Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Female aliens take control of Earth's monsters and begin using them to destroy the human race.

Director:

Ishirô Honda

Writers:

Ishirô Honda, Takeshi Kimura (as Kaoru Mabuchi)

Stars:

Akira Kubo, Jun Tazaki, Yukiko Kobayashi

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Akira Kubo	...	SY-3 Captain Katsuo Yamabe
Jun Tazaki	...	Dr. Yoshido
Yukiko Kobayashi	...	Kyoko Manabe
Yoshio Tsuchiya	...	Dr. Otani
Kyôko Ai	...	Kilaak Queen
Andrew Hughes	...	Dr. Stevenson
Chôtarô Tôgin	...	Ogata
Yoshifumi Tajima	...	General
Kenji Sahara	...	Commander Nishikawa
Hisaya Itô	...	Major Tada
Yoshio Katsuda	...	Young Scientist
Heihachirô Ôkawa	...	Engineer (as Henry Okawa)
Ikio Sawamura	...	Old Farmer
Yutaka Sada	...	Police Officer
Hiroshi Okada	...	Doctor at hospital

Storyline

Aliens have released all the giant monsters from their imprisonment on Monster Land and are using them to destroy all major cities on the planet. It is up to the daring crew of the super rocket ship X-2 to infiltrate the aliens' headquarters before the Earth monsters and King Ghidrah annihilate the planet.

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Plot Keywords:

monster | alien | island | rodan | godzilla | 

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Taglines:

GODZILLA attacks New York! RODAN devastates Moscow! MANDA obliterates London! and MOTHRA smashes Peking! Is this the war-cry that will save the world...

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Genres:

Action | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

23 May 1969 (USA)

Also Known As:

Destroy All Monsters

Box Office

Budget:

JPY 200,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Toho Company

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This was Mothra's and Rodan's final regular appearance in a Showa era film. They later would return in the Heisei series but with their powers drastically altered.

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Goofs

When Anguirus lets go of Ghidorah's neck and drops to the ground, dust starts rising up before he touches down.

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Quotes

SY-3 Captain Katsuo Yamabe: I've been very worried about you on that island.
Kyoko Manabe: You have, huh? You can see that everything's fine.
SY-3 Captain Katsuo Yamabe: Right. I really wasn't worried about you. I was more worried about Godzilla.

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Crazy Credits

In Toho's international version, their English language credits list special effect director Sademasa Arikawa as "Sanemasa Arikawa."

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Alternate Versions

A complete English language version of "Destroy All Monsters" was supervised by Toho for international distribution. The English dialogue was dubbed by William Ross' Frontier Enterprises in Tokyo. Additionally, Toho created English titles and credits to be spliced in in place of their Japanese equivalents. This version, known by Godzilla fans as the international or export version, remained unseen in the United States until the film's premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel on January 20th, 1996. A video and DVD release by ADV followed, and Toho's English version has now supplanted the original U.S. release version.

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Connections

Referenced in Gimme Danger (2016)

User Reviews

Great Fun

I make no appologies. I LOVE Kaiju films. Period. Godzilla meister Honda- along with special effects guy Tsubaraya are at the top of their form here.After confining the worlds greatest monsters to monsterland- an island where they can run wild yet not do any harm all is not well. It seems that space aliens are controlling their minds and sending them on many city bestroying rampages. Mothra in Beijing, Godzilla in New York, Rodan in Moscow, etc, etc.Meanwhile on the moon-a rocket crew is observing a UFO. Does this have anything to do with the monster attacks? Back at monsterland, the control crew are replaced by the aliens{Who take on human traits} After much intrigue, the alien base is discovered and the fun begins.The special effects are superior. The rockets and UFOs have a pulp magazine quality that was somewhat dated in 1968, but for some reason it works in this film. Especially cool is the tank like vehicle the rocket holds. Even the model work is of the first order and although it would probably would not pass muster with todays computer generated FX fans, it gives this film an immaginative quality that is sadly lacking in most of todays films.And the climactic monster fight with all the genres all time greats is really a blast! Whenever I1m feeling down, I just pop this one in the VCR and bingo! I feel better again.No deep thinking, just fun on a monster size scale.