Kaiju Fever: The Monster X Strikes Back/Attack the G8 Summit (2008)

After 41 years the Kaiju Guilala finally returns in a wacky comedy directed by Minoru Kawasaki. The film is kind of a political satire and is basically involves the world leaders of the G8 summit trying to use their own different tactics to take down Guilala.
It also features a second Kaiju 'Take-Maji'n which is based upon and portrayed by the great Takeshi Kitano which is pretty cool. The film is pretty fun overall, it's a little clunky, has some bad acting (that USA president) and uses quite a bit of Stock footage from 'The X from Outer Space', but has enough there to keep it enoyable and rather funny.**1/2

Kaiju Fever: The X from Outer Space (1967)

Featuring a dodgy monster who sounds drunk and look likes an Ultraman villain reject, the X from outer space is some straight up cheap goofy Kaiju fun.
The plot is pretty simple and involves astronauts on a mission to mars to investigate UFO's and unintentionally brings back a spore attach the the ship that grows into the monster Guilala who goes on a rampage.
While Guilala isn't the best looking of monsters, pretty much the entire second half of this movie is dedicated to monster action, featuring Guilala destroying shit and Japanese forces trying to take him down. It  may not be of the same standard as other Kaiju films, but it's still a pretty fun watch.**1/2

Kaiju Fever: The Demon Of Mount Oe (1960)

Now here's a little Japanese horror gem featuring sword fighting, demons, magicians and a big ass spider. With a 10th century settng this is really entertaining film with an interesting plot, fun special effects and somewhat enjoyable action scenes (choreography is a little choppy) .
The film has alot to do with deceitfulness of myths and legends especially with it's great fantastical opening that sets us up for what we may expect to come only to end in a rather surprising way.(well it's not what I expected anyhow) and it's one of the ways the movie manages to standout.
 So overall I thought this was a really good movie, that's a fun watch and definitely worth checking out.
 ****

Kaiju fever: Daimajin (1966)

Now here's a real Kaiju film and a really solid one at that. Part of a trilogy, Daimajin sets itself apart from other kaiju films by having a Jidaigeki setting, the plot concerns a evil warlord who has overtaken a small town and treats it's inhabitants like shit, leading to the giant Daimajin statue reeking vengeance on him and his henchman.
This Daimajin itself I think looks great and has a very threatening presence. One of the great things about this movie is its dark tone, by the late 60's most kaiju movies had become goofy and fun, but this one tries to be more serious and menacing like the first Gojira film and for the most part succeeds.
the film also looks great and features a score by Akira Ikufube that is a little to similar to his Gojira score, but still works really well.
Overall I think this is a really good Kaiju film, I will warn that it is very story driven (Daimajin only turns up in the last 15 minutes or so) but it's still really enjoyable and worth checking out.
***1/2

Kaiju Fever: Atragon (1963)

Here's a Sci-fi Tokusatsu film directed by the great Ishiro Honda and starring a bunch of Godzilla regulars. It's not much of Kaiju film itself, but it does feature the giant Dragon-like sea serpent Manda (who would go on to appear in the Godzilla film series) albeit rather scarcely. The films focus instead is on the flying super submarine Gotengo and is very story driven and light on the action.
The plot concerns the lost underwater Mu empire who resurface and threaten to overtake the world, with the only hope of stopping them being the super submarine Gotengo. It deals with themes of Nationalism and Patriotism, I particularly liked the Captain Jinguji character who at first refuses the use Gotengo to help the world purely because it was built to restore the Japanese Empire.
Overall I really enjoyed this and thought it was a solid movie, it may not have that much action but the story was still really well executed.
***1/2

Kaiju Fever: Die Nibelungen Siegfried (1924)

Fritz Lang's silent fantasy epic, which again isn't much of a Kaiju film but it does feature a 60ft dragon puppet (pictured above) in it's first 30 minutes which is super cool and one of the films best highlights. The film itself though is still rather great, visually beautiful with top notch production design. It's a 140 minute epic based on the epic poem 'Nibelungenlied' and is followed by a second part 'Kriemhilds Rache'. It ts quite an astonishing film that really shows the masterful talent of Fritz Lang. A very engaging silent fantasy, that is definitely worth checking it out.
****

Kaiju Fever: L'Inferno (1911)

I've been in a giant monster mood lately, so I've decided to for now focus on watching a bunch of movies that feature Kaiju in them. My main focus will be on Japanese films but I will also be look at other movies featuring Kaiju by going through the list featured on the Kaijumatic website.
So I'm gonna start this with the first film on that list, the 1911 Italian silent film L'inferno. The first full length Italian feature film that is loosely adapted from Dante's Divine Comedy. Now of course this isn't exactly a giant monster movie but it does feature a few big hell demons like the one in the above image which is pretty cool. The film itself is quite a fascinating watch, every shot takes us to a different set as Dante makes his way through hell, with some really interesting special effects used throughout. The version I watched had no accompanying music and didn't know Tangerine Dream wrote a score for it till afterwards, so I first started playing the Dante's Inferno video game soundtrack with it, which of course didn't work at all, then I quickly changed it to a version of 'The Dante Symphony' which suited it better.
So while not worthwhile for it's giant monsters, this 105 year old film is still definitely worth checking out for the fascinating way it uses filmmaking techniques of it's time to portray Dante's Inferno.
***1/2