The War of the Gargantuas (1966)

An experimental lab animal called a gargantua escapes from his captors and is suspected to be the creature that is killing people all over the countryside. But when the gargantua from the ... See full summary »

Director:

Ishirô Honda

Writers:

Reuben Bercovitch (story), Ishirô Honda

Stars:

Russ Tamblyn, Kumi Mizuno, Kenji Sahara

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Russ Tamblyn	...	Dr. Paul Stewart (as Rasu Tanburin)
Kumi Mizuno	...	Akemi Togawa
Kenji Sahara	...	Dr. Yuzo Majida
Nobuo Nakamura	...	Dr. Kita
Jun Tazaki	...	General
Hisaya Itô	...	Police Chief
Yoshifumi Tajima	...	Police Officer
Ren Yamamoto	...	Sailor
Kipp Hamilton	...	Singer
Kôzô Nomura	...	General's Aide
Nadao Kirino	...	Soldier
Shôichi Hirose	...	Soldier
Tadashi Okabe	...	Defiant Reporter
Hideo Shibuya	...	Skeptical Reporter
Yoshio Katsube	...	Reporter

Storyline

An experimental lab animal called a gargantua escapes from his captors and is suspected to be the creature that is killing people all over the countryside. But when the gargantua from the lab appears at the same time as the evil gargantua, the two begin to battle across Japan.

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Plot Keywords:

kaiju | man eating monster | giant monster | boat | sea | 

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Taglines:

Can a Country Survive When Two Gargantuas Battle to Death?

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Genres:

Action | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

G

Did You Know?

Trivia

The part of the American singer was played by Kipp Hamilton, sister-in-law of Carol Burnett.

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Goofs

The American version mistakenly credits director Ishirô Honda as Inoshiro Honda.

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Quotes

Akemi Togawa: They don't seem to be afraid of Gaira.
Dr. Paul Stewart: Ah, they're young; young people don't have too much fear... It's strange, you know. Whenever there's a strong evil force around, youth seems to blossom. Like when the Nazi's captured Paris. All of the night clubs and theaters were filled with young people.
Akemi Togawa: Aren't we guilty of doing the same thing?
Dr. Paul Stewart: I don't feel guilt; I don't think they do either...

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Alternate Versions

In the original version Dr. Stewart is not on the boat when the diver surfaces with the chewed up clothes of the crew from the first attack.

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Connections

Featured in Up from the Depths: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) (2019)

User Reviews

Clash of the Titanic Brothers

A fond and nostalgic personal memory, "War of the Gargantuas" was a welcome treat in my family's living room (they had more console television sets back then; am I getting old or what?), and is one of my favorite Japanese monster movies. When they aired it, which was often, I'd get a chance to watch it five times during that week, at 8:00pm on a KTLA (Los Angeles area Channel 5) Movie of the (whole) Week (I was just a kid then, and before anybody was able to rent videos at Blockbuster).

Barebones Summary (without spoiling it for the inexperienced viewer):

A beautiful young female scientist, Akemi (pronounced ‘ uh-kay-mee '), does research on a docile, missing-link-like monster child -eventually called `The Brown One.' (There is a cute scene in which Akemi feeds it a chocolate bar, soon after it has played with children's toys). One day the small and hairy young creature escapes the laboratory and grows up alone in the forest. Some years later Akemi meets an American scientist, Paul Stewart, and you just know these two lovebirds are going to fall in love.

Meanwhile at Tokyo International, a huge green monster pops out of the ocean and proves everybody wrong when they say Airport food is lousy. The ugly sea titan sticks its hand in an office window, pulls out an even uglier cleaning lady and shoves it in his mouth. As it munches away and spits out the wrapping (clothes), the clouds overhead start to clear (Ouch, it hates the light!), so it peels-off down the runway and dive-bombs into the ocean.

Elsewhere that evening, aboard a luxury yacht, an American singer belts out a corny love ballad to her formal audience-`The words get stuck in my throat…' (And you just know someone--or something--will soon put a stop to her awful singing).

Before you know it, the behemoth brothers meet several times to resume their sibling rivalries by knocking the wind out of each other, smashing military vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and knocking over downtown buildings.

I believe WOTG offers considerably more than your usual Toho Studios/Japanese Monster Movie, and could do with a modern spin (provided the original plot is not much altered as to seem another film entirely). It certainly has its comedic moments, as already mentioned. There are infinite possibilities in remaking it. The Japanese are great at creating model tanks and realistic building models… all that stuff. And the title creatures are scary looking… ‘Green' looks like a gargoyle without horns, and ‘Brown' looks like a somewhat frightening, foreign version of Frankenstein's montster

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

29 July 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

The War of the Gargantuas

Company Credits

Production Co:

Benedict Pictures Corp., Toho Company, United Productions of America (UPA)

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1