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:

godzilla | kaiju | tokusatsu | giant monster | monster | 

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Taglines:

Monsters of mass destruction.

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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

In the original Japanese version, the film takes place toward the end of the 20th century. But in the American version, the film takes place specifically in 1999.

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Goofs

When King Ghidorah approaches the assembled monsters, it changes from a shot showing small-scale puppets to the actual monster suits, and suddenly Minilla appears behind Godzilla.

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Quotes

News Reader: The major cities of the world are being destroyed, one-by-one by the monsters: Moscow by Rodan, Peking by Mothra, London by Manda, Paris by Baragon. And, here's a special news bulletin. Godzilla is now in New York City. The city is being invaded by 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 Toho Video documentary released in the 1980s contained several unused and deleted takes from this film. The majority of this footage consists of alternate takes of finished scenes, such as the raids on Moscow and Paris by Rodan and Gorosaurus (respectively). Toho also filmed much more footage of the UN's defense of Tokyo, including a number of shots of missile launchers being deployed from the roofs of skyscrapers. The most notable unused shot in this feature has Godzilla thrashing the monster Manda against several Tokyo buildings. According to Haruo Nakajima, this was an impromptu act at the end of a take. This was likely removed from the finished film as both monsters were under Kilaak control and shouldn't have been fighting.

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Connections

Followed by Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)

User Reviews

Can we tempt you with an extra helping of kaiju?

The basic set-up sure seems delicious; a whole group of Toho's most popular monsters all in one movie. Godzilla, Rodan, Anguillas, Mothra and pretty much all the others (including a few very obscure ones) packed into one movie should by all rights be simply irresistible.

And....mwelll, it is quite good, only not as tremendous as I had expected. Yes, the whole kaiju bunch get together to battle the nasty aliens in the end (who send in Ghidora against them, who's always nice to see in action as the kaiju über-baddie), and this big fight scene is pretty great. Only, it's short, and there's little else in there that really stands out. In fact, for a flick with so many monsters in it, you see shockingly little footage of the kaiju actually tearing up cities good and proper. Plus, some very obscure monsters join the fray, which eventually only clutters things, as we'd rather just see the proper big-name kaiju instead of a shady filler-material monster.

There's some kind of a plot in there, but it's not really something to write home about. Someone's had the clever idea to store all the earth's (or Toho studios') giant monsters on the aptly-named isle of Monster Island. This just begs for disaster, of course. Before long, a mysterious cataclysm causes all the monsters to escape and wreak havoc. And as usual, there's a bunch of unpleasant, and very oddly dressed aliens behind all this. Que lots of scenes with brave human heroes and their funky spaceship trying to put a halt to the aliens' evil plans. In fact, far too many of such scenes. And while there are delightfully silly cheapo sci-fi costumes and tacky spaceships in there, somehow more of the proper kaiju action that this film's concept promised would've been much better.

It's still quite an addition to a kaiju lover's collection, and is good enough to kill time in a nicely silly way, with all those groovy big monsters in there. Worth a go, but could've been much more. (still, hooray for a flick where poor old Anguillas is -not- merely used as a kaiju-sized live punching bag for a change).