“We have a tiger at the front door and a wolf at the back.”
A new planet has been discovered in our Solar System. The new planet is called Planet X. Astronauts Glenn Amer (Nick Adams) and Kazuo Fuji (Akira Takarada) are sent to investigate. The planet is beyond Jupiter. Once they arrive they are taken underground to an alien called the Controller. The Controller tells them that they are under attack from Ghidorah. The aliens want to borrow Godzilla and Rodan so that they can battle Ghidorah and, hopefully, defeat him. In return they offer to give Earth a formula for a miracle cure.
In the meantime, Fuji's sister Haruno (Keiko Sawai) is dating inventor Tetsuo Tori (Akira Kubo). Her bother objects to the relationship. Tori's latest invention is a high frequency transmitter for repelling muggers. Despite selling his invention Fuji is still not impressed with the young man. The agent who acted on behave of the company was Miss Namikawa (Kumi Mizuno).
Glenn, on the other hand has fallen in love with a woman he believes is the very same Miss Namikawa only to find out that she is really a Xilien and is a spy for Planet X.
The aliens pick up Godzilla and Rodan in what looks like giant bubbles and bring them back to Planet X. Earth gets what they believe is a tape containing the formula for the miracle cure. The tape turns out to be a demand that Earth surrender to the aliens or they will order Godzilla, Rodan and Ghidorah to destroy everything on Earth. It seems that they can control the monsters through some kind of radio transmitter and they had been in control of Ghidorah all the time.
While the aliens are deploying their monsters of mass destruction they have also imprisoned Tori. Glenn confronts Namikawa about the aliens betrayal. She is in love with Glenn and tries to help him. When the aliens find out she is destroyed and Glenn is thrown in a sound proof Jail cell with Tori. The questions remaining are why did the Xiliens want Tori’s invention and what can the Earth do about the three monsters stomping all over the planet?
“Invasion of the Astro-Monster”, “Monster Zero” in the US, was released in 1965 and was directed by Ishiro Honda. It is the sixth Godzilla film in the franchise. The US version was released in 1970. The movie is a joint venture between TOHO and an American production company. The Japanese and American versions are basically the same. Only a few incidental changes were made. The film was re-titled “Godzilla vs Monster Zero” for television and home video.
Nick Adams spoke English throughout the Film while the Japanese actors all spoke Japanese. The Japanese version of the film then dubbed Nick’s voice with a Japanese actor while in the American release Nick’s voice was the only one that was not dubbed into English.
This was Nick Adams’ second and last role in a TOHO film. Born Nicholas Aloysius Adamshock, Nick died in 1968 of a drug overdose. He was 36.
English dubbed
Japanese subtitled