Mothra

Mothra (Mosura) (1961)

Runtime: 91 minutes (that's the American cut I saw)

Directed by: Ishiro Honda

Starring: Furanki Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyoko Kagawa, Yumi &Emi Ito

From: Toho/Columbia

(Note: The version of the film I saw was the one released in North America by Columbia, meaning the dubbed version that's about 10 minutes shorter. It was the only copy I could find online so that's what I went with.)

I was not originally going to watch this film, the introduction of the wildly popular kaiju known as Mothra, but then I remember that someone I know rates this film highly so I figured I should watch this wackiness first then check out Godzilla vs. Mothra. I knew this was going to be wacky going in and that certainly was true.

The plot: a group of men (including a real bastard from a fictitious country that only coincidentally looks like the United States... yeah I am sure it was just happenstance) end up investigating an island that recently had atomic weapons tested on it. Turns out, more Japanese people in blackface (um, I mean “natives”) lived on that piece of land deemed uninhabited. Whoops. Odd things are on the island, such as a pair of fairy twins, which are twin adult Japanese women who happen to be only a foot tall. They are taken and the villain uses them as a novelty singing act. The natives summon the title creature, which is a giant larvae that hatches from an egg, swims to Japan, and after rampaging through the countryside, becomes a giant colorful moth. Telepathy is involved and the fairies are unable to tell her (Mothra is a female) to not wreck the hell out of Tokyo, so there's room for debate on just how much of a villain the title creature really is; to me it's rather clear it's the A-hole who sort of looks like Chris Kattan that is the sh*theel of the picture.


The story is well-done and so are the quality miniature effects... and there's goofiness to go along with it. It wasn't as strange as I first thought when I heard that Columbia put this on a double bill with The Three Stooges in Orbit, of all things. There's some slapstick, the heroes include a chubby newspaper reporter, you get an Austin Powers-like bit of maniacal laughter from the bad guys and yeah, all the damage that can happen simply from a giant creature flapping its wings. It's all fun though so I did enjoy this vivid tale with good moments and a great score.