Frankenstein Conquers The World Analysis

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Ishiro Honda, 1964)

1964 was the year that Toho decided to shift the kaiju genre 's focus from adults to children, stripping the films from much of their depth and largely turning them into wrestling matches among actors with monster suits. This particularly film though, remains one of the best entries in the category, particularly due to its cast that featured Takashi Shimura, who played in Akira Kurosawa 's "Ikiru" and Eiji Okada, from Hiroshi Teshigahara 's "Woman in the Dunes".

This time the plot involves Princess Selina, who is saved from an assassination attempt by police detective Shindo. The Princess also prophecies disasters to come, which after a while become true, as a meteorite that had previously crashed on Earth, is revealed to be an egg that hatches into King Ghidorah. The

As for the effects, the miniature work is quite good, in contrast to the costumes, which, at times, fail utterly.

The War of the Gargantuas (Ishiro Honda, 1966)

The sequel to the "Frankenstein Conquers the World" was another collaboration between Toho and UPS and featured another Hollywood actor, Russ Tumblyn, alongside Kenji Shahara and Kumi Mizuno, who plays a similar role with the first film.

This time Sanda faces his identical twin, who was generated from the hand that was severed from Sanda in the previous film. Gaira is initially saved by him, but when he learns that his diet mainly consists of human, he turns against him.

The film incorporated some new additions to the kaiju genre, like the scene where Sanda tries to reason with Gaira and the fact that the two opposing monsters are so similar. New additions were also made by Tsuburaya, who placed holes in the eye sockets of the suits, causing the actor 's eyes to be visible and thus making the monsters more