Japanese Title: "Gojira Tai Hedora"

AKA: "Godzilla vs. Hedora," "Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster" 

Rated: G 

Released: July 24, 1971 (Japan)

                July 1972 (U.S.)

Length:  85 min. (Japan)

             85 min. (U.S.)

Gojira Movie Number: 11

This movie is bizarre! It’s another Japanese save the earth movie. Unfortunately, it’s not as good as the Mothra movies that did pretty much the same thing.

We start off with a song about pollution. It goes on and on and on and it seems like it’ll never end! It’s kind of like a James Bond movie’s beginning, but without multiple chicks. And it keeps showing polluted waters.

The next scene deals with problems in the fishing industry. The fish are dying or have become "freaks." Then a ship or two goes down due to some unknown creature. Thus, we get introduced to another stupid kid known as Ken. His father (or maybe it’s his grandfather, I don’t know!) goes for a dive and sees the ugly thing up close. He gets a bad burn on his face for his troubles too.

After that, he does experiments on parts of the monster that have been obtained. He discovers that it has no feelings and is made of some kind of mineral. Ken has a dream about Godzilla coming and we find out that he can see the future…of course, minerals can’t feel pain, so the creature isn’t hurt by Godzilla.

I should explain something here. Before Gojira comes on the scene, the monster looks like an oversized tadpole…at least, that’s what Ken and everyone else thinks. I think it looks like an oil spill gone bad. And when Gojira enters the scene, the monster, which Ken dubbed Hedorah, has mutated into a "four-legged" monster. Again, I don’t think it looks like it has four-legs…it looks like a seriously messed up crustacean.

Anyway, Hedorah and Gojira go at it and Gojira gets hurt. Hedorah runs off to return again later and nothing is solved. However, we do get to see Gojira swing Hedorah around in circles faster than he swings any other monster in any other film to date…Wow! He doesn’t even get dizzy! (I guess giant radioactive lizards wouldn’t though.)

As the movie progresses, you discover that Toho thought it would be fun to make little cartoons to break up the monotony. These things look weird and are animated poorly. They should have brought in someone who knew what they were doing…besides this, they’re pretty pointless!

There’s also a dance scene right about now. It has a chick that looks like she’s had her clothes spray-painted on. And she’s singing the title song. Wheee! We bounce between this scene and Hedorah doing some destruction. The dance room has some psychedelic lights/images going too, so you know they must be "trippin’ out."

Well, Hedorah changes into a flying thing now and goes about spraying sulfur on everything. People collapse and die and buildings fall too. Gojira runs up again and lays the smack down, but Hedorah doesn’t seem to notice.

Somewhere in the movie, we see a bunch of scenes of stars and asteroids. Ken and his fatherly figure are talking about Hedorah’s origins. Somehow Ken’s father deduces that it came from a star made of sludge and it got here on a meteorite or something. Yeah…right

The dance people plan to go to Mt. Fuji for a big go-go party and of course, Hedorah wants to break that up. But before we get there, let’s see what Ken’s father has figured out. Hmmm, Hedorah can be killed by electricity…if it’s powerful enough. So he tells the military and they set up a trap. Also, there’s an inane conversation where the main characters can’t seem to decide whether or not Hedorah is made of sludge or metal…I thought this was already established long ago.

OK. Hedorah comes to break up the go-go party, which Ken is conveniently attending. Godzilla shows up too and they go toe-to-sludge. Hedorah has an identity crisis and keeps changing from one form to another. (Flying Hedorah and then upright Hedorah…) Well, he picks up Gojira and flies around and drops him…then Hedorah takes a dump on Gojira! Well, Gojira gets covered in nasty sludge!

Hedorah kills or severely wounds just about everyone at the party, except Ken and some chick…I think it’s the one that sang earlier in that great outfit. (By the way, watch for the weirdoes who spy on the go-go dancers…we never find out who these guys are, but they hide in the brush and just watch the goings on…)

Then Hedorah is distracted by Gojira and they go at it again. Eventually, Hedorah is lured to the military trap by some headlights. But the Japanese don’t have the stupid thing powered, so it’s useless! HELLO!?? Well, luckily, Gojira’s flame breath can be converted to electricity and Gojira knows this, so he gives the electrical panels a blast and fries that ugly monster!

Unfortunately, that’s not enough. Gojira must come up and yank its eyeballs out and fry them separately. Then Hedorah flies off (with new eyes…) and Gojira does something completely unexpected! He brings his tail up to his face and blows flame so that he can fly after Hedorah! Then he catches the Smog Monster and brings him back…again while flying. Gojira lets the humans try to fry it with real electricity, but we humans don’t know how to wire anything, so it blows a fuse and Gojira does all the work again.

Luckily, Gojira doesn’t bother with the eyeballs again. He just comes up and tears the remains apart instead and re-fries it. Yuck! Onto the "Stuff" section(s).

This movie is strange. It’s not great, but it’s better than some of the other "newer" old Gojira films. (i.e. "Godzilla’s Revenge" & "Godzilla vs. Megalon.") Get it and see Gojira like you’ve never seen him!