War of the Gargantuas (1966)

directed by Ishirō Honda

Japan

88 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

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This is basically a sequel to the previous year's Frankenstein vs. Baragon, but mostly just in a continuity sense. The lab dedicated to studying Frankensteins from that film is carried over into this one, but neither the specific Frankenstein from the earlier film nor Baragon are referenced. So I guess it's more of a spiritual sequel; one that works with a lot of the same ideas, but is largely separate. But, like Frankenstein vs. Baragon, there's a deep sense of empathy for the mutated humanoids referred to as "Frankenstein/s". This is a very, very Ishirō Honda movie in that respect, as well as in other respects I'll get to later in this review. I just rewatched this last night, and while this particular movie isn't a case of me revisiting something I had previously maligned (I liked it the first time and will always like it), I do want to update my review a little.

So what is a Frankenstein? This film's conception of said creature is entirely different from the Western idea of Frankenstein's Monster and I really love that. There are no references to the Shelley story here at all and the term "Frankenstein" is essentially just used as shorthand for an enormous, human-ish or humanoid creature who typically owes at least some of its existence to science. In the case of the first Frankenstein, he grew to inhuman proportions from eating a discarded heart that was being experimented upon; in the case of these two they're just kind of lab escapees - so the science rule isn't absolute, but it seems like to be a Frankenstein means you have to have been touched by the hand of humankind in some way, and not for the better. The two Frankensteins in this film, named Gaira and Sanda, are something between brothers and clones, one formed from the cells of the other, but vastly different in personality and emotions.

The two giant monsters are by far the most human creatures in this film. In fact, I had trouble staying engaged with it at times because the actions of the human characters turned my stomach. Even for Ishirō Honda's tendency to make kaiju films with philosophical angles to them, this one goes quite far in establishing the humans as the bad guys. Aside from the Frankenstein research people, humans don't even attempt to understand or humanely capture either of the gargantuas/Frankensteins at all. We're explicitly the side who's responsible for the most suffering and destruction because we're the only side capable of truly understanding that we're doing it and continuing to do it willingly. That first lengthy fight scene between the military and Gaira, where they not only shoot masers and bombs at him, but also electrify a whole river, causing him to fall in and be shocked into near-unconsciousness before he's carried away by his brother, is genuinely really upsetting. There's a relentlessness to the military movements in this that feels elaborate even for kaiju movies. When the army shears off and burns the top of what looks like an entire forest just to rout out Gaira like a trapped animal I felt sympathy for him as if I was watching somebody slaughter a deer for a trophy. This movie mostly is about watching the military advance with an inhuman coldness towards their goal of destroying both monsters; the military action takes up the majority of the running time. This is why I said this movie feels so trademark Honda: there's a sense of direness and absolute dead seriousness all throughout that doesn't let anything but tragedy feel like the inevitable outcome.

Despite never having any spoken lines, Sanda and Gaira have an incredibly compelling drama unfolding between them throughout the course of the film. One of our first introductions to Gaira makes it very clear that he eats people. Maybe the only funny (if dark as hell) moment in the film comes when he scoops up a lady, chews on her, then spits out something she was carrying. Even before the human-eating becomes explicit, he's shown messing with a boat and generally scaring the wits out of everybody, which of course means that the government and the military's first response is to figure out how to stop and destroy this creature - but thankfully the research lab, and its scientists who have firsthand experience that proves that a Frankenstein can be a gentle, harmless creature if raised with love, is there to provide a tempering voice. Not that it's heard by the factions attempting to destroy Gaira, but it is at least there so us viewers don't feel completely alienated.

I want to talk about the sets and the suits because I feel like even though this is not one of the more well-known of Toho's Showa-era kaiju films, both things are some of the best examples I've ever seen from the studio. Both Sanda and Gaira are the kind of creatures that my brain accepts as just being what they are. With a lot of kaiju suits, your mind kind of unconsciously goes to the air and sight holes in the neck, the seams, where the actor's head would be, basically there's always a sense of the suit being an object no matter how good it looks. Sanda and Gaira are things I look at and I don't see a human in them, I just see them. The suits were evidently constructed by layering material over a regular boilersuit-like garment, instead of basing it around wetsuit material as was normal for suits at the time, and this gave them a level of maneuverability that allowed for much more human body language and movement. The masks were similarly made of layered material over life casts of each suit actor's face. Haruo Nakajima is, as always, the best, and Hiroshi Sekita, in the Sanda suit, plays his respective Frankenstein equally as well. But I also want to talk about the miniatures because they are mindblowing to me. The Hanada airport scene, one of Gaira's first forays onto land, is genuinely one of the best miniature sets I've seen in tokusatsu of this era. There's a moment where Nakajima in the Gaira suit just books it across the runway and I've been thinking about that ever since the first time I watched this film because nothing else looks like that. The sense of scale is perfect - the Frankensteins are not taller than the buildings around them, so instead of looking unstoppable in the middle of a city, there's a feeling of them being lost and confused in a world that they don't fit into.

Sanda and Gaira's relationship is by far the most memorable thing about this film, story-wise. The humans are important for their role in nurturing a Frankenstein into a well-adjusted being, but as usual, it's the monster stuff that really matters. Sanda is the one who has been around humans and understands a little more of how to behave, and as soon as he finds out Gaira's habit of eating humans, he's horrified. He tries to kill Gaira for this, but - although, again, neither of them speak - you really feel his sense of anguish about this, the panic that drives Sanda to do it, and his regret. Both creatures are connected to each other in a way that goes deeper than a familial bond. Gaira is a tragic creature because he was shaped by the environment of deprivation that he grew up in, and even though neither are human, there's something you can empathize with deeply in seeing Sanda watch this other part of him go down a path that can only lead to destruction. Sanda trying to urge his brother away with very human body language when he knows he's walking right into the military's zone of conflict towards the end of the film is another thing that affected me on my first watch.

There's also a bunch of other stuff that goes on here, but it's comparatively a blip against the brother-on-brother violence and emotional turmoil. There's an octopus for like five minutes at the beginning that makes it onto some of the film's posters despite not even being remotely relevant to anything. There's a lounge scene where a woman sings genuinely one of the worst songs I've ever heard not just on film but like, ever, and is then snatched by Gaira. (I'm told that Devo recorded a cover of this song.) I guess I can see aspects of this film that people might deride, and its tone of total seriousness at all times can feel a little impenetrable, but I just... I feel like everything works together, it's all just as it should be, and I'm really surprised this isn't a more popular film.