King Kong vs. Godzilla
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| King Kong vs. Godzilla | |
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| Directed by | Ishirō Honda |
| Produced by | Tomoyuki Tanaka |
| Written by | Shinichi Sekizawa |
| Starring | Tadao Takashima Kenji Sahara Yu Fujiki Ichirō Arishima |
| Music by | Akira Ifukube, Henry Mancini (US version, stock music) |
| Cinematography | Hajime Koizumi |
| Distributed by | Toho |
| Release date(s) | August 11, 1962 (Japan) June 26, 1963 (USA) |
| Running time | 98 Minutes (Japan) |
| Language | Japanese |
| Preceded by | Godzilla Raids Again |
| Followed by | Mothra vs. Godzilla , King Kong Escapes |
| IMDb profile | |
King Kong vs. Godzilla (キングコング対ゴジラ Kingu Kongu tai Gojira?) is a 1962 tokusatsu kaiju film directed by Ishiro Honda with visual effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. It was the third installment in the Japanese series of kaiju films featuring the monster Godzilla.
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[edit] Plot summary
Mr. Tako, head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, is frustrated with the television shows his company is sponsoring and wants something to boost his ratings. When a doctor tells Tako about a giant monster he discovered on the small Faro Island, Tako believes that it would be a brilliant idea "...with a punch" to use the monster to gain publicity. Tako immediately sends two men, Sakurai and Kinsaburo, to find and bring back the monster from Faro.
Meanwhile, the American submarine Seahawk gets caught in an iceberg. Unfortunately, this is the same iceberg that Godzilla was trapped in by the JSDF seven years earlier in 1955 in the movie Godzilla Raids Again. As an American rescue helicopter circles the iceberg, Godzilla breaks out and heads towards a nearby Japanese Arctic base. The base, of course, is ineffective against Godzilla. Godzilla's appearance is all over the press and makes Tako angry. As Tako is complaining about Godzilla's media hype to his employees, one of them exclaims "And... there's a movie too!"
Meanwhile on Faro Island, Oodako (a giant octopus) attacks the village. King Kong finally makes his appearance and defeats the monster. Kong then drinks some red berry juice and falls asleep. Sakurai and Kinsaburo place Kong on a large raft and begin to transport him back to Japan. Back at Pacific Pharmaceuticals, Tako is excited because Kong is now all over the press instead of Godzilla. As Tako is out of the room, one of the employees ask which is stronger between King Kong and Godzilla. Another employee responds "Stupid, it's not a wrestling match!" Tako walks back in the room and exclaims "I'll buy that idea!"
Mr. Tako arrives on the ship transporting Kong, but unfortunately, the monster then wakes up and breaks free from the raft. As Kong meets up with Godzilla in a valley, Tako, Sakurai, and Kinsaburo have difficulty avoiding the JSDF to watch the fight. Eventually they find a spot. Kong throws some large rocks at Godzilla, but Godzilla shoots his atomic ray at Kong, so King Kong retreats.
The JSDF constantly try and stop both Kong and Godzilla but are mostly ineffective. They set up some power lines filled with a million volts of electricity (compare that to the 300,000 volts Godzilla went through in the original movie). The electricity is too much for Godzilla, but it seems to make King Kong stronger. Kong attacks Tokyo and holds a woman from a train, named Fumiko, hostage. The JSDF explode capsules full of the berry juice from Faro's scent and knock out King Kong. Tako approved of this plan because he "...didn't want anything bad to happen to Kong." The JSDF then decide to transport Kong via balloons to Godzilla, in hope that they will fight each other to their deaths.
The next morning, Kong is dumbo-dropped onto the summit of Mt. Fuji from the balloon air-lift, and meets up with Godzilla and the two begin to fight. Godzilla eventually knocks Kong down with a vicious drop kick, and batters the downed ape unconscious with powerful tail swipes to his forehead. When Godzilla begins to try to cremate his fallen foe, an electrical storm arrives and revives King Kong, giving him the power of an electric grasp. The two begin to fight again, with the revitalized Kong shoving a tree into Godzilla's mouth, swinging Godzilla around by his tail, and judo tossing him over his shoulder. The brawl between the two monsters continues all the way down to the coastline. Eventually the monsters tear through the historic Atami Castle and plunge into the Pacific Ocean. After an underwater battle, only King Kong resurfaces and begins to slowly swim back home to Faro Island. As Kong swims home, onlookers aren't sure if Godzilla survived the underwater fight but speculate that it was possible.
[edit] Production
The film had its roots in an earlier concept for a new King Kong feature developed by Willis O'Brien, creator of the original stop-motion Kong. In O'Brien's original proposed treatment, King Kong vs. Frankenstein, Kong fought against a giant version of Frankenstein's monster.[1] O'Brien sparked the interest of producer John Beck with some concept art and several screenplay treatments to make the film. Unfortunately, the cost of stop animation prevented the film from being put into production. Beck took the story treatment and had George Yates flesh it out into a screenplay. The title was changed to King Kong Vs Prometheus because it was believed that Universal had the rights to the Frankenstein name. After shopping the script overseas, Beck attracted the interest of the Japanese studio Toho. Toho had long wanted to make a King Kong film and decided to replace the Frankenstein/Prometheus monster with their own monster Godzilla. They thought it would be the perfect way to celebrate their thirtieth year in production.
Spfx Director Eiji Tsuburaya had a stated intention to move the Godzilla series in a lighter direction. To this end, King Kong vs. Godzilla has a much lighter tone than the previous two Godzilla films and contains a great deal of humor and action sequences are decidedly less realistic. The decision was also taken to shoot the film in a "Scope" ratio (2.35:1) and to film in color, marking both monsters' first color portrayals.
Toho had planned to shoot this film on location in Sri Lanka, but had to forgo that (and scale back on production costs) because they ended up paying RKO roughly $200,000 (U.S) for the rights to the King Kong character. The bulk of the film was shot on Oshima (an island near Japan) instead.
At that time, King Kong was seen as the bigger draw, even in Japan, which led to the decision to not only give King Kong top billing, but also to present him as the winner of the climatic fight. While the ending of the film does look somewhat ambiguous, Toho confirmed that King Kong was indeed the winner in their 1962 press book Toho Films Vol 8, which states, A spectacular duel is arranged on the summit of Mt. Fuji, and King Kong is victorious.
During pre-production, Ishiro Honda had toyed with the idea of using Willis O'Brien's stop motion technique instead of the suitmation process used in his film, but budgetary concerns prevented him from using the process except in a few, isolated scenes. For the attack of the giant octopus, four live octopuses used. They were forced to move by blowing hot air on them. After the filming of that scene was finished, three of the four were released. The fourth became special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya's dinner.
[edit] U.S. Version
As with the majority of Japanese imports of the day, King Kong vs. Godzilla was re-edited for the American market by its U.S. distributor, Universal International. In addition to dubbing the film, much of the overt comedy disappears in the re-edited version and U.S. producer John Beck cut large amounts of the Japanese footage and replaced it with new footage of American actors playing newscasters commenting on the action. The score by Akira Ifukube was mostly replaced with library music, much of it from the Universal film Creature from the Black Lagoon by Henry Mancini. The climatic Earthquake is also much more powerful in the U.S version, which uses stock footage from the film The Mysterians in order to make the Earthquake much more violent than the tame tremor seen in the Japanese version.
The American version runs 91 minutes, seven minutes shorter than the Japanese version.
[edit] Reaction
In Japan, this film has the highest box office attendance figures of all of the Godzilla series to date. It sold 11.2 million tickets during it's inital theatrical run. After 2 theatrical re-releases in 1970 and 1977 respectively, it has a lifetime figure of 12,550,000 tickets sold.
[edit] Legacy
Due to this films great box office success, Toho had wanted to do a sequel almost immediately. The sequel was simply called Continuation: King Kong vs Godzilla. [2] However the project never got off the ground.
In 1991, the film was to be remade as Godzilla vs King Kong [3] as part of the Hesei Series. However, Turner Entertainment, who claimed to be the owners of the original film, asked too much money for Kong's use. Next, Toho thought to make Godzilla vs Mechani-Kong [4], but was again stymied by Turner, who claimed Mechani-Kong was too similar to Kong. In the end, the film became Godzilla vs King Ghidorah.
[edit] DVD Releases
Goodtimes Video
- Released: May 15, 2001
- Aspect Ratio: Full frame (1.33:1)
- Sound: English (1.0)
- Supplements: Production notes
- Region 1
- Note: Contains the U.S. version of the film
Universal Studios
- Released: November 29, 2005
- Aspect Ratio: Widescreen (2.35:1) anamorphic
- Sound: English
- Region 1
- Note: Contains the U.S. version of the film; Only available in a two-pack with King Kong Escapes
[edit] External links
- Archer, Eugene. "King Kong vs. Godzilla" (film review) The New York Times. June 27, 1963.
- Kingu Kongu tai Gojira (King Kong vs. Godzilla) at the Internet Movie Database
- Gojira's Sanctuary- Info and forums
- Cast List, Synopsis, Trailer and Photos for King Kong vs Godzilla at MIN
| King Kong films |
|---|
| King Kong (1933) • The Son of Kong (1933) • King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) • King Kong Escapes (1967) • King Kong (1976) • King Kong Lives (1986) • King Kong (2005) |
![[1]](http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6889/kingkongvsfrankenstein2lb9.png){kind=link}