Frankenstein - duel of the giants

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Movie
German title Frankenstein - duel of the giants
Original title フ ラ ン ケ ン シ ュ タ イ ン の 怪 獣 サ ン ダ 対 ガ イ ラ
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1966
length 76 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Ishiro Honda
script Ishiro Honda , Takeshi Kimura
production Reuben Bercovitch
music Akira Ifukube
camera Reuben Bercovitch
cut Reuben Bercovitch
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
Frankenstein - The horror with the monkey face

Frankenstein - duel of the giants (OT: Japanese フ ラ ン ケ ン シ ュ タ イ ン の 怪 獣 サ ン ダ 対 ガ イ ラ , Furankenshutain no Kaiju Sanda tai Gaira ) is the title of a monster film by the Japanese director Ishiro Honda . The film is the sequel to Honda's 1965 film Frankenstein - The Terror with the Monkey Face , in which a boy mutates into a huge monster through radioactivity.

action

A fishing boat is attacked by a green, human-like monster off the Japanese coast. The sole survivor reports that his boat was attacked by Frankenstein. This has been considered dead for two years. Kitei, who once raised him, reports that Frankenstein broke out of the laboratory and died in the mountains. Furthermore, Dr. Kitei and his assistant Akemi that their creature has always been peaceful and cannot live in water.

After the creature appears on the coast and panics two fishermen, the remains of monster skin are found on their boat. When the green monster appears at an airport, it turns out that it is sensitive to light. The military can repel another attack by the monster with laser guns; but suddenly a brown monster appears to help the injured green. It turns out that the brown one is Frankenstein and lives in the mountains.

After finding remnants of the green skin in a mountain lake, Dr. Kitei that the brown one injured himself after his escape from the laboratory in the lake and left behind cell tissue from which the green developed. Dr. Kitei warns the military against shooting at the monsters, as many new monsters could emerge from the remains of the skin of the wounds.

The green and the brown appear in Tokyo in quick succession . Dr. Kitei and Akemi set out to help the brown one. During the search, Akemi is injured by the Greens. A little later the brown appears and wants to stop the green from his destructiveness. During their struggle, the two leave a trail of destruction in downtown Tokyo. Although Dr. Kitei advocates waiting until the good-natured brown man neutralizes the Greens, the military uses tanks and, against the Greens, laser beams. As the two monsters flee into the water, still fighting each other, a volcano erupts. Dr. Kitei and Akemi are shocked to learn that the volcano has buried them both.

backgrounds

The American distributor American International Pictures made it important that in Frankenstein - duel of the giants nothing more reminded of its predecessor. The Japanese Toho studios managed to get around this wish. At the beginning of the film there are unused shots with an octopus that were originally intended for Frankenstein - The Terror with the Monkey Face . Also Kumi Mizuno play with again. After Nick Adams played the part of the American scientist in the predecessor , this role was taken over by Russ Tamblyn . It is similar with the Japanese scientist in the team ( Tadao Takashima in the previous film, Kenji Sahara in the sequel).

As usual with the Japanese Kaiju Eiga , the monsters in this film are set in motion using the suitmation process. So the brown (which is called Sanda in the Japanese original ) and the green (which is called Gaila in the Japanese original ) are in truth actors in corresponding monster costumes.

Frankenstein - duel of the giants and his predecessor ushered in the trend that the German title of Japanese horror films featured a "Frankenstein", although the film in question had nothing at all to do with the character of the scientist Viktor Frankenstein from Mary Shelley 's novel of the same name . “Frankenstein” was falsely synonymous with the monster and not the scientist through these films.

Premieres

The film premiered on July 31, 1966 in Japan. It premiered in the Federal Republic of Germany on March 25, 1968. In the USA, it was first seen in the cinema on July 29, 1970.

Trivia

Reviews

The lexicon of international films drew the following conclusion: Technically complex monster film in a very simple design in terms of conception and staging. The Protestant film observer came to a similar assessment : The "human" actors play very primitive, the director used all his knowledge on the film tricks. Quite harmless horror fun.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Premieres according to IMDb
  2. ^ Lexicon of international film, CD-ROM edition, Systhema, Munich 1997
  3. ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Critique No. 273/1968

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