It's been a while, hasn't it, folks? Well, suffice it to say that personal tribulations were faced and overcome, and with that, it's time to finally start my 2021 reviews in a big way--and I do mean big.
Yup, we're just around the corner from the showdown of the two big tamales of cinema. After his last outing, Legendary Pictures' take on Godzilla is going to be slammed right against their reinvention of King Kong, in a grudge match that makes Foreman vs Ali look like old ladies bickering over who gets to pay for tea. And, well, owing to ongoing global circumstances, I'm left having to ponder just how exactly to see it. Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather see a movie about big monsters on a big screen, as opposed to hunched over a laptop or in front of a TV hoping the picture doesn't pixellate when the connection inevitably undulates, but whatchya gonna do right now.
But at the very least, I can turn my eyes to the first time a radioactive iguana decided to wrestle a monkey with severe gigantism. Toho Pictures' outing in 1962 was notable in quite a few ways--it bought back Godzilla after he had languished following his less than stellar cashin sequel following the classic original. Kong himself, though he would be reinvented several times over the decades to come, had also been fading somewhat in the thirty years since his incalculably impactful opener, barring another sequel that coincidentally nobody seems to care about either. Funnily enough, the film was originally intended to match Kong against Frankenstein's monster, of all things, but I think it's safe to say that a fire-spouting dinosaur was a cooler idea.
And so both monsters were bought back in a rumble that revitalized the Godzilla series, smashing box offices across Japan, and not doing too shabby in the states either. Though, as they had with the original Godzilla, the US distributors insisted on editing the thing heavily along with just dubbing, inserting obnoxious scenes of American actors as scientists yammering over footage to explain what just happened. Because an ape and a reptile breaking things proved just staggeringly complex plot yarns for mere mortal audiences to process.
It's also this version that happens to be the only one I have available, so screw it. At least I can still enjoy the wonky lip-sync and dubbed voices that react to incoming behemoths the same emotive way one might react to a slightly weird looking car on the street!
The film starts with a TV sponsor company trying to boost ratings by, with a stroke of commercial genius to rival New Coke, capturing King Kong. I can see more than a little self-deprecating undercurrent, and there's a satirical tone in the Japanese version that, while toned down in the US one, is still visible. Two idiots are sent off to this Pacific island where they meet the natives, who are portrayed exactly as you would expect a silly Japanese film redubbed in the US in the sixties to do.
Godzilla, of course, soon appears and starts laying waste to battalions of toy tanks, while simultaneously the village on the island finds itself under siege by a giant octopus ('played' by an actual one, in a scene to be homaged in Legendary's Skull Island). Kong himself is played by a man in a suit, as opposed to the intricate stop-motion puppetry of the 1933 original, and while he looks acceptable for the time in a couple of shots, ends up being actually less convincing. You'll probably see a better job from Discovery Channel 'documentaries' about Bigfoot techno raves or whatever.
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| Still looks better than a hairy grandpa after a vodka bender. |
Either way, Kong is subdued when the natives use a potion made from red berries that get bought up somewhat noticeably; it's never made clear what exactly they are but we could presume them to be some sort of tropical naturally occurring viagra. And, well, that would also explain Kong immediately falling unconscious after gulping down gallons of the stuff.
Still, though Kong is bought back to put on whisky commercials for this TV company or whatever they actually had in mind, there's the bigger problem of Godzilla commencing drastic urban redevelopment by means of atomic breath. The Japanese military quickly commandeers the ape, as you do, and throws him against Godzilla. The ensuing fight, involving lots of rock-throwing from Kong, is over rather too quickly, but thankfully, I will say the film does have a rather brisk pace, which takes us to lots of action involving the military and the usual throngs of panicking Japanese people. Ishiro Honda does have an eye for framing this kind of absurd stuff, and there's some fun stuff involving trains being tossed around like toys, Godzilla marching down a rail track, and buildings being caved in. It's not going to hold up as convincing to today's CG-brained audience, but it's all kinds of entertaining.
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| "Oh, mon cherie, where have you been all my life?" |
Eventually, the military manages to subdue Kong again by gassing him with island viagra berry mix, and, I kid you not, once again throwing him at Godzilla by wincing him up on balloons. Some films conjure imagery of epic vistas or silhouettes against the sun. This only needs a picture of a simian that's just seemingly careened through a funfair.
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| Imagine Ride of the Valkyries as rendered by a choir of gibbons. 'Ooh-ooh-ah-ah-ah, ooh-ooh-ah-ah-ah"-- |
After I assume Godzilla mistakes this for a very opaque insurance ad, the fight resumes, with Kong getting juiced up by spontaneous lightning (remember, Frankenstein was originally meant to be involved). The monster suit rumbling goes from 'silly' to 'holy hell this is great' silly, as Kong swings about trails, then weaponizes trees and uses them to give Godzilla a throat exam. Eventually, the melee is reduced to action figures seemingly being mushed together in the background. Oh, and Obnoxiously Inserted Doctor Guy crops up occasionally to talk into the camera and remind us that our two combatants Don't Really Like Each Other, on the off chance your brain spontaneously turned into a mouldy cabbage.
Our mortal combat ends when both monsters fall into the sea, failing to spot the huge cliff behind them. For decades, an urban legend persisted of alternate endings where either monster won depending on which country you were, but nope, Kong wins in both. Godzilla was, after all, still the bad guy in his preceding flicks. Still, it's hardly a definitive win for the monkey, so that leaves our scaly buddy with the room to start ramping up his own series.
All in all? Yeah, it's as ridiculous as you expect, and the wonky English dubbing and interludes only add to the wonky charm. If you're like me and you dig yourself some old-school cheesy effects extravaganza with a plot that only makes sense after a few good sake shots, then hell, this'll scratch that itch good. Honda brings some legitimately good composition at points if we want to talk finer cinematic technical points, but let's face it, are you going to care when an ape on balloons is tossed at a rubber suit reptile on the slopes of Mt. Fuji? No. You don't. Because, whether it's in slightly mouldy costumes or CG, it's a concept that remains fucking awesome, and that's why it's inevitable it would be revisited even sixty years later. Check out the new film whichever way suits you, or give this one a shot, but either way, sometimes, an idea just speaks for itself.
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