Monster Island's Decisive Battle: Son of Godzilla

Directed by

The Battle of Monster Island: Son of Godzilla (also known as Son of Godzilla) is an 1967 Toho Kaiju film,

that was released in the US under the title Godzilla's Son in 1969.

## Plot

On the remote Sollgel Island in the Pacific Ocean, a team of United Nations scientists, led by Tsunezo Kusumi, is undertaking a weather controlling experiment, hoping to allow mankind to grow food in previously unsuitable climates and potentially ending world hunger. As the scientists are getting closer to carrying out the experiment, they begin noticing strange radio interference that is adversely affecting their equipment. One day, a plane flies over the island, and a man using a parachute jumps out of it. When Kusumi and his assistant Fujisaki go to investigate, the man simply waves at them and accompanies them back to their base. He introduces himself as Goro Maki, an investigative reporter who wants a scoop on the scientists' experiments. As the experiment is meant to be top secret, the scientists refuse, but they decide to allow Maki to stay with them on the condition he help cook and clean and act as the team's photographer. As the days pass, Maki sees a giant praying mantis moving through the jungle surrounding the camp. Later, while he is exploring the island, Maki sees a beautiful native girl swimming in the waters just off the island. When Maki tries to photograph her, she quickly dives under the water and disappears.

Eventually, the experiment is ready to commence. Weather Control Capsules on the island begin spraying a cooling gas into the air, while a balloon carrying a Radioactivity Sonde is launched into the atmosphere. When Maki is warned to stay inside before the Sonde explodes and begins cooling the island, he searches for the native girl to warn her about the experiment. When Maki fails to find her, he is forced to retreat back to the base. The experiment is progressing normally, until the radio interference returns and the Radioactivity Sonde prematurely detonates in the air, triggering an extreme heat wave, accompanied with severe radiation storms. After several weeks, the storms cease, and Kusumi and Maki exit the base and begin observing the damage. As they wander across the island, they notice that the giant mantises have grown into huge kaiju, which Maki names "Kamacuras." Three Kamacuras approach a dirt mound on the island and begin tearing it apart, revealing a huge egg. The Kamacuras smash the egg with their claws until it breaks open and reveals Minilla, a baby Godzilla. Soon, Godzilla surfaces at the island and begins coming ashore to rescue the infant. Godzilla reaches the Kamacuras, and immediately attacks them. Godzilla manages to kill one in hand-to-hand combat, then kills another with his atomic breath. The last Kamacuras flies away, leaving Minilla safe and sound. The native girl approaches Minilla and tosses fruit into his mouth, but is forced to flee when Godzilla approaches the infant. Godzilla allows Minilla to grab onto his tail, and carries him up a hill.

One night, Maki and the scientists catch the native girl stealing one of Makis Red shirt, but she escapes before they can catch her. Maki tracks her down to a cave on the island, but slips and is knocked unconscious. When the girl returns to the cave, she holds a knife to Maki and accuses him of being a thief trying to steal her notebook. Maki assures her he is not a thief, and is simply trying to reclaim his shirt, but he decides to let her keep it. The girl introduces herself as Saeko Matsumiya, the daughter of a Japanese scientist who had worked on the island and died seven years ago. Maki brings Saeko back to the camp and introduces her to the others. When Godzilla passes by and destroys the camp, Saeko offers the scientists residence in her cave. After a few days, many of the scientists begin showing symptoms of a severe fever, which Saeko recognizes as "Sollgel Fever." She says the only cure is warm red water from a boiling lake located on the interior of the island. Saeko and Maki set off, and as they head toward the lake they pass over a valley, which Saeko warns is the "Valley of Kumonga," a giant spider native to the island. Eventually they reach the lake, but discover that Godzilla and Minilla have taken up residence near it. Saeko remarks that Godzilla is "educating his son." Godzilla attempts to teach Minilla how to breathe atomic breath, but finds he can only breathe pitiful smoke rings. Godzilla stomps on Minilla's tail, which causes him to spew a blast of fire from his mouth. Godzilla congratulates his son, who shrieks excitedly at his success. Saeko manages to collect some of the water, and brings it back to the cave. She administers the water to the men, and they quickly recover.

One day while Saeko is collecting plants on the island, she is attacked by a Kamacuras, and she calls out to Minilla, who comes to her rescue. While Minilla tries to fight off the Kamacuras, he accidentally kicks a rock into Kumonga's valley, which awakens the colossal spider. When the Kamacuras hears Godzilla approaching, it flies away. Saeko tries to return to the cave, but she is attacked by Kumonga. Maki sees Saeko and tries to get her to safety, but they are cornered by Kumonga, who begins spitting webbing at them. Maki uses his lighter to cut through Kumonga's web, and he and Saeko successfully escape back to her cave. However, once they are in the cave, they find that Kumonga is waiting outside and trapping them inside with webbing. Saeko and Maki escape the cave from a secret underwater exit, and successfully set up a radio antenna outside the cave, allowing Fujisaki to make radio contact with the U.N., who send a rescue submarine. Kusumi says that they have no hope of escaping alive with the monsters roaming the island, and proposes that they conduct their weather experiment again and freeze the monsters. The others agree, and they immediately begin preparations.

Minilla approaches the cave to try and rescue Saeko from Kumonga, but is immediately restrained by the monster's webbing. The Kamacuras flies overhead, but Kumonga knocks it out of the sky and traps it in webbing as well. Kumonga bites the Kamacuras and injects it with venom, which kills it instantly. As Kumonga approaches Minilla and prepares to do the same to him, Minilla cries out for his father, who is sleeping near the red lake. Godzilla overhears Minilla's cries, and heads to his rescue. The weather control experiment commences and is successful, causing the temperatures on the island to drop drastically as snow begins to fall. With Godzilla battling Kumonga, the scientists use the opportunity to escape on a raft. Kumonga manages to wound one of Godzilla's eyes and trap him in webbing, but before he can finish him, Minilla comes to his father's rescue. Together, Minilla and Godzilla use their atomic breath to set Kumonga ablaze and defeat him. With the island beginning to freeze over, Godzilla and Minilla head for the ocean, but Minilla falls into the snow and begins falling asleep. Unwilling to leave his son, Godzilla turns around and embraces Minilla in the snow, as they fall into hibernation together. The scientists are rescued by a U.N. submarine, and finally leave Sollgel Island behind.

## Cast

* Tadao Takashima   as   Dr. Tsunezo Kusumi
* Bibari Maeda   as   Saeko Matsumiya
* Akira Kubo   as   Goro Maki, journalist
* Akihiko Hirata   as   Fujisaki
* Kenji Sahara   as   Morio
* Yoshio Tsuchiya   as   Furukawa
* Susumu Kurobe   as   Meteorological observation plane captain
* Kazuo Suzuki   as   Meteorological observation plane navigator
* Kenichiro Maruyama   as   Ozawa
* Seishiro Kuno   as   Tashiro
* Yasuhiko Saijo   as   Suzuki
* Chotaro Togin   as   Meteorological observation plane radio operator
* Wataru Omae   as   Meteorological observation plane co-pilot
* Seiji Onaka, Hiroshi Sekita   as   Godzilla
* Haruo Nakajima   as   Godzilla (water scenes)
* Masao Fukazawa   as   Minilla (as "Little Man Machan")
* Osman Yusuf   as   United Nations submarine captain (uncredited)

## Monsters

* Godzilla (MusukoGoji)
* Kamacuras
* Kumonga
* Minilla

## Staff

* Directed by   Jun Fukuda
* Written by   Shinichi Sekizawa, Kazue Kiba
* Produced by   Tomoyuki Tanaka
* Music by   Masaru Sato
* Cinematography by   Kazuo Yamada
* Edited by   Ryohei Fujii
* Production design by   Takeo Kita, Akira Watanabe
* Special effects by   Sadamasa Arikawa, Eiji Tsuburaya

## Titles

* The Battle of Monster Island: Son of Godzilla (literal Japanese title)
* Monster No. 1 Godzilla (怪獣ゴジラ Kaijū Nanbā Wan Gojira, Japanese 8mm title)
* The Son of Godzilla (El hijo de Godzilla; Spain; Mexico; Il figlio di Godzilla; Italy; Syn Godzilla; Poland)
* The Planet of the Monsters (La planète des monstres; France; French Belgium; De planeet der monsters; Dutch Belgium)
* Frankenstein's Monsters Hunt Godzilla's Son (Frankensteins Monster jagen Godzillas Sohn; Germany)
* Godzilla's Son (Godzillas son; Sweden)
* Frankenstein's Island (Frankensteinin saari; Finland)
* The Return of Gorgo (Il ritorno di Gorgo; Italy, reissue)
* Godzilla: Son of Godzilla (Australia)

## U.S. release

Like Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, Son of Godzilla was released directly to American television by the Walter Reade Organization in 1969, with an English dub recorded in New York and directed by Peter Fernandez, utilizing many voice actors from Titan Productions, Inc.

Very little was changed for the film's Americanization:

* The opening sequence in which a military plane spots Godzilla heading for the radio interference on Sollgel Island is removed. In its place is the U.S. version's main title, underscored by Masaru Sato's opening theme. The title is set against a deep blue background.
* The main title in the Japanese and international versions is placed over a shot of Godzilla walking towards the camera. That shot remains in the U.S. version but it is not accompanied by any text. Similarly, the U.S. version has no credits although the footage used in Toho's credit sequence is retained.
* The final shot is textless as well in the U.S. version. Initial U.S. prints featured no end title; the Walter Reade Organization logo played after the final shot concluded. Later prints struck after distribution was taken over by Alan Enterprises replace this logo with an end title card and Toho copyright notice.
* Saeko Matsumiya is called "Reiko," as in the earlier English dub by Frontier Enterprises for Toho's international version. Both English versions use the original English names "Gimantis" and "Spiega" for the characters Kamacuras and Kumonga, respectively.

As with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, unlicensed home video copies of Son of Godzilla released in the 1980's were sourced from 16mm prints of the initial Walter Reade Organization version. Official home video versions from Video Treasures and Canada's HGV Video Productions used the video master created from the Alan Enterprises version.

Columbia TriStar Home Video released the film on DVD in 2004. Visually, the DVD is based on Toho's uncut international version, although the English titles and credits were digitally recreated. Neither of the Japanese and English audio tracks included on the disc had been officially heard in the U.S. before; the international English dub, originally recorded by Frontier Enterprises in Tokyo in the 1960's, had only been used in the U.K. prior to this. TriStar's rights to the film lapsed in the early 2010's and the DVD has since gone out of print. As a result, Son of Godzilla has become one of the most difficult and costly Godzilla films to obtain on Region 1 DVD, matched only by Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. A digital copy of the TriStar release (with the English audio track) can still be purchased through Vudu, an online content delivery network.

Currently, North American rights to Son of Godzilla are possessed by Janus Films, who released it on Blu-ray as part of The Criterion Collection box set Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954-1975. The Japanese version was available for streaming on Janus' streaming platform FilmStruck prior to its discontinuation on November 29, 2018. This version of the film has been broadcast on U.S. cable networks IFC and Comet TV.

### United Kingdom release

Nat Miller brought the international English dub of Son of Godzilla to UK theaters in August 1969, as part of a double feature with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. Edited down to 71 minutes, it received an U (Universal) rating from the British Board of Film Censors. PolyGram Video released it on VHS in 1992 with Terror of Mechagodzilla, followed by 4 Front Video in 1998. Sony released the Japanese version of the film on Blu-ray in 2019 as part of the The Criterion Collection's Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975 box set, with the international English dub available as a secondary audio option.

## DVD

**Toho** DVD (2003)

* Region: 2
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono and 5.1 Surround)
* Subtitles: Japanese
* Special Features: Audio commentary by special effects director Sadamasa Arikawa, 8mm version (5 minutes), theatrical trailer, storybook with narration

**TriStar Pictures** DVD (2004)

* Region: 1
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono), English (2.0 Mono, international dub)
* Subtitles: English
* Special Features: Trailers
* Notes: Out of print.

**Madman** DVD (2006)

* Region: 0
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono and 5.1 Surround), English (2.0 Mono, international dub)
* Subtitles: English
* Special Features: Japanese trailer, poster gallery, Madman-made trailers

**The Criterion Collection** Blu-ray (2019) [*Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975*]

* Region: A/1 or B/2
* Discs: 8
* Audio: Japanese, English (international dub)
* Subtitles: English
* Special Features: All bonus features on Criterion's *Godzilla* Blu-ray, 1990 Ishiro Honda interview by Yoshimitsu Banno, interview with director Alex Cox, interviews with actors Bin Furuya and Tsugutoshi Komada, 2011 interview with critic Tadao Sato, unused effects sequences from Toho releases including *Destroy All Monsters*, trailers, illustrated hardcover book with an essay by Steve Ryfle and liner notes on each film by Ed Godziszewski
* Notes: Uses a new English subtitle translation by Jason Franzman. Sony distributed a Region B/2 version of the set in the United Kingdom.