Bidibidibidi. I love Ghidorah, I like Orochi, I like multi-headed golden dragons, and since I watched GMK I'd been wanting to watch some other Ghidorah media. I had a few options, Astro-Monster, Rebirth of Mothra 3, KOTM 2019, Heisei Ghidorah, or the one that started it all...Ghidorah the Three Headed monster from 1964. I personally enjoyed it. Spoilers ahead like usual.
This movie was a very important point in the franchise's history. Not only is it the first film to show King Ghidorah, Godzilla's archenemy, but it also showed the first instance of Godzilla being a hero and the first time Rodan was ever featured in a Godzilla film.
This film was eventually modernized as 2019's King of the Monsters, having the same roster of Ghidorah, Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan, though the tone of the film would be wildly different due to the overall seriousness of the early Monsterverse, in stark contrast to the cheesy 60's sillyness of this film.
Much like Ebirah, the film focuses more on the humans story instead of monsters fighting monsters. This time, it's a plot about a princess who failed to get assassinated by her father's men and awakening her Venusian (Martian in the American version) powers of foresight as she tries to warn people about the reawakening of Rodan, Godzilla, and ultimately Ghidorah (Ghidrah in the original film) all the while her assassins continue to hunt her down.
It's a wild plot and I did enjoy it a fair amount, just not to the extent of Ebirah. I did prefer Shindo over most of Ebirah's human cast (excluding the thief and Daiyo of course) and I also preferred this film's incarnation of the Mothra fairies, which is also their actresse's last performance as them before getting recast as another singing duo in Ebirah.
I'll be honest, I'm not a massive Rodan fan. To me he's just one huge featherless bird, but I would be lying if I said I didn't like Rodan in the film.
I liked Rodan, I liked how his fighting style consisted of just pecking and ramming into his opponents like the huge bird he is, I thought it was cool seeing him fly with Ghidorah and do a quick U-Turn and slam into him and knocking him to the ground, though outside of that I really don't have much else to write.
While Mothra was in the end just a larva, he was pretty freaking cute. I liked it when he was watching Godzilla and Rodan throw rocks at eachother and he was just turning his head to look at them like a badminton match while screeching for their attention before spraying his silly string on the two so he could talk them into fighting Ghidorah, though it was unsuccessful.
While his attempt to fight Ghidorah was short lived due to still being a caterpie who only knows stringshot, it was better that he lived and worked together with the other two than dying horrifically right there and ending the Mothra bloodline. (My question is how the hell did he swim from Infant Island so fast???)
Godzilla in the film was much like his counterpart in Ebirah, though much more toned down. As it is his first appearance being the hero/Earth Guardian, he is still really destructive, though he is sillier and could be talked into teaming up with Rodan, even if the two ended up doing it reluctantly, as heard by the two fairies translating their conversation with Mothra, and according to the American dub, was quite foul-mouthed.
I liked Godzilla and how he was portrayed, as while he was a goofy goober, he wasn't a complete goofball like in the later Showa era films where he was reworked into a mere children's character played for laughs.
The dragon, the myth, the legendary Venusian himself. King Ghidorah. He was the best part of the film in my opinion, though you could argue it's a 50/50 with Godzilla, which I wouldn't disagree with in the slightest.
While having the least amount of screentime of the 4 Kaiju present in the film, he was much more destructive than the rest by a long shot. He goes around terrorizing the hell out of towns for no real reason other than the love of the game, and while yes Godzilla and Rodan did destroy stuff, they quickly moved on to fighting eachother instead of destroying their surroundings.
While I find the original Ghidorah design rather goofy, looking really smooth and almost scaleless, I find the design rather fitting for the time period and I repsect it for being the one that started Ghidorah's legendary design.
This fight, despite being an hour and ten minutes into the film, was the best part of the film. From how Mothra tries to fight Ghidorah himself, to how Godzilla and Rodan reluctantly team up with eachother to go bully Ghidorah until he flies away covered in silly string only to return in Astro-Monster.
I personally enjoyed the entire fight and not just a specific part, I liked it when Godzilla relentlessly threw rocks at Ghidorah and shoved him down a cliff, and I liked the aforementioned Rodan ramming into him so the two comes crashing down.
A very important film in both Godzilla and King Ghidorah's history, though not as talked about as the others, the film is a good blend of 60's cheesiness and Kaiju action. For a film an hour and a half long, it took me roughly 2 hours to finish. I personally give it a 9/10.
That's all for today and just a friendly reminder.
Just. Be. Ultra!
