“You know the authorities, they’re notorious for delaying. They do nothing.”
A typhoon sweeps across Japan. In its wake reporter Ichiro Sakai (Akira Takarada) and his photographer Junko Nakanishi (Yuriko Hoshi) are investigating the wreckage at Kurada Beach. Junko finds a strange bluish object. Not knowing what it is, the object is turned over to Professor Miura (Hiroshi Koizumi) for research. Later Miura discovers that the object is radioactive.
Also found, by some local fishermen, floating in the bay is a giant egg. An unscrupulous agent, Kumayama (Yoshifumi Tajima), working for an equally unscrupulous entrepreneur, Jiro Torahata (Kenji Sahara), buys the egg from the fishermen. Torahata’s plans are to create a giant incubator around the egg. Torahata is the owner of Happy Enterprises, a company that plans on exploiting the egg as a tourist attraction. The egg turns out to be from Mothra. The two Shobijin (Emi and Yumi Ito, AKA “The Peanuts”) are brought to Japan by the adult Mothra to ask for the egg back. Instead of giving back the egg, Torahata tries to capture the girls.
The Shobijin get away from Torahata and meet Sakai, Nakanishi and Professor Miura. They explain that should the egg hatch, the larva will inadvertently cause damage to Japan while looking for food. The girls ask them for help. The three of them agree to help but get nowhere with Torahata. Torahata refuses and tries to buy the Shobijin for his exhibition.
After the Shobijin go back to their island, Godzilla shows up and begins trashing Japan. Apparently he too had been washed up on shore and was buried in the mud. Sakai, Junko, and Miura travel to Infant Island to request the Shobijin to send Mothra to defeat Godzilla. The natives of the island and the Shobijin have no reason to help Japan since Japan did not help them.
“Mothra vs Godzilla” was released in 1964 by TOHO and was directed by Ishiro Honda. It is the fourth film in the first Godzilla series and the second film with Mothra. The dubbed version was released in America as “Godzilla vs The Thing”. The special effects are again done by Eiji Tsuburaya. It is the first movie where two of TOHO’s legendary monsters are pitted against each other.
Problems developed with the Godzilla suit. An accident during the filming of the scene where Godzilla smashes into the Nagoya Castle caused the teeth and jaw to loosen. It caused a bit of a wobble that Tsuburaya kinda liked so he left it that way for the film. It appears the guy in the suit, Haruo Nakajima, fell and basically head butted the castle. In another scene Godzilla’s head actually catches on fire. The head of the suit had to be replaced completely before the filming of “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster”.
The scene where the Frontier Missile Cruisers were attacking Godzilla was left in American version of the film, “Godzilla vs. The Thing”. In the Japanese version of the movie the scene was actually deleted. It was seen briefly in the original Japanese trailer. The reason for its deletion was that Japanese viewers, who were still sensitive after World War II, were supposedly offended by seeing American missiles hit Japanese ground.
There are very few real changes between the Japanese and the American versions of the movie. None of which change the plot at all. The movie itself is has some decent special effects and of course those great Tsuburaya miniatures.
Japanese subtitled Fan edit