Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
1991 Japanese Sci-Fi/Adventure film by Kazuki Ōmori
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (ゴジラvsキングギドラ Gojira tai Kingu Gidora) is a 1991 Japanese science fiction kaiju film in which time travelers attempt to prevent Japan's future global domination by threatening to unleash the three-headed dragon King Ghidorah.
- Directed by Kazuki Ōmori. Written by Kazuki Ōmori.
Masukichi Ikehata edit
- A long time ago, in a far-off land, I saw a real-live dinosaur. You don't know about this dinosaur, you don't know what it was like, but I certainly do. He is close by, and he watches over all of us. I'm not sure where he hides, but he can see us, and if we ever become helpless and desperate, the dinosaur will come back to us and save us from tragedy and disaster, just as it did before on that doomed World War II battlefield we once faced. You think that there is absolutely nothing to fear. Our country is peaceful and you think that nothing could possibly happen to us, but we're in danger. You must prepare yourselves for what will happen.
Yasuaki Shindo edit
- On Makin and Likiep Islands, all 66,000 of our brave soldiers fought valiantly. They fought to the very last man without giving up. They will go down in Japanese history as true defenders of the motherland. Tomorrow, at dawn, we are going to launch an all-out attack against the American forces and show them just how strong we are. You all know, of course, that the Americans greatly outnumber us, but that does not matter. Even up to the last moment, each of us fights. We still have to believe in our final victory over the enemy. We shall fight for our country right up to the end. We shall prove worthy of our great motherland. Persevere! Our deaths shall be the blood and flesh of an even greater and much stronger Japan.
- [addressing the wounded Godzillasaurus] We deeply regret that we must leave our savior behind. We pray that he will never hold it against us in his heart. Please forgive us, for we are helpless. There's nothing that we can do. We can't carry you, we cannot take you to safety. We hope your wounds heal quickly, and that you'll recover full health. We, the Lagos Garrison of the Japanese Army will never forget how you saved our lives. Never!
- [last words while talking on the phone and looking at Godzilla] I nearly died on Lagos Island, along with my entire Garrison, but the dinosaur saved us all. Now, all of that prosperity I built is now being destroyed by the same dinosaur at this moment, and there's nothing I can do about it. Very ironic, don't you think? [chuckles]
Wilson edit
- Godzilla has disappeared, and now King Ghidorah has taken his place.
Dialogue edit
- [First lines; upon finding the wounded King Ghidorah]
- Morris: That one there?
- Emi Kano: Yes. It's King Ghidorah.
- Morris: It's gigantic, and it's got two heads!
- Emi Kano: Well, originally it had three.
- Morris: Three?
- Emi Kano: That's right. It lost one when it fought Godzilla.
- Morris: You mean King Ghidorah fought Godzilla?
- Emi Kano: Yes, in the twentieth century.
- Yasuaki Shindo: [chuckles] A real dinosaur? Young man, I do call myself an expert in dinosaur studies, but I'm sorry to tell you I've never seen a live one.
- Kenichiro Terasawa: Are you saying not even on Lagos Island?
- Yasuaki Shindo: On Lagos?
- Kenichiro Terasawa: I believe there was a dinosaur on Lagos Island in 1944. [Shindo rises] Mister Shindo?
- Yasuaki Shindo: I'm very sorry young man, but I have to go to Kyushu for a meeting right now. I can't waste time talking to you anymore. [starts to leave]
- Kenichiro Terasawa: Ten years after you left Lagos, an H-bomb was tested close-by on an island called Bikini, and it's very possible that the radioactivity turned it into Godzilla. [Shindo stops suddenly] That's what I believe anyway.
- Yasuaki Shindo: You mean that the dinosaur turned into Godzilla?
- [Examining the photos of the Godzillasaurus]
- Professor Mazaki: Godzilla's head is smaller than that of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
- Kenichiro Terasawa: Look closely at its eyes and its mouth. Look closely at the face and the hands.
- Chiaki Morimura: So, rather than a Tyrannosaurus...
- Kenichiro Terasawa: I believe that it turned into Godzilla.
- Professor Mazaki: And these pictures here belong to Shindo?
- Chiaki Morimura: That's right. No one besides the three of us have ever seen the pictures.
- Professor Mazaki: So then, it was a dinosaur that saved our men, and these are the very same men that rebuilt our economy.
- Wilson: Using the Earth Union's time machine, we've been sent back here to warn you all. We wish to change incidents that are about to take place here, things that have caused catastrophe in the 23rd century. We came here to warn you all about your country's gloomy future, because in the century where we come from there's no longer a Japan.
- Prime Minister: How could that possibly be? And why? What's the reason for it?
- Grenchko: It's all a result of nuclear pollution. Very shortly, Godzilla will come back to life and wreak havoc on Japan. He'll destroy nuclear plants, and this of course will cause pollution. After that, the radiation will destroy vegetation and cause cancers, even mutations, and then, as a result of all this, your mother country will become uninhabitable and Japan will not exist.
- Ryuzo Dobashi: Can it be true? Would Godzilla do that to us?
- Prime Minister: It's unbelievable.
- Wilson: We have come here to save Japan from the terrible tragedy it now faces.
- Prime Minister: Please tell me, sir. How do you plan on saving us?
- Wilson: Very simple; you must get rid of Godzilla.
- [Surveying King Ghidorah's attack]
- Wilson: Kyushu is finished. Next, we move north.
- Emi Kano: North?
- Wilson: Destroy Hokkaido.
- Emi Kano: What do you want? To destroy the whole of Japan?!
- Wilson: All except Tokyo. Then we'll show the Japanese the proper way to rebuild their country.
- Emi Kano: We can't!
- Grenchko: It seems you've lost your vision, just because your country is being crushed. So, must I remind you just what your mission here is?
- Emi Kano: We came here to warn these people! We came back here to tell them their country was in danger! Now you've double-crossed them with what you're doing?! You've gone too far!
- Kenichiro Terasawa: The Equal Environment Earth Union?
- Emi Kano: Its sole purpose is to equalize the power of all nations on Earth. All types of people joined our organization, modest ones and aggressive ones, mostly very liberal and some of them radical. We stole the time machine. We had to have it in order to carry out the plan we had for Japan.
- Kenichiro Terasawa: What did you plan for Japan?
- Emi Kano: Actually, we made up the story about Godzilla. He never does destroy Japan.
- Kenichiro Terasawa: I see. And what about the nuclear pollution that destroys Japan?
- Emi Kano: It's all a lie. Later on, Japan will become even stronger, the richest nation of the 21st century. With all this wealth and great power, it will buy up nations, South America and Africa, and then in the 22nd century Japan will be bigger than China, America and all of Europe. No nation will compare to it.
- Kenichiro Terasawa: My God. So they've come here to destroy Japan before all this happens. Why did they have to come back and destroy Japan in this way?
- Emi Kano: There's no other way. At the end of the 20th century, all nuclear weapons are banned, and because of that, no organization or government could control Japan, not even the Earth Union, so Wilson came up with his own plan to make a monster he could control and get rid of Godzilla so he couldn't defend you, then he'd begin to destroy Japan.
- Wilson: So, it happened. Godzilla was created again.
- Grenchko: Unlike our age, where there is no nuclear energy, this generation has nuclear power everywhere. It really didn't matter just what location we teleported the dinosaur to. The second birth of Godzilla was an unavoidable event.
- Wilson: We went through the trouble of getting rid of one, and then what do they do?!
- Grenchko: They just made another. We should have expected this to happen.
- Wilson: Send our monster after it! Let him kill Godzilla.
- [Upon finding the wounded King Ghidorah in the year 2204]
- Morris: King Ghidorah was defeated by Godzilla.
- Emi Kano: That's right. In the 20th century.
- Morris: It's been 200 years. I don't think it's still alive.
- M11: I can hear it. Its heart is beating, only faintly, but I can hear it.
- Emi Kano: We want to restore its health.
- Morris: First tell me what you plan on doing with it.
- Emi Kano: We want to fight Godzilla with it.
- Morris: You mean you want to fight Godzilla with it to help that country? But a corrupt nation such as that one doesn't deserve help. It was destroyed by a monster because of its vain prosperity and lack of concern over nuclear waste.
- Emi Kano: I beg of you, please let me help them this time. Give my ancestors one more chance.
- Morris: [resigned] Alright, I'll let you do it.
Cast edit
- Kōsuke Toyohara as Kenichiro Terasawa
- Anna Nakagawa as Emi Kano
- Megumi Odaka as Miki Saegusa
- Katsuhiko Sasaki as Professor Mazaki
- Akiji Kobayashi as Ryuzo Dobashi
- Tokuma Nishioka as Takehiko Fujio
- Yoshio Tsuchiya as Yasuaki Shindo
- Kiwako Harada as Chiaki Morimura
- Kenji Sahara as Takayuki Segawa
- So Yamamura as the Prime Minister (final film role)
- Chuck Wilson as Wilson
- Richard Berger as Grenchko
- Robert Scott Field as M-11, an android
- Koichi Ueda as Masukichi Ikehata, Lagos Island Veteran
- Kenpachiro Satsuma as Godzilla
- Hurricane Ryu as King Ghidorah
Taglines edit
- Godzilla is back! This time, it's for good!
Quotes about Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah edit
- Viewers at the time would not escape the connection to real-world debates over "Japan, Inc." References to Japan buying entire continents merely exaggerate existing fears about the Japanese economic powerhouse. By the early 1990s, many American commentators were already suggesting that although the Allies were the military victors of the Second World War, Japan had staged a successful economic victory. Omori plainly makes this connection by depicting the architect of Japan's postwar economic prosperity as a commander of the Imperial Army in the war. Shindo loses the battle in 1944, but wins it five decades later.
- David Kalat (2010), A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series, McFarland, p. 181, ISBN 9780786447497
- Released just as Japan's "bubble economy" period of the late 1980s - in which the country sailed to the forefront of world economic powers - was ebbing, the film is bogged down by crass moralizations about Japan's role in the world community and its tenuous relations with other nations. The implication seems to be that Japan is smarter and richer than everybody else, and political tensions over trade issues are borne out of being left behind the coming century.
- Steve Ryfle (1998), Japan's Favourite Mon-star: The Unauthorized Biography of "The Big G", ECW Press, p. 268, ISBN 1550223488
External links edit
- Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah quotes at the Internet Movie Database
- Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah at Rotten Tomatoes
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