With the release of Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster as part of its Master Collection, Toho Studios and Classic Media have given Godzilla fans exactly what they’ve been waiting for. This fifth entry in the enormously popular series is seen by many fans as the best of the bunch. While not as serious as 1954’s original Godzilla, King of the Monsters with its socio-political anti-nuke message, Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster is hard to beat when it comes to sheer monster mayhem and comedic mischief.
There’s a lot going on in this one, folks. A huge meteor has fallen to Earth, and a princess who survives jumping out of a plane to avoid being assasinated suddenly thinks she’s a prophetess from Venus and starts predicting multiple disasters. Meanwhile, three hitmen who realize she has escaped the exploding airplane are out to get her, much to the dismay of the policeman assigned to protect her. Amidst all of this James Bondian intrigue, giant bird-monster Rodan escapes from his volcanic prison and begins wreaking havoc all over, followed shortly by Godzilla emerging from the sea in a foul mood. The two monsters go head-to-head in a furious (but side-splittingly hilarious) battle. Oh yeah, there’s also the fact that the crashed meteor has hatched, giving “birth” to King Ghidorah, a three-headed monster from outer space that immediately sets about destroying everything in its path. Rodan and Godzilla are oblivious to this new monster until another monster, Mothra, is summoned by the two miniature faeries of Infant Island in order to talk some sense into them and urge them to join forces and fight against Ghidorah. Does Mothra succeed? Does the princess survive the multiple attempts on her life? Was this convoluted plot cooked up just to get as many monsters as possible into the ring for a giant battle royal?
Legendary Godzilla director Ishiro Honda seems to have made a concerted effort to distance this film from the seriousess of its predecessors. In fact, Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster is kind of a turning point in the series, where Godzilla and his monster buddies started going for the cheap laughs instead of the genuine scares and thrills of traditional monster movies. And you know what? It works. It would have had to be done sooner or later, as there’s only so much menace one can squeeze out of a monster franchise before it starts being unintentionally funny. Why not beat the audience to the punch, so to speak?
The packaging for this DVD release is excellent, using an original poster image on a silver and green box. On the disc itself are two versions of the film: the original 1964 Japanese release with optional English subtitles, and the edited and English-dubbed U.S. version of 1965. The U.S. version is about eight minutes shorter than the original, but is by far my favorite of the two. For me, a Godzilla movie is all about cheesy monsters and bad dubbing. There’s also a feature audio commentary over the English version by author and Asian cinema afficionado David Kalat, wherein he barely stops to take a breath while expressing why he believes the English version to be the better of the two. Apart from an image gallery and a couple of movie posters, the only other significant bonus feature is the biography of Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects supervisor of the Godzilla films. While it’s really only an eight-minute slideshow with narration, it’s interesting for fans to learn the history behind one of the pioneers of Japanese special effects.
Either you love monster movies or you hate them, there really isn’t any middle ground. If you love them, then Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster is a must-own DVD. If I had to pick one Godzilla movie that I could keep, while being forced to discard all the others, I’d be hard-pressed to make a choice between this and the original Godzilla, King of the Monsters. Being a fan of Godzilla’s later comedic years, though, I’d probably go with this one.
