the present, Taizo says that people have forgotten about Godzilla.

Next, there are more earthquakes, and it's noted that the seismic center is moving, something that Yuri noticed about the first earthquake but no one believed her. It is, of course, Baragon.

Where exactly has Baragon been all this time? Was he hanging out with Mothra on Infant Island? Infant Island prolly doesn't exist in this continuity. I guess Baragon and Mothra just sprouted out of the ground spontaneously.

People are pretty confused about Baragon. He's described as a red Godzilla (to which someone else says, 'Don't be ridiculous, Godzilla isn't red!'), then he's described as being the same species as Godzilla, although only 30 meters in length. Finally, when the news is reported to Taizo, it's confirmed that he's a different species than Godzilla.

Meanwhile, Godzilla resurfaces as well. Godzilla is looking kinda... funny in this movie. If he looked overly buff in the Heisei period and the first two Millennium movies, like one of those guys that spends too much time in the gym doing shoulder shrugs to develop abnormal traps, in this movie he looks like someone that used to be buff but has let himself go, so he's now more fat than strong.

He's also got an incredibly long neck.

He looks kind of like an upright alligator with a huge paunch.

I didn't really like "thick Godzilla" from earlier films, so there's something about this version that i like. He's in some ways more limber looking, at least around the head and neck, and more like the Showa version.

He's just weird looking. Like his bits don't go together.

But there are bunch of things about him that just look weird. His long neck. A weird bulge under his chin that Min calls a goiter. A pot belly. And he also has no pupils. Just white orbs in his head.

Zombie Godzilla!

The point of the eyes, at least, is to confirm for us that Godzilla is the bad guy. We've already seen him stomping on civilians, but it's really hammered home in a scene with a woman trapped in a hospital bed, in traction. Godzilla approaches as the woman increasingly panics. Godzilla then passes, and you can see the relief on her face. The tail! The tail! And sure enough, Godzilla casually swings his tail after the danger has seemingly passed, and the building is crushed.

That wasn't his fault! He's big! It's hard to keep all of that under control in your cramped little cities!

We're not done establishing Godzilla as the bad guy. After he's done rampaging through the city, he turns, begins to breath...

...and the next thing we see is a classroom of kids looking at a mushroom cloud.

Totally unprovoked destruction.

Godzilla and Baragon wind up meeting at a tourist location in Hakone.

Hey, this shot looks familiar:

Haloooooo!

Then he comes bursting through the mountain:

Really, Godzilla? Mountains? Through the mountains is easier?

Baragon seems happy to see him.

OMG, Godzilla! i haven't seen you in SO long.

But they do get to fighting right away.

We get to see some of the fight via a handheld camera.

Baragon is a leaper. And he's also a burrower, and he spends the beginning of the fight burrowing around under Godzilla.

Godzilla eventually steps on a piece of hollow ground, falls through, and trips. Baragon then leaps out...

...and bites onto him, hanging on.

Godzilla escapes Baragon's lockjaw grip with a shoulder toss, directly at the tourists' parking lot.

It should be noted that the laser breath that Baragon had in Frankenstein Conquers the World is nowhere to be seen. And the reporters watching the fight observe that Godzilla is much bigger, and Baragon has no chance.

Reporters in a helicopter narrate the fight like it's a WWF match.

But the copter gets awful close to the fight.

Cereally. These are giant monsters. You can prolly see them from a mile away just fine. Why did he take on Godzilla alone? He had to know there was no way he could win this fight. Where the hell is Mothra?

And when Baragon leaps at Godzilla again, Godzilla uses his tail to swat him into the copter. Then Godzilla readies his breath weapon.

Note that the flame is blue again. It's been red in the past few movies. Between that, the slimmed down look for Godzilla, the return of some classic monsters, and the fact that they're back to doing wrestling moves, in a lot of ways this feels more like a Showa era film, than the past few movies. We saw a slight return to that with some of the up-close fighting in Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, too. But it's more pronounced here. On the other hand, Godzilla is pure evil here, and the weirdness of the current suit, especially the blank eyeballs, ruins the fun of it for me a bit.

Baragon is melted by the breath attack, and dissipates.

Poor Baragon.

Yuri tells one of the refugees from the fight that Baragon died to save the tourists, and i assume we're supposed to take that as fact. So even though he doesn't make it to the final fight (or get billing in the title!), Baragon serves a purpose.

While all of this is going on, we also have scenes of the mysterious old man in a cave, reviving King Ghidorah. And after the Baragon fight, we find that a giant cocoon has appeared on the lake where the kids in the boat were attacked.

Wait. What? How did a giant larva build an equally giant cocoon and nobody noticed it happening? And, moths build a cocoons in a lakes now? Hey, any reports of old people coming out of that water feeling rejuvenated?

I've been talking about Taizo Tachibana as our JSDF representative, but he's not the guy in charge. That's this guy, who remains confident about the ability to attack Godzilla directly.

He launches an attack on Godzilla with guided missiles. The scene is depicted in footage reminiscent of the CNN footage of the smart bombs used during the first Gulf War.

Godzilla just shakes his head after the attack. "I gave you guys 50 years, and that's the best you can come up with?" The JSDF commander then orders to attack again, and this time, "cut to a deep, sharp angle". The people around him look a little incredulous, and one of the bombers says, "It has nothing to do with the angle!".

Then Godzilla stops being tolerant and unleashes his breath weapon. With the modern animation, it looks more like a laser beam than a breath weapon (not easy to capture with a screengrab; it's the way he moves it around).

You should see the way i can freak out cats with this thing.

It's at this point that the secret comes out that the JSDF had nothing to do with Godzilla's initial 1954 defeat. So the military is actually at a loss as to how to stop Godzilla now. On the plus side, King Ghidorah and Mothra have awoken.

Woe is the day when we're happy about King Ghidorah waking up.

There are no twin fairies in this movie, but as Mothra flies by, we see a pair of young women looking up at her.

They apparently appeared as twins in Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys. There are actually a lot of scenes in this movie that feel like cameos, little scenes where a single individual gets a little more screen time than you'd otherwise expect.

When the JSDF hears that there's a "message from Ikeda Lake in Kagoshima. A large insect's flying in the air.", the response is, "Again?". What don't we know about?

I thought this sequence was pretty funny, too.

*Someone's* a fanboy geek.

Anyway, they of course name the "red monster" Baragon (even though he's already dead) and they name Mothra and Ghidorah (no "King") as well.

Mothra is the first to reach Godzilla.

A definite almost-Showa moment when Godzilla's reaction to seeing Mothra is to scratch at his neck in what is obviously some sort of Kaiju insult.

Mothra's response is to fire a bunch of little darts or something at him.

Min: What?! What are you shooting?
Fnord: Well, we did complain about all the laser upgrades in her previous movies.

Mothra may be trying to defend the country, but you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. As Godzilla breathes at her, Mothra flies super-fast past Yuri the reporter, knocking her down with a sonic boom, and then leading Godzilla's breath right to a group of soldiers.

Sorry! Sorry! You might want to duck!

Too late!

Mothra gets behind Godzilla and sticks to his head.

Now cover him in silk!

Then Ghidorah shows up and starts gliding across the city.

Somebody's on skates!

Ghidorah does not have wings at this point. And he's not breathing lightning, but there is electricity when he bites.

I dunno what the hell is going on. Are you sure this is a Godzilla movie?

Ghidorah also makes weird noises, kind of like his classic high pitched warble, but there's something very off about it.

Godzilla's paunch is really visible at this point.

Ughhhh. Seriously? Has rubber suit technology gone backwards?

Meanwhile, Taizo requests to be put in charge of the JSDF's assault. He makes the decision to not attack Ghidorah or Mothra, staying allied with them against Godzilla. But at this point he's holding back, not attacking at all.

Godzilla starts biting Ghidora.

Mothra tries to sneak up from behind, but Godzilla knocks her away with his tail. Then Godzilla grabs Ghidorah and flips him. Unfortunately the movie, or at least our DVD, is really dark.

Fnord: Ooh! Look at that twirl and toss!
Min: I can't. I can't fucking see it. Too dark.

Ghidorah takes a serious beating and eventually goes down. But just like the Godzilla of old, this Godzilla does not relent when his opponent is down, so Mothra has to jump in and take the blast meant for Ghidorah.

At this point the army jumps in, launching their D-03 drill missiles at Godzilla.

Godzilla does not like that. I did enjoy the defiant look on this guy's face as Godzilla turns around and blasts him and the rest of the army away.

Godzilla blasts all but one of the army's boats. As Godzilla is targetting the final boat, Mothra re-emerges.

Mothra, you're on fire!

Mothra comes up behind Godzilla as he's getting ready to blast.

And for her interference, Godzilla turns around and blasts her.

As with Baragon, she derezzes.

Her essence rains down on Ghidorah.

I dunno how i feel about all this essence getting passed around from one monster to another.

And so Ghidroah wakes up, larger, shinier, and with wings. I assume we can call him King Ghidorah at this point, and that the idea is that he's been accelerated to adult form.

Godzilla blasts King Ghidorah, but he seems to have some kind of forcefield...

...and he seems to return the breath attack from Godzilla in the form of a giant fireball. Godzilla is knocked into the sea. King Ghidorah joins him, and they fight in the water.

Oh good, because it was a little too light on land. It was almost possible to see things.

Yuri, the reporter, has been doing an admirable job of staying on location to cover the fight, over the objections of her father, Taizo, and at great risk to herself (although Min complains that she doesn't remember to hold up her camera very often). But eventually it's decided that Taizo and one other soldier will join the undersea battle in their single-pilot Satsuma mini-subs, armed with drill missiles.

And before doing that, Taizo gives official permission for Yuri to film. So she winds up on a bridge over the battle.

The Satsumas are targeting a spot where Godzilla was injured earlier. They each have only one missile in their little subs. Taizo's companion fires first, but misses Godzilla and hits King Ghidorah instead ("Thanks a lot, guys"). Ghidorah is defeated by Godzilla again. Then Taizo orders his companion to leave, and goes in to take his turn. But his sub winds up getting grabbed by Godzilla.

Yuri's bridge is damaged during the attack, and Yuri falls, dropping the rock she's been carrying around. What rock? The one they showed when they were talking about how rocks are the CD-ROMs of the past. That's crazy talk. The rock lands on King Ghidorah, powering him up a second time.

OMG, how many lives does King Ghidorah need? He's supposed to be Godzilla's biggest foe! Loser!

With the most recent power up, King Ghidorah is breathing lightning.

But even all this isn't really enough to stop Godzilla, and Ghidorah is blasted again. But instead of dying, he turns into a spirit form of Baragon...

...then Mothra...

...and then a spirit form of King Ghidorah, before just turning into generic mist and flowing into Godzilla.

This is crap. You're going to defeat Godzilla with spirit glitter?

Godzilla is disabled, and Taizo pilots his sub into Godzilla's mouth.

It's like a scene from Inner Space as the Satsuma floats around in Godzilla. I vaguely remember reading that Toho was at one point considering doing an entire Inner Space type movie with people inside Godzilla. If i'm remembering that correctly, this might be leftover from that idea. Personally i thought Godzilla had the equivalent of a nuclear reactor inside him and so the Satsuma should be melted to slag immediately. But maybe the King Ghidorah spirit is making things possible. The Satsuma is able to fire a missile, busting through Godzilla's shoulder.

Meanwhile, Yuri and her boyfriend have managed to swim ashore. But Godzilla rises up from the sea behind them, with water dripping off of him onto the two humans. Uh, that's radioactivity dripping all over you. Godzilla gets ready to blast. However, when he tries to breath, it winds up coming out the hole in his shoulder.

Godzilla tries one last time to breath, and then disappears off the radar.

When did you ever have him on radar? You spent the whole movie losing track of him.

The father makes it out, but he holds off on hugging his daughter until he's checked out for radiation.

Oh what does it matter? Yuri was swimming around in that radioactive water the whole time.

Later, it's determined that the old man that was interviewed by Yuri in this movie actually went missing 50 years ago, and he was 75 years old at that time. So he was a ghost! He's even disappeared from the footage of Yuri's interview.

In keeping with the theme of the movie, at the end there's a tribute to all of the soldiers that have died. And also to the guardian monsters.

Then, at the very end of the movie, we see Godzilla's still pumping heart under the sea.

I can't see anything. Who makes these movies? Cat people?

But this being a Millennium movie, that final scene doesn't lead to a sequel.

I've complained that the last several Godzilla movies have all followed the same basic plot, with the army chasing Godzilla but then backing off because of the arrival of the monster of the year. In this one, Godzilla is the bad guy all the way through, and the army even teams up with the monster he's fighting. It's also a much more mystically inclined movie, with mystical explanations for the monsters that fight Godzilla as well as possibly even Godzilla himself. The idea that he's a representation of all the people that died in the Pacific during World War II is interesting, and it is a deviation from the normal Godzilla metaphor. It's similar - he's still tied in to the use of nuclear weapons during World War II - but the idea that he's returning because people have forgotten to honor the dead of World War II is a very different message than the usual warning against the use of nuclear power specifically and unchecked science generally. It's close enough in theme that it doesn't feel like too much of a deviation, and the movie doesn't overwhelm us with the message anyway. The bigger deviation is of course the use of King Ghidorah as a good guy, a very controversial move. It makes more sense when you realize that the original plan was to use the more obscure Varan instead of King Ghidorah. In any event, i'm not going to complain too much about a movie that gives us four monsters.

Godzilla Drinking Game
	Someone thinks it's a good idea to drag a giant monster across the ocean on a raft (giant eggs count).
	Attacking planes fly directly at a monster, with no possibility of avoiding a crash even if the monster didn't swat them down.
	People refuse to believe in the existence of a giant monster even though they've already acknowledged that Godzilla exists.	Taizo Tachibana dismisses his daughter's research about the three guardian monsters. Which is so weird because he gave that lecture to the cadets about reports of monsters appearing all over the world.
	A submarine explodes.	A return to form after the last two, Toho!
	Teens have a dance party on a boat. Two drinks/head smacks if they get attacked by a monster during the party.	I'm calling this close enough. We have rowdy teens getting drunk and partying, and some of them go out on a boat and get attacked by a monster.
	The government is completely ineffective when faced with a corporation doing something illegal.
	A humongous lumbering monster manages to sneak up on someone. Two drinks/head smacks if it's the army and they're supposedly using radar.	Godzilla comes and goes as he pleases. Mothra spun a cocoon in a lake and nobody noticed!
	A scientist suddenly figures everything out with little-to-no information and explains it all to everyone.
	A monster suddenly grows in size just because.	Something about a rock that is like a CD? Look, i'll give you a pass on one mystical power-up, but not two.
	People expose themselves to major amounts of radiation with no concern.	Yuri took that radiation bath in Godzilla's pool at the end.
	Everyone suddenly knows a monster's name. Two drinks/head smacks if everyone else nods appreciatively and repeats it.	If anything, people actually refuse to use these monsters' names even after they've officially been assigned. They're still just the "guardian monsters" or similar.
	Army missiles can't seem to hit a 150+ foot monster and instead explode harmlessly around it.	The army is very much on target in this movie, not counting the one time they accidentally hit King Ghidorah instead.
	A woman falls down for no reason.	Yuri does fall, but at least there's a clear reason why.
	Bad dinosaur science. You have to give a little leeway for the time period, but pretending a children's picture book is a scientific journal is always worth two drinks/smacks.

Monsters Appearing: Baragon, Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mothra