Rebirth of Mothra III

Rebirth of Mothra 3, released in Japan as Mothra 3: King Ghidorah Attacks (モスラ3 キングギドラ来襲, Mosura Surī Kingu Gidora Raishū^?), is a 1998 Kaiju film. It is the third and final film in Toho's Mothra Trilogy, which began with Rebirth of Mothra in 1996. This film features the monsters Rainbow Mothra, AquaMothra, Light Speed Mothra, Armor Mothra, Eternal Mothra, Primitive Mothra, Fairy Mothra, Cretaceous King Ghidorah, Grand King Ghidorah, and Garugaru. It is the first Toho kaiju film with special effects directed by Kenji Suzuki.

Plot

Moll, Lora, and Belvera, the Elias sisters, are at odds again. Belvera seeks the secret power of their ancestors, tiny triangular power units that transform the sisters' small daggers into powerful swords. She fails to retrieve the proper triangle for her sword (each power unit will only work for a specific sword), but Moll and Lora end up with a unit that transforms Moll's sword.

Shortly after the Elias sisters face-off, a meteor shower brings a strange object to Earth, a huge meteor that disrupts gravity near it. As it crashes to Earth at night, a family watches. The next day, the oldest of the children, a teenage boy called Shota, plays hookey from school, and goes to investigate the object. Meanwhile, school children on playgrounds and around the nearby city begin to mysteriously vanish as a huge shadow passes overhead. Moll and Lora examine the remains of the crashed meteor, discovering the essence of dinosaurs, and realizes that a great evil has been released. Grand King Ghidorah, a space monster who visited Earth in its past and thought to be responsible for the destruction of the dinosaurs, returns with the captured children to a secluded spot near where the meteor crashed, trapping them in a huge, pulsating organic dome. Thankfully, at Moll and Lora's calling, Rainbow Mothra arrives and begins to battle Grand King Ghidorah, but the three headed demon's ancient powers render all of Mothra's attacks useless and the King of Terror proceeds to easily dominate Rainbow Mothra, who only just escapes. Later, Moll and Lora encounter Ghidorah, who infects Lora with its evil by staring into Lora's eyes. Under Ghidorah's spell, Lora attacks Moll and attempts to drag them both into the dome. However, Fairy Mothra flies down towards the dome and saves Moll before she falls into it. Belvera, intrigued by Ghidorah's arrival, gets too close to the dome and is dragged inside with her pet henchmen, Garu-Garu, by little serpent beings.

Meanwhile Moll, riding Fairy, encounters the teenage boy, and tells him about Ghidorah. She explains that Ghidorah needs the children's life force to feed upon. She convinces him to accompany her and meet their only hope, Rainbow Mothra, who is now recovering from a battle with Ghidorah. Moll and Rainbow Mothra communicate telepathically, discussing their options. It is agreed that Rainbow Mothra cannot defeat Ghidorah in its current form and so it is decided that he must travel back in time to a point where Ghidorah was not so powerful, to a time when the dinosaurs still walked the Earth, and when Ghidorah had visited from space for the first time as Cretaceous King Ghidorah to feed upon the Earth's life-force. Rainbow Mothra turns into AquaMothra and then with Moll giving AquaMothra all of her power, the massive insect is able to turn into Light Speed Mothra and break through the boundaries of time and travel backward to confront Ghidorah, some 130 million years in the past. Moll, her power totally depleted helping her friend time-travel, falls into a state of suspended animation, her body taking on the appearance of frosted glass. Shota allows Grand King Ghidorah to capture him so he can find Lora in the dome, where the captured children are screaming and huddling together, terrified. There, Lora encounters Belvera, who tells her that King Ghidorah plans to destroy the Earth. Still under Ghidorah's spell, the two engage in a swordfight, with Belvera begging Lora to see reason and to work with her, but to no avail. Shota finds Lora, but she attacks him and attempts to stab him with her sword. But, Belvera warns her not to do it. Shota reminds Lora that she loves children deeply and, with the love of her sisters, breaks Ghidorah's spell. Belvera finally realizes that the Alias triangle represents the three of them and combines her sword with both Lora's and Moll's. Using the new sword, she attempts to break open the dome while Lora recovers. Light Speed Mothra appears in the age of the dinosaurs and turns back into Rainbow Mothra. Another fight between Rainbow Mothra and Ghidorah takes place. After originally holding the advantage, Rainbow Mothra begins to lose the fight but thanks to Lora's song, Rainbow Mothra energizes and manages to immobilize Ghidorah long enough to pick it up and drop it into a nearby volcano, but not before a severed piece of Ghidorah's tail burrows itself into the ground. Rainbow Mothra is hurled out of the exploding volcano, where Primitive Mothra larvae cover him in a time-capsule cocoon in which the injured Rainbow Mothra will sleep for many millions of years.

Back in the present, Ghidorah roars in outrage as it disappears from existence. The children are released, and the boy joins Belvera and Lora as they kneel by the body of their sister Moll, unsure of how they can save her. Suddenly Ghidorah appears in the sky amidst a massive fireball. This is the other Ghidorah which grew from the severed tail of the Ghidorah killed by Rainbow Mothra in the past. The new Ghidorah starts to capture children again. Meanwhile, Belvera convinces Lora to join her and the two distracts Ghidorah with Fairy. Suddenly, the time-capsule cocoon explodes from a mountain, and Rainbow Mothra emerges, this time as Armor Mothra, a formidable version with armour plating all over it. Yet, another battle takes place, and this time Ghidorah is no match for Armor Mothra, who first slices Ghidorah's wing off, and then proceeds to completely disintegrate the monster by encasing herself in energy and tackling into it. Armor Mothra then communicates with Belvera and Lora, telling them to join their powers and, using the sword, brings Moll back to life. The touching reunion between the three sisters is short-lived, as Belvera calls for Garugaru and flies off. The children are reunited with their parents, and Armor Mothra transforms into his final form, Eternal Mothra, and flies into the sunset.

Cast

• Moll - Megumi Kobayashi
• Lora - Misato Tate
• Belvera - Aki Hano
• School Principal - Koichi Ueda

References

External links

• Rebirth of Mothra III at the Internet Movie Database
• "モスラ3 キングギドラ来襲 (Mosura Surī Kingugidorah Raishū)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/1998/dv003240.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-19.