Ghidrah, The Three-Headed Monster

Astronomers investigate a mysterious glowing meteorite that has crashed to Earth. Detective Shindo (Yosuke Natsuki) is assigned to bodyguard Princess Salno of Sergina (Akiko Wakabayashi), who is secretly visiting Japan to flee an assassination attempt in her Himalayan country. But, as the plane taking her to Tokyo is over the ocean, a voice in her head tells her to step out of the plane; moments later, it explodes. Although she is presumed dead, Shindo later recognizes her photo in the newspaper. Claiming to be from Mars, she is warning people in the street that the Earth is in great danger. At the volcano where the flying monster Rodan was killed years earlier, she predicts that Rodan will arise from his tomb, a prediction that soon proves correct.

Shindo's sister Naoko (Yuriko Hoshi) books guests for a popular television variety show. Her latest coup was booking the tiny twin princesses (Emi and Yumi Ito) from the island home of Mothra. Not knowing her true identity, Naoko finds Princess Salno and brings her to a hotel room, hoping to get her on the show. She tells this to Shindo, who has been looking for the Princess since seeing her picture in the newspaper. So have a trio of assassins, who are about to kill the memory-stricken girl when Shindo fights them off. Shindo and Naoko are surprised to see that the tiny princesses are also in the hotel room, having taken Princess Salno's public warning not to board the ocean liner that was to take them home; it is attacked by Godzilla. Meanwhile, the meteorite bursts open and produces Ghidrah, who embarks on a rampage of destruction, destroying everything in its path with lightning-like gravity beams from its three mouths.

Under the influence of a hypnotic drug, Princess Salno reveals that she is the descendant of an ancient Martian civilization that was destroyed by Ghidrah: only a few survivors made it to Earth. Asked to enlist Mothra's aid in the fight against Ghidrah, the twin princesses answer that he is presently only a caterpillar, but that perhaps he can persuade Godzilla and Rodan to fight Ghidrah. Mothra agrees to do so, but Godzilla and Rodan are indifferent to the fate of mankind and prefer to continue fighting each other, as they have been doing. (The princesses translate the monsters' conversation.) But after Mothra goes off to fight Ghidrah on his own, Godzilla and Rodan join the fray. The assassins try again to murder Princess Salno by tampering with the voltage of the shock treatment she is about to receive (in hope of restoring her memory), but she is saved when the monster battle knocks out the power supply. Shindo saves her from the assassins, who are killed in a rockslide caused by Ghidrah. The princess regains her memory in a fall. Ghidrah is defeated when Mothra, riding on Rodan's back, sprays him with enough cocoon silk to weaken him for Godzilla's blows. The vanquished dragon retreats back to outer space.

"Aaah, these monsters are as stupid as human beings!" exclaims one onlooker as Mothra appeals for help to his fellow gargantua. While that may be a bit harsh, it's hard not to compare the Japanese daikaiju (giant monster) movies at this stage to professional wrestling, what with their outrageous theatrics and shifting allegiances. The most consistent villain of the Toho movies, Ghidrah is one of monster designer Eiji Tsuburaya's most striking creations, not the less so for its undeniable silliness--those three heads always seem to be under the control of puppeteers who aren't paying any attention to what the others are doing.

Ghidrah returned in the next Godzilla film, MONSTER ZERO (1965), as well as DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968) and GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND (1972). In 1991 he was revived as part of the new and improved Godzilla series for GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH, which also featured the cyborg Mecha-King Ghidorah. Fans of foreign "art" cinema will recognize in this first GHIDRAH adventure two refugees from cinematic classics of another stripe: Takashi Shimura from Kurosawa's IKIRU (1952) and Eiji Okada from Alain Resnais's HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959). (Violence.) leave a comment