Godzilla’s Revenge

1969 | Color | 70 min

Starring: Tomonori Yazaki, Kenji Sahara, Eisei Amamoto, Sachio Sakai, and Kazuo Suzuki.

Directed by: Ishiro Honda

Revenge, as the old saying goes, is a dish best served cold…with a side order of atomic fire-breath to the face, or something like that. I’m certain that’s how the saying would go if Godzilla were involved, anyway. When you hear the title, Godzilla’s Revenge your mind can’t help but conjure up all sorts of fiery images and scenes of destruction on a massive scale, as Godzilla rains nuclear hellfire and havoc down upon those who wronged him in the most violent and destructive (and most importantly, entertaining) way. Sadly, nothing remotely similar to what I have just described happens in this movie.

“Umm, a little privacy, please.”

Godzilla’s Revenge tells the story of little Ichiro, a monster-obsessed, latchkey kid with an inexplicable love of hotpants, who–when he isn’t running from his bully, Gabera, or scrounging around abandoned buildings looking for neat-looking trash–spends most of his free time passed out on his bedroom floor dreaming about Monster Island and his imaginary monster friend, Minya. It seems Minya, the son of Godzilla, is having bully problems of his own, being constantly tormented by a monster who, like Ichiro’s bully, is also named Gabera. Together, with the help of Godzilla (when he isn’t preoccupied with the other extremely salty monsters on Monster Island), the two friends try to figure out a way to help Minya muster up the courage to defeat Gabera and make his father proud.

♫♫ Who wears short shorts? ♫♫

Later, once he’s snapped back into the real world, Ichiro decides go out on one of his junk-scavenging excursions. After finding some cool radio tubes (Gabera stole one he found earlier) he stumbles upon a wallet dropped by a pair of hapless bank robbers hiding out nearby. Fearful that the little trash-collecting, short-shorts wearing weirdo will reveal their location to the police, the two robbers follow Ichiro home so they can kidnap him before he tells anyone about his find. It’s up to Ichiro, with an assist from his dreamtime friend Minya, to thwart the bad guys’ plans and see that they get what’s coming to them.

Ichiro demonstrates the proper way to administer a purple nurple.

Despite what the title would lead you to believe, there is very little Godzilla and even less revenge to be found in Godzilla’s Revenge. Other than a few new scenes between Godzilla, Minya, and Gabera, the battle scenes featuring the Big G consist solely of stock footage from previous Godzilla films. These reused scenes comprise the majority of the monster action, as Godzilla, who at this point in time had begun to resemble an odd, leathery Cookie Monster, takes on a parade of his b-team baddies, barely finishing off one second-rate kaiju before moving on to the next in breakneck fashion.

♫♫ “C is for cookie…” ♫♫

The main plot involving Ichiro and the bank robbers does little to redeem the reused monster battles, as it plays out like a Japanese precursor to Home Alone, with Ichiro predictably outsmarting the bumbling adult robbers at almost every step–all while wearing shorts so tiny they would make Richard Simmons blush. However, none of these details really matter, as the real star of the film (besides Ichiro’s upsetting shorts, of course) is Godzilla’s son, Minya.

“Of course I’m upset! Just look at these shorts!!!”

Minya, to be very kind, is somewhat less imposing than his daddy, looking vaguely like a de-shelled, snub-nosed, Nollywood version of Gamera. Further differentiating himself from his famous father and his atomic fire-breath and thunderous, mighty roar, Minya instead shoots out pathetic, harmless smoke rings and brays like a jackass stuck in the mud. He may be the son of Godzilla, but it seems the apple has fallen far from that tree…then rolled down a hill, plopped into a river and was carried out to sea, where it grew up and became an annoying, goofy-voiced, squish-faced, vape-spouting homunculus (not unlike the typical Liberal Arts major today).

“Well I major in art history with a minor in women’s studies.
Why do you ask?”

Godzilla’s Revenge is not only a rather poorly-named (In the American release, anyway. The original Japanese title, Godzilla, Minilla, Gabera: All Monsters Attack, is a much clunkier, albeit slightly more fitting title) entry in the Godzilla series, but it is a strong contender for the title of “Worst Godzilla Film Not Directed by Roland Emmerich.” It does have a few amusing scenes, most notably when Godzilla teaches Minya how to fight by basically beating the holy hell out of him–before unleashing his atomic rage on Minya’s bully–but mostly it’s just a disposable little kiddie film wrapped in a ton of Godzilla stock footage and stuffed into tiny, tiny shorts.

Ugh, those shorts. Those nightmarishly tiny shorts…