Thank heavens for Classic Media's policy of putting excellent commentaries on their Kaijû pix, because without some expert guidance I'd be completely lost watching Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster. The original Japanese title translates to something like Three Giant Monsters: The Earth's Greatest Decisive Battle which seems far too complicated for the film's intended kid crowd. The movie starts on the same basis as did the previous Toho spectacles Mothra vs. Godzilla and Dogora, bringing together reporters, cops and crooks (this time, international killer spies) before interrupting the proceedings with the monsters. Godzilla rises from the ocean, having somehow gotten loose from the silk cocoon straightjacket we last saw him in. Rodan was a free-range volcano-barbecued squab nine years before but emerges from a fissure ready for more action.

The show clicks off some by-now standard large scale menace and destruction scenes and then settles in for an extended series of tag-team battles on the slopes of Mt. Fuji. The new boy in town is a towering menace that looks great in stills and rather unlikely in motion. Ghidorah appears to be made of energy; he electronically coalesces from some animated plasma blasts. He doesn't look too comfortable flying and when battling on the ground waves his wings while his three heads whip about as if they were three loose garden hoses. Rays shoot from his out-of-control heads willy-nilly. It's like fighting a stack of exploding fireworks, not a monster, yet Ghidorah gives every indication that if he fell down he'd have a tough time getting up again. Worse, after a few seconds we don't think of Ghidorah 'thinking' with the inanimate-looking three heads. He does have a cool signature vocal effect.

The big shock comes when screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa has the Earth monsters discuss their Ghidorah problem. Rodan stands around rather stupidly while Mothra underlines his debate points with spurts of sticky silk (she really ought to get that under control). Godzilla throws his arms up in big guffaws, sits on his haunches and bellylaughs some more while rocking back on his tail. It's hard to know whether this is an epochal change of direction for the Godzilla universe, or the beginning of the end.

Putting Akiko Wakabayashi in the role of the Princess was no mistake as she's cute when haranguing crowds in a fisherman's coat and hat and regal in her princessy gowns. She gets roughed up and eventually wounded by one of the assassins (who gets his in a rather funny fashion, catching the boulder that knocks him off a cliff as if it were a football). Wakabayashi has a fine exit scene, a sort of replay of the reporter/royalty farewell from Roman Holiday, which was a smash hit in its Japanese release.

Mothra's original twin fairy girls are always welcome but it's a bit disconcerting to see the pocket princesses sell out to show biz, something that they'd never have done in the original sublime classic Mothra. They end up serving as ringside monster translators and are only heard, not seen for a farewell at the end.

Some of the sets are really huge, and Toho's experts do great work manipulating tails and wings with wires that stay hidden a lot more that we'd expect them to. Ghidorah has eight separate 'wire' problems to animate in its many wings, heads and tails, and there's a lot of titanic rough and tumble to gum up the marionette choreography!

Classic Media's Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster looks fine in two nicely transferred enhanced encodings. If the monster scenes have a slightly soft quality, it's probably light diffusion added to the lens to help hide wires, so no more complaints, please. The usual quality extras are here accessed by classy menu graphics -- stills, posters, an Eiji Tsuburaya bio.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: David Kalat commentary, Eiji Tsuburaya bio, trailer, galleries of art and stills.
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: June 8, 2007