Now this is how Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster should have been. Don't get me wrong, with lines like "Take that, you dinosaur" the acting in this one is embarasing. But we don't care about the "people talking" in a Godzilla movie, do we? No, we don't! What we care about is lots of big ol' rubber monsters duking it out all over the place causing untold billions of dollars worth of destruction in some Japanese major metropolitan city! And this one offers plenty of that! Oh yeah!

Three Time Travelers (Russian, American, and Japanese) from the 23rd century arrive in Japan in 1992 with a dire prediction of doom for Japan at the hands of Godzilla and offer to help by going back in time to insure that Godzilla never gets created in the first place. They have read a book (written by our story's human hero no less) that theorizes, Godzilla is a dinosaur who survived into the 20th century only to be mutated by the radiation from the atomic weapons tests on the Bikini Atoll in the 50's.

Everyone then goes back to World War II and watches the pre-Godzilla dinosaur (lets call him Dinozilla) saving a bunch of Japanese troops trapped on an island in the Pacific, from American soldiers out to destroy them. Dinozilla merrily steps on the lot of them, squishing them flat until an American destroyer off the coast turns its 16 inch guns on him knocking him out. "Take that, you dinosaur!" The Time Travellers then take this opportunity to remove Dinozilla from the island and put him at the bottom of the ocean which causes the present day Godzilla to disappear and never have existed. At this point I became confused because although Godzilla had ceased to exist, everyone in the present still remembered him and what he had done. ? I guess I've just been watching too much Doctor Who...

Anyways... Our intrepid Time Travellers turn out to be evil after all (I'll bet that one came as a surprise). They leave 3 little critters from the future (imagine cute, furry, cat-sized teletubbie looking things with tails, batwings, and fangs) behind on Dinozilla's island to get the radiation make-over in his stead. Cut to the present where the creatures have been merged to form the dreaded King Ghidorah, who is controlled by the time travellers whose real mission it runs out to be, is to destroy Japan keeping it from becoming the world's only major superpower in the far future.

Never fear, the one thing I did learn from Doctor Who is that it is not that easy to change the future. Godzilla gets created anyway this time a nuclear submarine accident is the cause. Godzilla is back and he is bigger, stronger, and more pissed off than ever before! Time to kick some Ghidorah ass!

After a big fight in which Ghidorah is heartily disposed of, Godzilla heads accross Japan to do the "Tokyo Stomp" Oh yeah!

While Godzilla happily lays waste and breathes atomic fire on people our heroine skips forward in time to revive Ghidorah as Mecha King Ghidorah and bring him back to 1992 for the final showdown with Godzilla.

Man oh man, have the S-FX improved in the 90's! Mecha King Ghidorah just has to be seen to be believed! In spite of the Star Trek rip off teleporting and the Terminator rip off robot, this is the best of the new batch of Toho films so far. They just seem to get better as they go along. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is available now in the US for the first time ever on home video (It never had a theatrical release). You need to get this one!

 

* Usage note: The words Ghidrah, Ghidorah, and Ghidora are interchangable and every one of these variations has been used at one point or another. In this particular movie the box cover has Ghidora printed on it while in the actual movie spells it Ghidorah in the opening credits. Go figure.

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CREDITS Gojira tai Kingu Gidora [Godzilla vs King Ghidorah] (1991) CAST Kenichiro Terasawa.............Kousuke Toyohara Emi Kano...........................Ana Nakagawa Yasuaki Shindo..................Yoshio Tsuchiya Ryuzo Dobashi...................Shoji Kobayashi Takehiko Fujio..................Tokuma Nishioka Wilson.............................Chuck Wilson Grenchiku........................Richard Berger M-11..........................Robert Scottfield Miki Saegusa.......................Megumi Odaka Chiaki Morimura...................Kiwako Harada CREW Director...........................Kazuki Omori Screenplay.........................Kazuki Omori Special Effects.................Koichi Kawakita Music.............................Akira Ifukube Running Time: 103 minutes U.S. VERSION Released direct to video by Sony/TriStar Pictures Running Time: 103 minutes

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