Dogora
Director: Ishirô
Honda
Year:
1964
Rating: 5.0
This struck me as the silliest Kaiju heist film
that Ishirô Honda has directed. And probably the only one. It feels
very much thrown together in an attempt to capitalize on the success of their
Tokusatsu (special effects) films such as Gorath and Matango. Can it really
be a monster film if the monster is nothing but a space proto-plasma being
with no ability to think or with no personality? There also seems to be scripts
for two different films that are stitched together that are barely interconnected.
Neither script is fully developed. But as with all of the films of Honda
and his special effects man, Eiji Tsuburaya, it looks sparkling, has some
great modeling, terrified crowd scenes and a couple lovely actresses. The
film is easy on the eyes, but it really doesn't hold together all that well.
Something is happening out in space but
no one is really sure exactly what. But TV satellites are going missing and
they are able to identify a protoplasmic cell that is causing it. On earth
odd disturbances are also happening. It is late at night and a young elegant
woman with long black hair smoking a cigarette is sitting in a sports car
looking like she is the cat's pajamas. She is questioned by a security guard
and charms him to leave her alone. Then a man goes floating by, Sideways.
A drunk salaryman. Hamako (Akiko Wakabayashi - You Only Live Twice) is the
getaway driver for a theft going on in the building nearby but they too begin
to float as a blue mass enters the room and burns open the safe. They run
like hell. They are diamond thieves and these two disparate plots continue
to rub up against each other like a cat in need of a good purr.
Inspector Kommei (Yôsuke Natsuki)
is in charge of the investigation of various diamond thefts that occurring
in Japan and all over the world. He is led to the home of Dr. Munakata (Nobuo
Nakamura - equally at home performing in Ozu and Kaiju films) and his pretty
secretary Masayo Kirino (Yôko Fujiyama - Atragon). They have just been
robbed of diamonds by a Gaijin, Mark Jackson - portrayed by Robert Dunham.
Dunham is an interesting guy. He was stationed in Japan as a Marine and after
he got out, he decided to stay and married a Japanese woman and learned fluent
Japanese. He was the American thug in High Noon for Gangsters and the Emperor
in Godzilla vs Megaton. At one point he was being considered for the roles
that went to Nick Adams. Anyways he knocks out Kommei with a karate chop
and gets away (the next time he tries that, Kommei is ready for him with
a judo move and Jackson goes, oh you know judo, Judo beats karate).
Suddenly the protoplasmic creature develops
an appetite for anything carbon and starts scooping up vast amounts of coal,
oil and diamonds. It just sucks these things up into space. And begins to
evolve into a giant jellyfish looking thing with tentacles. They used plastic
in a fish tank to get the effect. Now it is time for the human race to fight
back! With bombs of course. That have no effect. The gang who are as competent
as a swarm of fireflies keep trying to steal diamonds, Jackson is always
around, so is Kommei and they all keep running into each other like bumper
cars. There is a big shootout of hundreds of bullets in which no one is hit.
Neither story really grabbed my imagination - not one of Honda's classics.
