I don't even got anything to say here. TL;DW Star level lobster fights Godzilla. Spoilers ahead.
This is probably unironically my favorite showa era film I've seen, while Ebirah is the title monster, he ultimately isn't as important to the plot as Godzilla is and just so happens to be there.
The soundtrack was great too, instead of symphony or classical style music, it uses surf style music which in my opinion fits the overall tone of the film.
The human plot was actually a huge majority of the film, the monsters don't really come into play until far later into the film, and with how good the human side of the film is I think it paid of really well.
It revolves around a brother of a missing fisherman and his two friends who ends up on the yacht with a thief and the brother essentially hijacks the boat and refuses to turn it around to go find his brother, ends up encountering Ebirah, and washes ashore on an island ran by terrorist group Red Bamboo. The four end up encountering one of the runaway captives of Red Bamboo, a Infant Islander named Dayo.
I personally really enjoyed it, the thief was easily the best character in the film overalland I did enjoy how he wasn't pure evil and decided to go be better at the end of the film.
Despite being on the poster, a crucial plot point of the film (with the Infant Islanders frequently praying to save their people from Red Bamboo) and the film is even called "Mothra the Flying Dracula Monster" she actually does nothing but sleep for most of the film, only waking up to save the protagonists and captives when there's only 7 minutes left in the film.
While not the biggest fan of this decision, I do understand why Mothra doesn't show up for most of the film, as she isn't the main kaiju.
I personally did enjoy Ebirah's presence in the film, the lobster was the reason why I watched the film, I enjoyed the scenes where only his claw would appear and destroy stuff, i.e when he destroys the yacht in the beginning of the film and when he destroys the rowboat when the two brother stry to go back to Lechti Island.
Though, in the end, he had very little screentime, some highlights in my opinion include his first fight with Godzilla where they threw the same rock at eachother for a minute and the final fight where Godzilla ends up ripping Ebirah's arms off.
I do hope one day we get to see the oversized lobster return in a future film, as he's only had a handful of appearances and most of them were comics. With his last major film role being in Final Wars.
"Godzilla"Godzilla, in this film, isn't Godzilla. And I don't mean in it a hateful way, I mean that he is essentially King Kong in a Godzilla suit. He throw rsocks at Ebirah, taunts him repeatedly, is awakened via electricity, and is implied to have an attraction to Dayo when the two meet face to face, which are all traits of King Kong alongside attacking Mothra. This is due to the fact that the film was originally meant to be a Kong film, but Toho scrapped the idea and replaced him with Godzilla instead, leading to Goji having Kong traits and Kong having never met Mothra at the time.
Do I feel like he acted out of character? Sure, did I hate it though? No, absolutely not. I liked the personality given to him and I enjoyed how he was more of a hero compared to the other films. He saves Dayo from a huge bird and fighter jets and fights the Red Bamboo kinda on his own accord, and to me it makes sense considering the film is both post Ghidorah 1964, the film that started the era of Godzilla being a hero, and the is directed by Jun Fukuda, the man who directed Son of Godzilla, the same film that tried to show off Godzilla in a kinder light.
At the end of the day, I would've preferred if exchanged Godzilla's screentime for more footage of Ebirah doing his thing, though I still enjoyed it nonetheless.
A really underrated film of the Showa Era, outshined by other films that came out at the time with an interesting plot, good cast, and a good monster. While critics were mixed on it due to the lack of monsters fighting, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would have and I give i a solid 8.5/10. And lastly, for a film roughly an hour and a half long, it took me around an hour and 45 minutes to two hours to finish the film.
That's all for today and just a friendly reminder.
Just. Be. Ultra!
