Customer Reviews

The War of the Gargantuas

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a youngster, this film disturbed me. When the evil green gargantua Gaira grabs the woman from the airport office buidling and proceeds to chomp her down then spit out her clothes, it's the thing nightmares are made of. In the USA, the title was changed from "Frankenstein Monsters: Sanda Vs. Gaira" to "The War Of The Gargantuas". It was originally released in Japan in 1966 and for us Yanks, 1970. The Japanese version is a sequel to an earlier film titled "Frankenstein Vs. Baragon" (US title: "Frankenstein Conquers The World"). The dubbed US version of "Gargantua" erases all connection to the earlier film and in both versions, American actor Russ Tamblyn puts in a rather lethargic performance. The US version has extra snippets of violence not used in the Japanese version. This includes Gaira spitting out the airport worker's clothing. In the US version, you actually see her shredded dress hit the ground. This sequel is an improvement over the first but why would use the name "Frankenstein" for these movies? Silly. I have read some of the reviews in here and some people are not recalling certain scenes correctly. The rotten singer who pukes out a horrible song titled "The Words Get Stuck In My Throat" is not on a cruise ship but rather atop a building performing in a penthouse restaurant. When she is finished making a fool of herself with this awful tune, Gaira sneaks up from behind and grabs her but does not get the chance to chew her up. The moment someone turns the lights on, he drops her back onto the stage and runs as he is sensitive to light. Gaira is the aquatic offshoot of Sanda, the brown and good gargantua. It seems that Sanda, after supposedly dying in the first film actually survived. The theory is that sometime between the two films, he may have scraped a bit of his flesh on a rock near or in a body of fresh water. That piece of skin could have found it's way to the ocean and gave birth to Gaira. When the military finally corners Gaira and do their best to electrocute him to death (deservedly), Sanda sees this from his mountain lair and comes running to Gaira's rescue. Gaira's humongous appetite for human flesh and blood is unknown to the people-friendly Sanda. However, things change when he sees chewed up clothing laying in front of a napping Gaira. Sanda is infuriated and slams Mr. Greenie with a tree and so begins "the war of the gargantuas". This film is actually one of the better releases from the Toho company.

I can hear the voiceover for the trailer of this DVD release: "From the director that brought you the original 1954 GODZILLA, 1962's KING KONG VERSUS GODZILLA, and 1968's DESTROY ALL MONSTERS comes...FURANKENSHUTAIN!

Franken - what!?

Sadly, Director Ishiro Honda died in 1993 so we won't be able to ask him how (or if) he ever got rights to use the Frankenstein franchise name for a series of two movies that don't really look or feel anything like the Frankenstein that we over here in the US know and love. Ultimately, the two movies in the US were titled "Frankenstein Conquers the World" (1965) and "War of the Gargantuas" (1966), but in Japan it had that kooky Furankenshutain name...roughly translated to Frankenstein.

The only resemblance to Frankenstein is that the Gargantuas are indeed fuh-uh-uhg-ly, but they look much more like the King Kong that Honda created for the 1962 battle against Godzilla and later in 1967 for King Kong Escapes.

I remember vividly from my last viewing of War of the Gargantuas in my pre-teen years that this is a shocking G-rated film. There was a good Gargantua (the brown one) and a bad one (the green one and the fugliest of them all). And they were Godzilla-sized...not Frankenstein-sized. The green Gargantua bloodily, bone-crunchingly munches on people whole and spits out their bloody clothes. I'd like to see THAT try to get a G-rating today.

In the movie everyone thinks that there's only one murderous Gargantua. Then the brown one shows up at the scene of a crime and tries to stop the green one. The green one wants blood and refuses to live and let live, and the two Gargantuas fiercely battle through the rest of the movie.

Devo must have been a fan of this flick, because they did a remake of a featured song in War of the Gargantuas called "The Words Get Stuck in My Throat." At least I think that Devo's version was a tribute to the movie? Too bad a Gargantua didn't eat Devo back in the 70s.

Anyway, I'm sure that my subconscious, pre-teen mind is telling me that this flick is better (and more shocking) than it really was. But I'm glad to see that it's finally being released.

Worth a look.

I enjoyed this film a lot. It's about two decendents of Frankenstein (named Sanda and Gaira) who fight each other...to the death! Reccomended.

This film was originally released in the states in the summer of 1970. It played on a double bill with Monster Zero. I saw it in a drive-in theater on my ninth birthday...still the best birthday presant I've ever recieved. I love japanese monster movies and War of the Garantuas is my personal favorite. Like its co-feature it was produced in 1966 by Toho Studios. Directed by Inoshiro Honda and scored by Akira Ifukebe, the men responsible for all the great japanese Sci-Fi films of the 50's and 60's, War of the Gargantuas is the scariest and most exciting of them all! Shot in Toho Scope this film can only be appreciated in widescreen.....so steer clear of all the cheap DVD products out there...get the japanese disc....This film is highly regarded in Japan.

This is really one of the most interesting, creatiive, unusual and scary giant monster movies of all time.
It is often identified as a sequel to "Frankenstein against Bragon" (aka Frankenstein Conquers The World)
BUT IT IS ACTUALLY NOT A SEQUEL AT ALL. In its original conception it was intended as a sequel.
But the connection was dropped at the request of american coproducer Henry Saperstein for various reasons.

Saperstein felt the story worked better as its own thing, the creatures did not closely resemble the monster in FCTW and Nick Adams was not available to play the same character as the first film, so his character was renamed and played by Russ Tamblyn. His sidekicks were played by the same actors but their names were changed. Flashback scenes showing a young afrankenstein from the first film were reshot using a kid in a bigfoot costume. So that the monster character Sanda would have a new origin as a mountain dwelling bigfoot type creature. The monster Gaira is called Frankenstein twice in the japanese version, but only early on.
We are led to believe that he is called Frankenstein simply because of his green skin.
The japanese version is a little different than the american version. Some alternate scenes are used. But neither version, contrary to what we have been brought up to believe in USA is a sequel to Frankenstein Concuers the World. Toho only kept the Frankenstein Brothers title and the first few references because
that is the title the film had been announced and promoted under. In both versions, Sanda is a bigfoot or
sasquatch type character who is discovered as a young furry creature in the mountains, and Gaira is a
clone of Sanda who grew from cells that were somehow scraped from Sanda's body in a river or lake.
The frankenstein connectioon was originally much more implicit but was dropped before filming began.

Rumors about this films connection to FCTW have become legend. But rest assured, Though it was originally
conceved as a sequel. The final film, in both versions, is definately not one. I could go into greater detail about
the early connections between the two films, but in the finished version, there arent any.

There are other rumours about Godzilla movies and TOHO films in the west. Many of these rumours were started by Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine.
Famous Monsters started the rumor abour King Kong vs. Godzilla having two different endings.
though the american and Japanese versions are different, there is only one ending.
FM also started the one about Gigantis being a female Godzilla, in actuality it is Godzilla himself.
Fm also gave Minya/Minilla the name Tadzilla in ts pages and christened Angillas/Anguiras as Anzilla!!
Theay also started the one about the "Boy eats heart of Frankenstein and is transformed into frankenstein" thing about Frankenstein Conquers the World. There is nothing like this in either version of the film and if you ask a japanese fan about it he will look at you like you just escaped from Bellview with lobsters hanging from your ears.
The HIROSHIMA bomb blast caused the heart to grow a clone body. End of story. Forget about the protien thing. It didnt need protein untill later when it ran out of radiation.

I first saw this movie when I was about 15 or so.It was on a Sat afternoon. It was part of a Creature Double Feature on T.V 38 out of Boston Mass.
It stayed in the back of my mind for all these years, until recently. I had asked before whenever I bought dvd's at local shops about this movie, but was told it was not available. Imagine my surprise when browsing Amazon for and unrelated reason I just typed in the name of the movie and up it came. I bought a copy on VHS and also bought one on DVD.My brothers and I recently sat down to watch it with there kids and relived a Sat afternoon from long ago. The movie was silly and the toy trucks the monsters destroyed was easily recognizable, but it was worth the price for reliving that moment in time. My nephews thought we were goofballs, and we might be, but it was fun all the same. Thanks to Amazon for there selections. Couldn't have done it without them!

I saw this as a re-release in about 1972 in theatres, it originally came out in 66-67 not 1970. It has been on tv through the years, but rarely if ever anymore. A not unusually strange Japanese giant monster flick that is supposed to be a continuation of their "Frankenstein" movie nonsense. Dont try to make a connection, its not worth it.
Two giant beast like creatures battle it out as a crushed Japanese city looks on. The brown creature is "good" and the green one is evil, chomping on a few citizens to verify. It can have an interesting look to it, especially the beginning of the film which has a moody ship on rough waters scene as a giant octopus attacks. A gargantua emerges from the ocean depths in a seeming rescue only to kill the ships crew. The green beast has an effectively terrifying look and the eerie 60s soundtrack plays into it.
The film is dubbed with no astounding dialogue. To this day I laugh at particular part of the movie. In an attempt at a musical "American style" interlude aboard a cruise ship, a girl sings a song entitled "The Words Get Stuck In My Throat". I guess its dubbed with an English speaking voice, and that voice is the pits. The ship is then attacked by the green meanie and the singer gets munched on. Was it the singing?
For fun I'd like watch the movie cleaned up on dvd in widescreen. I think Japanese versions are available on certain web sites. Nothing monumental, just a weird old movie with a hard to believe it was made feel. Two stars is generous, but its slightly above the Japanese genre of that period.