San daikaijû: Chikyû saidai no kessen (1964)

Director:

Ishirô Honda

Writer:

Shinichi Sekizawa (writer)

Release Date:

13 September 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The Three-Headed Monster battles Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan for the world!

Plot:

After a meteorite unleashes a three-headed beast upon Tokyo, Mothra tries to unite with Godzilla and Rodan to battle the extraterrestrial threat.

Plot Keywords:

Rodan | Godzilla | Mothra | Princess | Monster

Cast

Yosuke Natsuki	...	Detective Shindo
Yuriko Hoshi	...	Naoko Shindo
Hiroshi Koizumi	...	Professor Miura
Akiko Wakabayashi	...	Mas Selina Salno, Princess of Sergina
Emi Ito	...	Shobijin (Twin Fairy)
Yûmi Ito	...	Shobijin (Twin Fairy)
Takashi Shimura	...	Dr. Tsukamoto
Akihiko Hirata	...	Chief Detective Okita
Hisaya Ito	...	Malmess, Chief Assassin
Minoru Takada	...	Prime Minister
Senshô Matsumoto	...	Alien Expert
Ikio Sawamura	...	Honest Fisherman
Kôzô Nomura	...	Geologist
Kenji Sahara	...	Editor in Chief Kanamaki
Susumu Kurobe	...	Moustachoied Assassin

Also Known As:

Earth's Greatest Battle (literal English title)
Ghidora, the Three-Headed Monster
Ghidrah
Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster (USA)
Gojira Mosura Kingu Gidora: Chikyu saidai no kessen (Japan) (reissue title)
Monster of Monsters: Ghidorah (International: English title)
The Biggest Battle on Earth
The Biggest Fight on Earth
The Greatest Battle on Earth
The Greatest Fight on Earth
Three Giant Monsters: The Greatest Battle on Earth (International: English title) (literal title)

Runtime:

92 min | Japan:73 min (1971 reissue) | USA:85 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

In the original concept King Ghidorah's wings were rainbow colored. Also, the creature was to breath fire from it's three heads. In the final concept they emit gravity rays.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the assassins' 1960 Mercedes 220 S is crushed by the landslide, it changes to a 1963 Toyopet Tiara for the shot of Malmess extracting himself from the wreck.

Quotes:

[the twin fairies translate a conversation between Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra]
Shobijin, Shobijin: Oh, Godzilla, what terrible language.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies (1990) (V)

Godzilla's first time out as a good guy

Grabbing a rare day off from the protracted shoot of Kurosawa's Redbeard, Takashi Shimura returned to the series for the last time, this time as a psychologist, in San Daikaijû: Chikyû Saidai No Kessen/Earth's Greatest Battle aka Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster - or Ghidrah if you watch the US version. Marking Godzilla's first time crossing the line from villain to hero (albeit very reluctantly) which many hardcore fans regard as the beginning of the end for the big feller, while it's certainly enjoyable, like most Toho monster mashes this spends much more time with the humans than it does with the critters. This time the plot revolves around a plot to kill a princess of an obscure kingdom during her visit to Japan which goes awry, as these conspiracies so often do, when she steps out of her plane into a gap between dimensions and emerges as a Venusian prophetess of the end of the world at the claws of Ghidorah, a rather impressive cross between a flying dragon and an economy-price Hydra (half the heads, all the destructive power) with previous for laying wastes to whole worlds.

Godzilla and flying monster Rodan are also back on the rampage, and it's up to the two singing fairy girls from Infant Island and Mothra to persuade them to save the Earth in a dementedly enjoyable monster summit where they translate the surly critters' grievances with the pesky human race that is always picking on them. Unfortunately Rodan is one of the least impressive of Toho's monster roster, and here the model work is particularly bad, turning him into across between The Giant Claw and Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show, while Mothra is still in its larva stage purely because its cheaper to do special effects with a giant slug than a giant flying moth (its twin from Mothra Vs. Godzilla having conveniently died between movies presumably for the same reason). When the monsters do finally slug it out in the last half hour, it's something of a disappointment. The big feller's battle with Rodan consists largely of the prehistoric bird pecking him on the head while he kicks rocks at it, although a sequence where the two throw and head the same rock between each other, Mothra watching like a spectator at Wimbledon, is amusing. Similarly, the final battle with Ghidorah never lives up to its potential, with the beasts considerately having their showdown in the countryside to keep the city stomping to an affordable minimum.

This also ups the comedy: with body language straight out of Oliver Hardy and getting zapped in the butt and the groin, you half expect Godzilla to get a custard pie in the face at times. The special effects are a step down from previous entries, with a lot of unconvincing puppet work, while plot inconsistencies abound - the two singing fairy girls say they don't want to attract attention, yet appear on a Where Are they Now? TV show – but do you really see a Godzilla film for the plot? Unlike previous entries in the series, the US version also included on Classic Media's Region 1 DVD is more a case of trimming and tidying the chronology than a radical overhaul, though it does change the princess from a Venusian to a Martian and adds shots of Rodan to Godzilla's early rampages to make them seem less unmotivated.