Editor’s Note: Freeline Media critic Mike Fried is a big fan of Japanese director Ishiro Honda’s classic monster movie Godzilla. But Mike has thoughts about many of Honda’s other, non-Godzilla movies. Read on!
By MIKE FRIED
ISHIRŌ HONDA WITHOUT GODZILLA
Ishirō Honda, to me, is one of the greatest unsung heroes of cinema. He was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 46 feature films in a career spanning five decades and was the most successful Japanese filmmaker internationally before Miyazaki, no small feat. He is – also an endearment to me – the father of the modern disaster film, my personal favorite genre of film. Sure, he also created the greatest, most successful and longest running franchise in movie history – Godzilla – but he had three profound collaborations beginning in 1954 that would shape his legacy. First was with the film studio Toho who gave him exposure but treated him kind of shabbily in the 1970s by cancelling his contract and making him work film to film. The second was with composer Akira Ifukube, who created the iconic Godzilla themes and worked with Honda on over 20 films. The third was with special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya who created the miniatures and other effects that made Honda’s visions come to life.
Honda worked steadily since 1934 until he retired in 1975; however, his good friend Akira Kurosawa – you may have heard of him – coached his friend out of retirement to help him direct his final five films, including Kagemusha and Ran.
It is clear that Honda was such a force that had he been an American director, he could have written his own ticket.
Aside from the Godzilla movies, Honda made his mark with Toho in a bunch of science fiction films from 1957 to 1970 that made him a highly successful and utilized director. I previously discussed The H-Man, The Secret of the Telagian and The Human Vapor (Mike at the Movies: March 30, 2026).
But here is a discussion of the other films that are , for the most part, terrifically fun.
THE MYSTERIANS
4/5
You’re gonna cry ninety-six tears
You’re gonna cry ninety-six tears
You’re gonna cry, cry, cry, cry, now
You’re gonna cry, cry, cry, cry
IYKYK
The first movie to employ TohoScope is a wild and wooly affair. During a ceremony in a remote village, a forest fire erupts. Dr. Shiraishi, an astrophysicist, is there with his friend, Dr. Atsumi and his fiancée and his sister. Shiraishi disappears. His mentor tells Atsumi that the missing doctor discovered a planet between Mars and Jupiter called “Mysteroid”. The village where the festival was taking place is wiped out by a massive earthquake and then a giant robot appears. Then the Mysterians appear. A giant dome emerges and the Mysterians demand a two mile swath of land to call their own along with the right to marry Earth women. Big fighting ensues.
This is the movie that would solidify Toho and Ishiro Honda’s reputation in the special effects arena. The full use of miniatures really stands out especially in the 2.35:1 widescreen format. Landslides, earth movements and sci-fi battles are all done wondrously, thanks to Honda and special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya.
And while the story is laughable – give us your women – it does have broader implications in respect of trying to achieve a universal peace as the enemy is not America or some other country but aliens from another planet. It is a terrific attempt to capitalize on the success of films like The War of the Workds and The Day The Earth Stood Still. In addition, the imperviousness of the Mysterian’s dome had to inspire George Lucas when coming up with his Death Star.
The third act of this movie with the climactic battle never fails to impress. it remains one of the best sci-fi battle scenes that I’ve seen with extraordinarily well produced special effects. The battle is relentless and seems doomed for failure. Until….
Kenji Sahara and Akihiko Harata lead a great cast which also includes revered Japanese actor Takashi Shimura who played Dr. Yamane in Gojira. His presence adds a layer of credibility to the film as he and Toshiro Mifune were the two biggest stars of 1950s Japanese cinema.
It’s a terrific 1950s sci-fi movie with all of the positive connotations that phrase bestows.
WATCH IT
VARAN
3/5
Something is lacking but I can’t put my finger on what. This is usually referred to in my household as “Varan the Unwatchable”. If I wasn’t a Toho/Honda kaiju and sci-fi completist, I’d skip over it.
I think the fact that this started out as a three part TV film but never emerged as such because the broadcaster went bust and it was then converted mid-shoot to a feature film harmed its aesthetic. Things that were made for the small screen were just used for the big screen without any thought on Toho’s part as to what the effect would be. In addition, many shots appear out of focus due to the fact that the original tv version was filmed at 1:33 but then had to be blown up to 2:35. Plus the excess usage of stock footage from Godzilla and other films was disconcerting.
And there’s very little city destruction- I want my Kaiju messing up Tokyo
Also it’s not until nearly 60% of the movie is over that some of the Honda Regulars show up to give the film kaiju credibility. And from there, the film is saved – although it is far from the quality of the rest of the Toho movies.
Ishirô Honda did not look back fondly on this film, stating “This is not a work I am happy with. If we could have restarted from the beginning, scenes such as those with the Self-Defense Forces might have been more grand. Everything was pretty much shot on [a small] set, with maybe a tiny bit of location filming. . . The entire film would have turned out a little better.”
Still fun – would have worked so much better in color
Last year, my gut told me to rate this 2.5/5 but my heart told me 3/5 – I feel the same way because they saved the best parts for the latter part of the film.
It’s a film for Kaiju Completists only. Even then I would never buy it but only watch it as long as the criterion channel has it.
BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE
3.5/5
I like my sci-fi silly. There’s a terrific scene in which the astronauts take off their seatbelts after launch and one guy is thoroughly surprised to be weightless. They pull him down, explaining there is no gravity but then they walk normally after that. That gets me every time.
And there’s also the matter of the Oscar Meyer Lunar Rover. I kid you not.
It’s a laughable but oddly compelling sci-fi film about aliens attacking earth, made all the more compelling because it was made in 1958 and released in 1959. As off the wall as the plot is, the actors play it straight, not tongue-in-cheek as they may have been tempted to. It’s the only movie besides Armageddon in which there was a dual rocket ship takeoff and this was 40 years before that.
And it really doesn’t matter that the lunar rovers look like the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya are really first rate, especially the lunar landscapes and the alien mothership located on it. Akira Ikufube’s rousing score (which does utilize the terrific Japanese Military March music from Gojira) makes the movie even more exciting. Even the slow motion running to simulate the moon’s 1/6th gravity works well.
And a movie called “Battle in Outer Space” would be nothing without a rousing battle in outer space along with the destruction of New York City and the Golden Gate Bridge as well as Tokyo.
The dialogue is laughable (“space torpedos” comes to mind) but this is a fun film
WATCH IT (preferably the Japanese version)
GORATH
4/5
A large traveling star is going through the solar system and is destroying everything in its path. Unfortunately, what is in its path is Earth. Japan sent a spaceship up that sent data back to earth but which was destroyed by Gorath, the mysterious star. A second crew plans to do their job and duty as well. Their plan is to move Earth 400,000 kilometers.
This is a highly overlooked film that stands on the shoulders of George Pal’s When Worlds Collide. And the Wandering Earth saga stands on the shoulders of the two films that precede it.
There are some goofy moments (the pilots sing a song on the way to the defense minister – and then again a second time!) but even the made up and implausible science is taken seriously and logically so that the movie becomes cohesive. If Gorath comes too close everything and everyone will get sucked into space because of its gravitational pull.
Kenji Sahara and Akira Kubo lead a terrific cast and Kumi Mizuno takes one of the greatest bubble baths ever featured in an Ishiro Honda picture. And, once again, Honda stalwart Akihiko Harata is on hand to provide gravitas. Takashi Shimura is in the film as a paleontologist that has to deal with a large reptile at the South Pole.
Ishiro Honda’s direction is playful yet serious and Eiji Tsuburaya’s special effects, especially the miniature work involved in constructing the engines at the South Pole needed to move the Earth are impressive as always. The cave-in scene is beyond amazing. And the disaster scenes are chilling. The production design is equally impressive with the full size spaceship replicas looking very 60s. And the TohoScope cinematography pulls it all together with Kan Ishii’s wonderful score.
The only downside to this film, at least in Honda’s opinion was Toho’s insistence that there be a giant reptilian creature that could possibly gum up the works. Had it not been for this plot device, this would have been Honda’s favorite film because of the spirit of worldwide cooperation and collaboration.
ATRAGON
4/5
A man apparently made of steam comes out of the water during a nighttime photo shoot. A retired admiral is almost kidnapped along with his daughter. It appears that the lost underwater civilization of Mu (hey I didn’t Mae this up!) is behind these incidents in their attempt at worldwide domination. It is up to a Captain, thought dead in WWII, to bring his latest invention, an Atragon submarine named Gotengo to defeat the Mu empire.
The premise behind this film is totally batshit crazy but given Toho’s penchant for batshit crazy Kaiju movies this is no more absurd. Ishiro Hinds has a way of creating these new worlds for us to explore and him and Tomoyuki Tanaka seem to be having lots of fun doing it.
This movie features the fullest complement of Toho/Honda actors that I can recall and it works so well, if only from a nostalgia perspective. A strangely odd Kenji Sahara as reporter that looks like a beatnik is especially funny. Tadao Takashima, Yu Fujiki, Ken Uehara, Hiroshi Koizumi, Jun Tazaki, Yoshifumi Tajima, Husaya Ito and especially Akihiko Harata just look like they are having the time of their lives making this unintentionally funny movie and it shows and it adds to the enjoyment.
Tazaki especially as Captain Jingui, the man who was beloved to be dead, who has marshaled his troops to Make Japan Great Again and who has no interest in helping save the world.
Once again Eiji Tsubaraya’s miniatures help propel the story and Akira Ifukube’s score is his most evocative since the original Godzilla.
But the real meat is when director Ishiro Honda directs scenes with hundreds of extras like it is nothing. The sureness of his hand is quite evident in this one. The destruction of Tokyo as helmed by Honda and Tsuburaya is magnificent.
And where would the movie be without a monster. Kaiju Manda is introduced in this film.
This is a long overlooked Toho masterpiece.
MATANGO
4/5
Ishiro Honda’s most dire film this tells the story of castaways stranded on a deserted isle who are attacked by mushroom people.
Starting off with a jaunty opening theme by Sadao Bekku, a theme that belies the horrors to come, this zombie-like film just as good as Honda’s other films but, unlike the rest of them, this goes from a position of lighthearted fun to absolute dread and can be likened to the films of 70s horror auteurs like Romero, Craven and Carpenter. Steven Soderbergh always wanted to remake this film as it frightened him as a child.
The film remains enjoyable, featuring familiar faces from Honda’s prior films, Kurosawa players & an overwhelming sense of paranoia and psychological terror.
Akira Kubo, Kumi Mizuno, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kenji Sahara and Yoshio Tsuchiya are all terrific as the stranded vacationers. As the action progresses, the five begin to turn on each other.
The special effects of the shipwreck are outstanding, cutting between miniatures and a life size sailboat on a water tank set to simulate the disaster.
It’s not quite a Kaiju film, although it is to a small degree. Like I said, it has more in common with the zombie genre than anything else.
But it’s the ominous tone that sets it apart from all of Honda’s other films. There’s a sense from the moment that the sailboat crashes and personalities clash, that nothing good is going to come of the situation. It doesn’t help that one of the crew sees a ghost ship, a calamitous portent for the rest of the passengers.
Honda delivers not only a monster film but an ingenious psychological horror film as well. It’s a creepy film and very atmospheric owing to well-designed island sets and a tilted shipwreck design that keeps the characters and the viewers off kilter, because many of the shots are Dutch angles without trying.
The film was nearly banned in Japan because the mushroom people makeup was very reminiscent of how many Japanese people looked after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And the final scene hits like a ton of bricks.
It is a wrongly overlooked film because it really is a horror masterpiece.
DOGORA
3.5/5
Space Satellites mysteriously disappear, which a scientist is investigating. A police officer is tracking diamond thefts around the globe. During one of the heists, the criminals find themselves elevated in the air so they run. But the diamonds are stolen anyway. An intrepid police inspector tracks down a shady diamond broker who is more than he appears to be. These incidents are related as it turns out there’s a giant space alien that sucks down carbon in any form including diamonds and it is hovering over Japan due to the high level of radiation. It starts attacking bridges, ships and factories – what can be done to save Japan?
This is a very entertaining movie; however it is quite different from the other Ishiro Honda films. While the main character of Inspector Kommei is played by a Japanese actor named Yosuke Natsuki, the film is stolen by Robert Dunham, an American actor playing the diamond broker Mark Jackson, speaking perfect Japanese. He was so good that Toho considered a series of Mark Jackson films starring Dunham, but, alas, this did not come to fruition.
The interplay between Inspector Kommei and Mark Jackson is worth its weight in gold as they generate some very well earned laughs as well as camaraderie. And it’s a silly premise.
But Honda handles it with a wink and a nod to Shin’ Ichi Sekizawa’s goofy script. I mean, Mark Jackson is an Inspector for the World Diamond Insurance Association?? A diamond G-man? Hysterical.
My problem with the film is that the special effects are just not up to the usual Tsuburaya standard. The compositing looks weak and the humans superimposed against miniatures stand out more than usual. Dogora, the monster, seems not to have been well thought out and while using the latest pliable vinyl looks more like a giant octopus than a spade monster- although I haven’t met any space monsters so I don’t know what they really look like.
In addition, the story seems to hint at some global catastrophe and I thought that the filmmakers would follow up Gorath and Battle in Outer Space with a third film showing international cooperation but, nope, the action stays mostly in Japan.
And it comes to kind of a meh ending, finishing up with a whimper rather than a bang.
Still, a fun diversion
FRANKENSTEIN V. BARAGON/FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD
3.5/5
I didn’t really care for this initially but it continues to grow on me, especially after getting the Japanese version. Despite being a goofy movie, its underlying premise – that the heart of the Frankenstein monster has been kept alive and further powered by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 – is a hoot.
There are definitely scenes that aim for lowbrow comedy; however, the overall tone of the movie is pleasantly entertaining. Nick Adams in his second and last Toho film, looks like he’s having a great time as the scientist who tries to care for Frankenstein. And Ishiro Honda has stocked the film with many of his regular actors, so the film feels like an old friend, especially if you’re into his films that he made while with Toho Studios – including legendary actor Takashi Shimura, in his final Kaiju film appearance, as a WW2 Axis Scientist whose evil plans are thwarted by the dropping of the A-Bomb ( a scene that is actually one of the very best of Honda’s career, a scene of intensity that has inspired many other filmmakers).
Plus, the care with which Eiji Tsuburaya’s team put together the miniature sets based on real street sets is absolutely stunning. And the difference in size is accentuated as Frankenstein gets bigger and bigger. Really top notch effort.
Definitely a fun film to watch. And TohoScope makes it even better.
THE WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS
3.5/5
This seems like it wants to be a sequel to Frankenstein v Baragon and it is in some ways but in most ways it is not. It is more a story that is inspired by the first film, a quasi-sequel if you will. A fishing boat is attacked by a giant octopus who is then attacked by a giant green humanoid that kills the octopus but then sinks a ship. But people doubt it is Frankenstein – until that is, until Frankenstein shows up at Haneda airport and destroys it. And this motherfucker eats a woman!!! And then a Brown Frankenstein arrives in the scene. An American scientist, Paul Stewart, and his Japanese counterpart Akemi Togawa who looks identical to her predecessor Sueko Togami believe that the Brown Frankenstein is the one that they raised from a little creature. They theorize that their Frankenstein’s cells came off in the ocean merging with plankton and creating the green Frankenstein. The Brown one is called Sanda and the Green one is called Gaira.
You still with me?
This is some goofy shit. And the movie does have some humor. As Gaira is attacking Tokyo, amid a traffic jam a man is told he needs to abandon his car. “I just got this car a month ago,” he protests.
And not only that it has Carol Burnett’s sister singing “The Words Get Stuck in My Throat” right before she gets almost gets eaten by Gaira. If this song sounds familiar, it’s because Devo covered it.
This is the movie famous for having a very unwilling Russ Tamblyn in it, not listening to direction and sort of winging it. As much as you could tell that Nick Adams enjoyed making the movies that he did, Russ Tamblyn was the polar opposite.
Besides Tamblyn, Ishiro Honda directs his usual players, Kenji Sahara, Kumi Mizuno, Jun Tazaki, and Yoshibuma Tajima.
As goofy as this film is, being released as an American version in the United States in 1970 this film has had an enormous influence on actors and filmmakers including Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Nicolas Cage, Guillermo Del Toro, Tom Cruise and Tim Burton all of whom were kids when it was released. During the 2012 Academy Awards Brad Pittsburgh said that this was the first film he ever saw in his life.
The climactic battle between the two Gargantuas is a marvel of Ishiro Honda’s direction and Eiji Tsubaraya’s miniature work. Also, the first appearance of many of the fictional MASER Cannon, a pure Toho creation.
Really the best part of the movie and well worth the wait
LATITUDE ZERO
3.5/5
I absolutely fucking adore this movie. This is a total ripoff of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea coupled with the sci-fi sensibility of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (as well as some Dr. Moreau action) adding in the notion of an underwater civilization.
While the script is goofy as hell (“bath of immunity”???), and the story is far-fetched, this movie has a couple of great things going for it. First of all, the sets, miniatures, and special effects are absolutely first rate, as one of the last movies done by Eiji Tsuburaya.
Second of all, the movie in its original form is an English language film, and you get to hear some of your favorite Ishiro Honda/ kaiju actors (Akira Takarada, Akihiko Hirata and Tetsu Nakamura) speaking in English without being dubbed. Finally, it includes a pretty good performance by Richard Jaeckel as a disbelieving reporter who was on the underwater mission, and two delightfully but very hammy performances by Joseph Cotton, as good guy Dr. Mackenzie and a post-Batman Cesar Romero, as villain Dr. Malic. And that’s Joseph Cotten’s wife, Patricia Medina as Malic’s main squeeze, Lucretia (of course!). By all accounts, Cotten and Romero had a blast doing this film – and it shows.
And Mackenzie and Malic are over 200 years old! Did I forget to mention that? And that Mackenzie’s utopian civilization is in a dome below the oceans and thy gold can be extracted from sea water? I didn’t mention that either, did I? Damn! Did I mention that there are giant bat humanoid creatures? Or a giant lion with wings and a human brain or a Rodan-like bird like creature? I can’t believe I keep forgetting this stuff.
I remember watching this widescreen movie on a 10” black and white tv when I was a kid and even though it’s a movie for kids, the fact that I can watch this in 2.35:1 and in color just harkens me back to my youth.
Ingenious ending and great use of Hansel’s Sarabande (the theme from Barry Lyndon).
Despite all of the production problems that this movie had, what is not to like? It is an absolutely insane Tokusatsu film that will have you eye rolling and laughing at the same time.
SPACE AMOEBA
3/5
I don’t know where to begin so I won’t. First, it’s Gezora, a giant walking Octopus with Hedorah’s eyes and a huge foreskinned head. Then it’s a huge crab that looks like Ebirah.
But this is an example of a “so bad it’s good” kaiju film that despite its lack of coherent story, still manages to entertain – especially as it tries and eke out King Kong v Godzilla vibes either way natives on Selgia Island.
I don’t know if I prefer Kenji Sahara as a good guy or a bad guy- one of life’s greatest mysteries.
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
