Furankenshutain no kaijû: Sanda tai Gaira

Plot synopsis:
As the film opens, a small boat is seen chugging through stormy seas. A giant octopus appears from the ocean and seems bent on killing the sole crew member on deck. Suddenly, the octopus releases the man and retracts its tentacles from the boat. Relieved, the sailor peers out the porthole to see Gaira, a large green man-like creature, fighting the octopus. After easily defeating it, Gaira turns his attention to the boat and sinks it.
When the sailor is recovered from the ocean, he tells his tale of the large gargantua (Frankenstein in the Japanese version) to his doctors, who believe he is in shock and spouting nonsense. The press picks up on the story and interviews Dr. Paul Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) and his female assistant, Akemi Togawa (Kumi Mizuno), who once had a baby gargantua in their possession for study five years prior. Dr. Stewart and Akemi try to dispel the idea that the attack on the boat was caused by the gargantua they knew and studied because it was very gentle while in their care. Stewart postulates that the gargantua he studied wouldn't live in the ocean as it was found in the mountains and probably returned there when it escaped from his laboratory five years ago.
Another boat is attacked and the people of a fishing village see the gargantua off the coast at the same time that a mountain guide reports seeing the gargantua in the Japanese Alps. So, Dr. Stewart and Akemi go to visit the mountains and send their assistant, Dr. Majida (Kenji Sahara), to look at the evidence in the fishing village. Dr. Majida finds tissue stuck to the side of the fishing boat while Dr. Stewart and Akemi find giant footprints in the snow.
In the meantime, Gaira comes ashore and attacks an airport. As he munches on a woman he's pulled from inside a building, the sun appears from behind the clouds. Apparently, the gargantua doesn't like bright light and runs back to the sea. After Gaira attacks Tokyo at night, the residents are urged to turn on all of their lights and open their shades to drive him out of the city. He begins to retreat to the mountains and is met by the Japanese Self Defense Force, who use giant spotlights and bonfires to corral Gaira into a valley. Although conventional tanks, artillery, and machine guns have little effect on him, a newly constructed weapon — Maser Cannons — badly injures Gaira. Bloodied and bruised, Gaira falls into the river and appears defeated. Suddenly, a larger, brown gargantua comes to his aid. Sanda, as he is known, pulls Gaira from the river and away from the military.
It turns out that Sanda is the gentle gargantua that Dr. Stewart and Akemi have studied years ago. This is confirmed when the scientists encounter Sanda in the mountains and he rescues Akemi from falling to her death, risking his own life and breaking his leg in the process. However, he has become leery of humans after seeing Gaira's horrific injuries and quickly vanishes once again. Later, he catches Gaira feasting on some boaters and attempts to kill him to stop the carnage. Unfortunately, he is hesitant about harming his brother and this, along with his broken leg, allows Gaira to overpower him before escaping to the sea. Dr. Stewart attempts to convince the military of Sanda's innocence and that blowing them up would simply scatter their cells all over the place, leading to the possibility of thousands of gargantuas, as the monsters can regenerate from even a tiny piece of tissue. The press and military remain skeptical.
Gaira reappears in Tokyo, no longer afraid of the city lights, and corners Dr. Stewart and Akemi. Sanda arrives to save them once again and attempts to placate his brother, but Gaira is beyond reason and the confrontation escalates to a violent brawl, causing great destruction in the process. The battle eventually leads out to sea, where the military begins an aerial bombardment. Unfortunately, the bombs disturb a giant underwater volcano, and the two monsters are engulfed in smoke and fire. By the time the volcanic cloud dissipates, both monsters have disappeared without a trace.

Tags: good versus evil

Review:
The classic seen in this movie is when the Green Gargantua comes ashore near a hotel/apartment complex and tears the walls off exposing people inside.
If you love Godzilla, Gamera, and other giant monster film I strongly recommend that you do what I did and buy War of the Gargantuas today!.
"War Of The Gargantuas" comes from my favorite era of Toho's kaiju flicks, the 1960s, when the emphasis was relatively straightforward action and fun, and thankfully no annoying little kids making friends with the monsters.
And this time, we have a monster in the Green Gargantua (Gaira) who is really frightening and who eats people to boot (not even Godzilla ever went that far).
Like most kaiju films, the original Japanese version is much better than the later dubbed American version.
Russ Tamblyn (generally okay but clearly bored and resentful of his sudden fall from the heights of "West Side Story" and "The Haunting") might have gotten his own voice back in the U.S version (the Japanese actor who dubs him in the original doesn't sound anything like him at all and in Toho's European market English dub they used another actor), but everything else about it is decidedly inferior.
The original Japanese version in widescreen format, has beautiful color and sound that immediately conjure the image of a stylish late 60s action flick with reasonably good FX for the time, and the results far more entertaining in the end.
Also in the Japanese version, we learn that this movie is actually a sequel to "Frankenstein Conquers The World" since the monsters are referred to as "Frankensteins" rather than "Gargantuas" as they are in the dubbed version.As for the infamous nightclub scene featuring ex-Fox starlet Kipp Hamilton's infamously bad song before she gets attacked (but contrary to what others say here, not eaten), even that somehow comes off better in the Japanese version.
However, it's hard for me to decide which of the two versions I prefer; the Japanese original (which calls our creatures "Frankenstein's" and is a direct sequel to Toho's own FRANKENSTEIN VS BARUGON, aka FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD) or the U.S. edition (which christens the beasts "Garganutas" and works better as a separate stand alone story).
This may be a rare occasion where the American rendition proves to be more entertaining, for a few reasons...One grisly sequence shows the evil monster chewing a woman victim up like a piece of meat and spitting something out; in the Japanese version it's a bouquet of flowers, while in America it works more effectively as the girl's clothes.Another quality I prefer in the U.S. edition is some of the music.
Just works better for me during the action sequences of the monsters being fought off by the army as well as when they're beating each other up.In the American film, Russ Tamblyn is especially funny to hear while looping his own embarrassed voice into English.
War of the Gargantuas was definitely the better of the two flicks and every time I went to the beach after that kept hearing that eerie music and waited for the green gargantuan to rear his big ugly head out of the ocean.
The ultimate battle between good (brown gargantuan) and evil (green gargantuan) as can best be done in Japanese monster fashion.
A fond and nostalgic personal memory, "War of the Gargantuas" was a welcome treat in my family's living room (they had more console television sets back then; am I getting old or what?), and is one of my favorite Japanese monster movies.
When they aired it, which was often, I'd get a chance to watch it five times during that week, at 8:00pm on a KTLA (Los Angeles area Channel 5) Movie of the (whole) Week (I was just a kid then, and before anybody was able to rent videos at Blockbuster).Barebones Summary (without spoiling it for the inexperienced viewer):A beautiful young female scientist, Akemi (pronounced  uh-kay-mee '), does research on a docile, missing-link-like monster child -eventually called `The Brown One.'  (There is a cute scene in which Akemi feeds it a chocolate bar, soon after it has played with children's toys).
Some years later Akemi meets an American scientist, Paul Stewart, and you just know  these two lovebirds are going to fall in love.Meanwhile at Tokyo International, a huge green monster pops out of the ocean and proves everybody wrong when they say Airport food is lousy.
Elsewhere that evening, aboard a luxury yacht, an American singer belts out a corny love ballad to her formal audience-`The words get stuck in my throat' (And you just know someone--or something--will soon put a stop to her awful singing).Before you know it, the behemoth brothers meet several times to resume their sibling rivalries by knocking the wind out of each other, smashing military vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and knocking over downtown buildings.
I believe WOTG offers considerably more than your usual Toho Studios/Japanese Monster Movie, and could do with a modern spin (provided the original plot is not much altered as to seem another film entirely).
Just then, a larger gargantua comes in, tears the place apart, and rescues it's monster brother.A visiting American scientist (Russ Tamblyn, who is likable here) deals with the conflict of keeping the military from making hash of the monsters.
The creatures have a fondness for each other, basically being brothers of a sort, but the evil one eventually disappoints the good one, and then hell breaks loose with one of the best giant monster battles ever from Toho, second only to Kong and Godzilla.
However, having recently saw various reviews as well as learning that celebrities like Tim Burton grew up loving this flick, I decided to give this Japanese classic another try and boy was my mind changed for the better.
However, it becomes apparent that while Sanda is kind and gentle, Gaira is savage and violent and so their opposing personalities clash as the two behemoth brothers have a vicious fight to the death for the fate of the world.On the surface, "War of the Gargantuas" may seem like a typical monster movie, but that description would not do this film justice.
Throw in some military in between and it becomes more than just fight, it's an all-out war.With good kaiju, lots of impressive action scenes, interesting social commentary, nice acting, great special effects, and fitting music by Akira Ifukube, it's easy why "War of the Gargantuas" has had quite the impact on pop culture.
In U.S. a.k.a. War Of The Gargantuas MUST SEE Japanese Monster Movie.
This is truly one of the GREATEST Japanese Monster Movies from Ishiro Honda.Once you have seen this film,you will never forget it.There is a definate message as well,the classic twin brothers,one brown (GOOD) and one green(EVIL).In the end,regardless of how evil his twin brother is,he shows compassion toward his kin.
This may not be as good as some of the other Japanese monster movies to some;but in the end, which one will stick in your mind the most.
The scene early in the film where a fisherman's boat is stopped dead in the water when he hooks something, and we see this ugly creature gazing up from under the ocean, remains one of the creepiest and most effective images from a movie I've seen.The movie becomes a bit cheesy towards the end when the heroic brown Gargantua shows up to battle the green one, but all in all I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of Toho's Godzilla series, or anyone with slightly unusual tastes in movies.
It's quite hard to say anything serious about them because they are all looking very outdated, features some bad acting and of course also don't have the most clever or original scripts.What makes this movie very fun and watchable is the fact that it's almost non-stop movie monster action.
At the same time the two Gargantuas 'brothers' are also battling each other, so we have some action coming from basically every angle here.It means that the 'human' story of the movie gets sort of pushed to the background but this is not necessarily a bad thing.
Put another way: I canNOT imagine ANYone who would even conSIDer placing this flick in his DVD tray being reMOTEly disappointed, any more than I can imagine anyone whose idea of two hours well-spent at the cinema is something directed by Bob Redford getting past the opening sequence of the Green Gargantua wrassling a giant rubbery octopus, assuming such an individual had somehow been deceived by the packaging into thinking this was a prequel to "The Horse Whisperer." To sum up, then: too much talk, as usual, consisting of the usual observation, speculation, and needless EXplanation, regarding the whences and wherefores of the two title beasts, before the monster action heats up, but along the way there's some nice destruction of model tanks and such, an attack on a lady lounge singer aboard a cruise ship swallowed in the midst of crooning a swinging tune about how "the words get stuck in her throat", not to mention a blossoming love between the Brown (or benevolent) Gargie and the lady scientist who showed him kindness growing up.
And when the title war, eye-filling and brain cell-killing, kicks off in earnest, you'll feel (I did) it's been worth the wait.So if you've ever enjoyed another Japanese giant monster flick, THIS one's not about to let you down.
That footage reappears in later years in a couple of Godzilla movies.Also of note is that the human beings in this film actually are able to hurt the monsters.
Best fight scene ever in a Japanese Monster movie.
A truly wonderful monster movie.When I was a kid in Los Angeles in the early to mid 70's, they would show "War of the Gargantuas" EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, for an entire week!
Ostensibly a sequel to 1965's "Frankenstein Conquers the World", the connection between "War of the Gargantuas" and that film is pretty tenuous (especially if watching an English-dubbed version* in which the name 'Frankenstein' is never used).
Apparently, despite Frankenstein's supposed demise at the end of FCtW, some of his tissue developed into a savage green clone named 'Gaira' AND either the original Frankenstein survived to become the mellow brown giant 'Sanda' OR both 'Gargantuas/Frankensteins' are clones grown from the discarded tissue (this is far from clear).
Two giant Godzilla sized Kaiju go toe-to-toe in this entertaining Japanese monster movie.
The two fight a slow motion battle in a miniature Tokyo, which is a whole lot of fun for Japanese monster movie fans.
But when the gargantua from the lab appears at the same time as the evil gargantua, the two begin to battle across Japan.I love seeing Russ Tamblyn in any movie, and here he is so young (and yet somehow a respected doctor...
This is one of those few monster movies I saw that genuinely scared me as a kid -- something very, very weird about the faces on the things, and it used to send my Dad into hysterics.I haven't seen the movie in many years (Blockbuster doesn't carry this or the classic FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD anymore!), but I remember one bad and one good Gargantua...
Beware, you will never forget "The Words Get Stuck in my Throat!"  Beyond that, the fights between the brown and green Gargantua are entertaining (how could two guys bouncing around a miniature Tokyo set not be entertaining?)If you love "so bad, it's good" film making, you can't miss this one!.
Supposedly a sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965) make no mistake that the two movies have zero connection and you won't be seeing Frankenstein joining the fray here.Another Toho monster film it see's two giant monsters appear and the threat they may pose to mankind.The monsters are dudes in monster suits and to the films credit actually don't look all too bad.
I like Toho but generally their serious work is considerably better than the likes of this, especially when the monster movie isn't part of the Godzilla universe.I want to say nice try, but it wasn't.The Good:Looks the partNot the worst of conceptsThe Bad:Manages to be oddly boring.
War of the Gargantuas is probably the best of the Japanese giant monster flicks.
Like King Kong, their is a lovely woman involved, but much more rationally, the big beasty isn't really interested in her so much as he is just trying to protect her and everyone else from his evil brother.This movie also has one more advantage which most other giant monster movies don't; the brown Gargantua is more identifiable with the audience because he is humanoid, and the green Gargantua is more repulsive because when he eats humans.
Needless sequel to "Frankenstein Conquers The World/Vs. Baragon" sees the emergence of a giant and evil Gargantua that has been attacking the Japanese countryside and waters, murdering people and worse, before it sets its sights on the city.
Usually when a Japanese monster movie does not feature my favorite monster (Godzilla) I end up not liking it all that much.
I also see here this was supposed to be a sequel to another Japanese monster movie called "Frankenstein Conquers the World", however this is the superior film by far as the monster there looked like a messed up boy or something and not much of a creature..
War of the Gargantuas (the U.S. version I saw) is a standard Toho monster flick.
We see Brown Gargantua once earlier in the film as a baby when we discover that Russ Tamblyn's character (along with his assistant, the beautiful Akemi) used to be kind of like his Au Pair when the little bugger was just a Springer Spaniel-sized, milkshake-drinking squirrel monkey.
(and comparatively more handsome by Gargantua standards) and is able to talk the Japanese army into stopping their assault on G.G. by waving his hand and yelling (B.G. is much more of a diplomat than his green flesh-eating brother).The last act of the movie has B.G. breaking his leg while saving Akemi from a fall, then giving G.G. his walking papers (a tree to the face) after discovering all his new room-mate does is lay around the forest apartment all day eating up everything in the frig (aka, hikers and boaters).
This is one of those dark, near-horror style films that Toho produced in the 50s and 60s, such as 1954's Godzilla or 1958's H-Man. The more human like nature of the gargantuas draws the viewer in and draws out more emotions.It's worth mentioning that although the film is a direct sequel to Frankenstein vs Baragon, almost all of the relationship between the two films is edited out of the American version, leaving a lone comment on the main protagonist discussing a 'hand' he's been studying.
You get that kind of vibe even in the edited region one release of the movie nonetheless.If a lot of the campy 1960s or 1970s Godzilla films don't do it for you and you want something darker, more serious, near-horror, War of the Gargantuas is for you.
Silly,Creepy Fun. Having first seen this movie as a young fan of all Japanese monster flicks,I was profoundly affected by the absolute ugliness of the green Gargantua,and his hideous practice of chewing people up and spitting out there well-gnawed clothing.Where I usually kind of rooted for the Tokyo-stomping monstrosities of the genre,I found myself really wanting the green beast dead.Even the atmosphere and shocking trumpet score that played when he showed up was creepy,and you kind of hoped that something really nasty was going to happen to him by movies end.Who can forget the scene at the airport when the green's eating habits are first shown in grim detail?Even though the creatures brown,mountain-dwelling cousin is no better,he still doesn't approach the absolute hideousness of the water-dwelling green.All-in-all,this is definitely one of the more obscure and ugly pictures of the Japanese giant-monster genre,and should give fans a bit of a thrill,and a profound happiness that 300 ft tall abominations aren't stalking the seas devouring hapless victims on boats and at airports.I highly recommend it to the true fan..
A good, entertaining film, but only if you like Japanese giant monster movies.
Perhaps he didn't want to be typecast as a Japanese giant monster movie actor, so he turned down this part!
If you care for them and nurture them, then chances are they'll turn out to be like the brown Gargantua, a nice monster.
Up until last week, I was probably the only baby-boomer fan of Japanese monster movies ("kaiju-eiga," I believe they're called) who had never seen the 1966 Ishiro Honda cult favorite "The War of the Gargantuas." Though the film had been lauded by numerous friends and coworkers, and though I have read many good things about it over the years, it has taken me all these many decades to catch up with it.
(There is also a straight English dub of the 1966 version, too, it seems.) Unlike 1965's "Frankenstein Conquers the World," whose international cut is virtually identical to the Japanese version, with the exception of an additional five-minute battle tacked on at the tail end, the two versions of "Gargantuas" feel very different indeed, and any fan of the one would be very surprised, I feel, to take a look at the other.In the film, as most folks already seem to know, an enormous, green, hairy giant arises from the sea and proceeds to cause all kinds of mayhem.
The English version that I just watched, on the Classic Media DVD, is a lot brighter looking than the Japanese, a big help in the film's many nighttime scenes.
Too, it is nice that the Japanese version gives actual names to Green Gargantua and Brown Gargantua (Gaira and Sanda, respectively), and also nice that it makes a definitive link with the earlier film.