Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah

1991 "At the end of the century, the greatest battle has begun!"
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
6.5| 1h43m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 14 December 1991 Released
Producted By: Toho Pictures
Country: Japan
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

The Futurians, time-travelers from the 23rd century, arrive in Japan to warn them of the nation's destruction under Godzilla. They offer to help erase Godzilla from history by preventing his creation. With Godzilla seemingly gone, a new monster emerges as the Futurians' true intentions are revealed.

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Michael_Elliott Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)** 1/2 (out of 4) A UFO lands in Tokyo and it turns out that time travelers are on board. They've traveled back in time to warn Japan that their country is going to be reduced to rubble. One is due to pollution but the big issue is that Godzilla is going to be coming back and he isn't their friend.GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH is obviously going to appeal to those die hard fans of the big G. But how does your average fan going to take it? I think for the most part it's an entertaining movie but there's no question that there are some flaws in it including keeping the big guy off camera for so long. It takes thirty-minutes for a dinosaur to briefly appear, fifty-minutes for King Ghidorah to appear and Godzilla doesn't show up until the hour mark.Obviously there's a lot of stuff going on here and some of it is campy enough to where it could hold its head right up there with some of the sillier entries from the 70s. I mean, there's one man who is a robot and the scenes of him running fast through the streets are really bad. The effects are extremely cheap and laughable and they bring the film down a notch. I'd also argue that the WWII footage was also poorly done and looked incredibly cheap. With that said, the Godzilla costume looks pretty darn good and I thought it was realistic enough for the film. The King Ghidorah was also good looking, although not quite as good as Godzilla.I actually thought the story itself was fairly good and the use of the time travelers actually paid off very well. The biggest problem with the film is the fact that it clocks in at 100-minutes and there are way too many moments where there aren't any monsters on the screen and the dialogue and story aren't good enough to make up for that. Once the final battle starts to happen we're treated to the action and destruction that fans have come to love but it's a long way getting there.
Leofwine_draca This is one of those few gems of cinema; a film that you can watch time and time again and enjoy. It's not a good film in the classic sense, no, but then again most of the films I review would never be classified as 'good' in a respectable film guide such as Halliwell's. The third in the batch of 'new' GODZILLA films (which began with GODZILLA 1985), GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH has everything you could ever want from a GODZILLA film, with the added bonus of reclaiming some of the fun atmosphere from the classic highlights of DESTROY ALL MONSTERS and other monster bashes from the golden days of Japanese cinema.Along with the standard monster plot, there is also the usual parallel sub-plot with the human heroes and villains. In this case, the villains are foreigners (gosh) from the future instead of space-suited aliens, but that doesn't make them any less villainous. In fact the opening of the film has a more complex plot than usual, as Godzilla's birth is retold in detail and also to great effect. The original Godzilla - a dinosaur - looks a lot like the stop-motion type we're used to seeing in THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN and so brings back lots of good memories.The score is effective, with the usual 'monster' music cropping up every so often, and the acting is not too bad. I have to admit that some of the actors did look very similar though. The dubbing is atrocious (yippee!). I love atrocious dubbing. It's one of my guilty pleasures. Perhaps why I enjoy Italian films so much. Anyway check out the many hilarious lines uttered by a myriad of actors, including one man shouting "Make my day!" and an army captain shouting "Take that, you dinosaur!". Most of the lines are shouted in this film. Also, all voices were recorded at exactly the same volume which is quite confusing when one scene jumps straight into another.I have to admit I had my reservations about watching this film. In fact I had it on tape for a while before I got around to watching it. My expectations were probably soured by watching that travesty of film, GODZILLA 1998, and to be honest I expected more of the same. I was so surprised at the quality of this film. The special effects - apart from the standard man-in-a-suit - are spectacular! We've got all the sci-fi gizmos, from teleportation devices to ray beams, lasers, and UFOs.There's even an android in the film, which of course leads to comparisons with THE TERMINATOR, and in one scene there's a direct take from Schwarzenegger's film, where the android climbs out of the burning wreckage of a vehicle and removes his clothes (it has to be said that THE TERMINATOR was admittedly more effective however). The android then runs down the road (achieved by speeding up the film), but when we get a close up he's obviously standing still, pretending to run with a moving screen behind him! This effect is totally hilarious and had me in stitches.As for the monsters, Godzilla looks like the real deal in this film. He's mean and he's got his super radioactive breath in gear. King Ghidorah gets up to his usual tricks before becoming mechanised, and the three-headed monster is always great value for money. I don't see why the Americans decided to remake GODZILLA while the original series was still running strong. Anyhow, watch this film if you want lots of cheesy effects and fighting. Any GODZILLA fans have to see this, it's a fun-filled addition to the series. You're sure to enjoy it whoever you are.
John Panagopoulos Suddenly finding myself determined to watch a loony Toho kaiju extravaganza from beginning to end, I caught 1991's "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" (hereafter "GVKG")on Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 8:15 p.m. on Encore. I am indebted to many of the posters who have already meticulously explained GVKG's contorted "time travel" plot. They probably did a better job than I could. Crazy as it is, that plot at least provides a semi-believable origin for both the atomic-powered lizard and the three-headed electricity spewing dragon. They were both mutated by the fallout of American H-Bomb test blasting during World War II, though not at the same time. Godzilla was originally the dinosaur Godzillasaurus, and King Ghidorah was a giant fusion of three cat-sized flying dragon things call dorats. As usual, it takes more than half the movie for the two behemoths to meet, but meet they do, not once but twice.Until the monsters' cataclysmic clash, we have to endure the usual, somewhat effeminate English dubbing of not only Japanese scientists, military personnel, and corporate CEOs, but also that of futuristic time travelers (including a Terminator-like android called M-11) who arrive in '90s Japan to offer a seemingly magnanimous chance for the nation to get rid of Godzilla forever - go back to the past before the Godzillasaurus was mutated, let the "imperialist" American World War II leave him mortally wounded, and then transport him back to the present to let him die in the ocean. Of course the aliens are not benevolent; fearing the rise of Japan as a conquering superpower, they resurrect and manipulate King Ghidorah to destroy Japan without any interference. The Japanese then decide to mutate the dying Godzillasaurus to help save them, but a nuclear sub explosively beats them to the punch. Godzilla is back but, as they say, the cure is worse than the disease. Now the Japanese must hijack an alien time travel ship to go back to the future to reanimate King Ghidorah, cybernetically fit him out, even give him a human-operated mechanical neck and head to replace the one Godzilla severed in the first battle, and send him back for a rematch. Which monster wins? Does it matter? Is Japan doomed anyway? Oops, I guess I regurgitated the plot again! :S GVKG is goofy typical Toho monster mashing, enhanced somewhat by the nuclear genetic mutation and time-spanning plot, and sometimes remarkable special effects, including a pre-Jurassic Park animation of the Godzillasaurus which "saves" a "noble" Japanese regiment, and especially its deeply grateful commander, from American naval annihilation. Also lurking in the movie is the ambivalent regard Japan has of itself as both a nationalistically and technologically proud but also reckless and potentially destructive (economically and ecologically) Japan. GVKG seems to view America that way as well. Godzilla is the "unfriendly" undying symbol of that country-conquering spirit.
FilmExpertWannabe Heisei had a dark theme with more topical and realistic (as you can get for Godzilla) plots. Following the uninspiring box office performance of 1989's Godzilla vs Biollante, Toho took this as audiences only wanting to see Godzilla fight classic monsters. One of Godzilla's best known, if not THE best known, opponents was King Ghidorah, aka The King of Terror. Toho also switched gears with the plot and chose to take a much more wild, Showa-esque direction with the plot and theme of the film.As a general rule, time travel plots can be pretty messy. Although you can actually make this one fit, it's still questionable for the general audience that won't give it as much thought. The characters in question seem a little stale, as if they never really got into their characters. Special effects were generally okay, although they fell short of Godzilla vs Biollante. Pacing was a problem for some of the Heisei Godzilla movies, but it wasn't much of a problem here. They managed to keep Godzilla's appearance from the audience for over an hour, which is something of a feat in itself.The monsters make good appearances here. Godzilla looks about as good as he did the last time, although his 1944 "Godzillasaurus" looks hopeless. Maybe it's just hindsight bias, but after seeing what was done with Jurassic Park only two years later, I question Toho's effort here. Moving on, I'm loving the redesign of King Ghidorah (NOT a fan of the origin "monsters" for his creation, however). KG is beautiful, both menacing and majestic at the same time. When he's given a new lease on life as Mecha-King Ghidorah, he still looks great, although his inward-pointing knees remind one of a child needing a run to the restroom; this isn't to say it detracts from the monster as not many people notice/care anyways.The odd thing about Mecha-King Ghidorah is his apparent lack of a power increase over the original King Ghidorah. He doesn't really fare any better than King Ghidorah did against Godzilla despite technology from the 23rd century. Side note: the time travel plot still ruins this for me. If they could engineer the Dorats, why couldn't they just engineer a giant monster like King Ghidorah? Or if not, why wouldn't they create a giant robot like 20th century Japan could with 1993's Mechagodzilla? How is it that this 23rd century technology doesn't come close to the performance of 20th century Japan's Mechagodzilla? So many questions that time travel forces a person to bring up.If you get the impression that I think this is a mediocre movie with great looking monsters, you'd be right. The battle scenes are fairly average, but the film can be fun if you ignore the standards set by prior Heisei films. It's certainly different, androids, time travel, 23rd century humans, and all. Had it improved on character development or battle scenes compared to Godzilla vs Biollante, it might've scored just as as well. As it is, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is a love it or hate it movie. Depends on how you view silly. If you're a Showa fan, you'll appreciate it more. I rate it a 6/10.