GHIDORAH, THE THREE HEADED MONSTER (1965)
Director: Ishiro Honda
Genre: Kaiju eiga
Country: Japan
THE MOVIE
Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster is significant for several reasons. First it marks the point at which the Godzilla series starts its descent into camp with its fatal introduction of extraterrestrial elements into the movies (as if asking the audience to accept giant monsters wasn’t enough). Secondly it starts a weird trilogy of mid sixties Godzilla movies that feature roughly the same plot in which Earth’s monsters team up to fight an invading space monster. This trilogy of loose remakes concluded with Destroy All Monsters which is the most spectacular and monster filled of the bunch. Lastly, Ghidorah introduced us to one of Godzilla’s most memorable and popular foes, the golden triple headed space dragon, King Ghidorah, who is second only to Mothra in number of appearances in the series. Much like Mothra, he has been pimped out whenever Toho was feeling nervous about the box office prospects of their next movie hence his replacement of the lesser-known Varan in 2001’s GMK. Several versions of Ghidorah also appeared in two of the 1990’s Rebirth of Mothra movies.
As for the movie itself, it’s pretty typical mid-sixties Showa stuff. It involves a intrigue between Japan and a fictional foreign country, a missing princess claiming to be from Venus, and a mysterious meteorite housing a certain space monster. And it marks the start of silly season. There is even a conversation between Godzilla and Rodan that is translated for us by the Mothra larva and her twin fairy friends. In a little over ten years Godzilla had gone from a nuclear hell beast to a misunderstood kid fighting on a playground.
MONSTERS PRESENT
Godzilla
Mothra larva
Rodan
King Ghidorah
MONSTERS/EFFECTS
Until this movie, Toho’s monsters were always based on real creatures: Godzilla was based on a couple of dinosaurs; Rodan was based on a Pteradactyl; Mothra, a butterfly. King Ghidorah was the first truly original Toho monster, loosely based on mythic Asian dragons but ultimately the necessities of realizing the creature via suitmation gave Ghidorah his own oddly vertical form and structure. In his debut movie he is as much puppet as suitmation actor with his heads and double tails being controlled by wires (as famously glimpsed in the finale of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure).
As if three heads and wings weren’t enough to make Ghidorah stand out, he is also given beautiful golden scales all over his body and an unearthly chirping vocalization. Oh. And he shoots lightening from each of his three mouths. One can say that the success of creating this new monster from scratch gave Toho the license to create such outlandish alien characters as the avian cyborg Gigan and the beetle-like Megalon.
With the exception of his appearance in GMK, Ghidorah is one of Godzilla’s consistently evil and powerful opponents. He finally got his own (alternate) origin story and even his own mecha in 1991’s Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah. Funny that it took so long to have a movie with that title.
DVD AVAILABILITY
Recently released in a restored deluxe version with both the American and Japanese versions.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
Eh.
SEQUELS
Immediately followed by the very similar:
Invasion of the Astro Monster (1965)
and a few years later by
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
SEE ALSO
Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah (1991)
GMK (2001)
TRAILER
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