Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

During a briefing with the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) regarding Godzilla's first attack, Admiral Taizo Tachibana is alerted about an American nuclear submarine missing off Guam. Search and rescue units find the sub destroyed and capture footage of a giant creature's fins nearby. Tachibana's daughter, Yuri, films a docudrama with her production crew at Mount Myōkō, where a mysterious brief earthquake occurs. The earthquake returns later that night burying a biker gang and leaving one surviving trucker who witnesses the monster Baragon, which he misidentifies as Godzilla. The next day, Yuri's colleague Teruaki Takeda supports her theory that a monster may have been the cause of the mysterious Myōkō earthquake by giving her a book on The Guardian Monsters.

At Lake Ikeda, a Mothra larva attacks a group of teenagers after disturbing her shrine, and in Aokigahara, a suicidal man accidentally encounters a frozen Ghidorah. Yuri interviews Hirotoshi Isayama, an elderly man who explains to her the legend of the Guardian Monsters: Baragon, Mothra, and King Ghidorah, and iterates that they must be awakened before Godzilla destroys Japan. Yuri and her team visit the Guardian Monsters' shrine, where she finds a stone. Godzilla attacks the Bonin Islands chain, leaving few survivors. Yuri returns to interview Isayama and discovers that the souls of all those who were killed during the Pacific War are embedded within Godzilla, and are lashing out due to modern Japan's denial of its past crimes.

Godzilla and Baragon surface and battle in Hakone, with Godzilla emerging victorious. Yuri is injured during the fray and goes on her own after Takeda refuses to take her to Godzilla's location. Mothra's cocoon is immediately discovered in Lake Ikeda. After jets fail to stop Godzilla, Tachibana sets up a defense line in Yokohama. An imago Mothra and a juvenile Ghidorah awaken and battle Godzilla in Yokohama. Mothra sacrifices itself and imbues its spirit into Ghidorah, transforming it into the 3,000-year-old dragon King Ghidorah. King Ghidorah manages to injure and drag Godzilla underwater. Tachibana and his colleague board miniature submarines to launch missiles into Godzilla's wound. Yuri and Takeda report the struggle from a bridge that later collapses from Godzilla's atomic breath.

The shrine stone falls from Takeda's pocket and revives King Ghidorah. Yuri and Takeda fall from the bridge and swim ashore as the monsters continue to fight. Godzilla destroys King Ghidorah, unleashing the spirits of the Guardian Monsters, which drag Godzilla into the sea. After entering Godzilla's body through its mouth, Tachibana fires a missile at its wound. Godzilla attempts to kill Yuri and Takeda but Tachibana's missile explodes, forcing its breath to escape through the gaping wound and build pressure within its body. Tachibana escapes as Godzilla sinks and explodes after attempting to kill Tachibana with its breath. Japan rejoices at their victory, with Tachibana saluting his colleagues and the guardian monsters. On the ocean floor, Godzilla's disembodied heart continues to beat.

Director Shūsuke Kaneko cycled through various script ideas when attempting to conceive this film. In the earliest known script, Godzilla would have faced off against a revamped version of Kamacuras, but this idea was scrapped since Godzilla had fought another insect-like kaiju in the previous film (Godzilla vs. Megaguirus). A second idea involved Godzilla battling a new alien monster in a futuristic setting, but the script was considered too dark for a Godzilla film. The Guardian Monsters concept came next, though Kaneko's original script originally had Anguirus, Varan and Baragon defend Japan against Godzilla. Toho told him to replace the former two with the more popular Mothra and King Ghidorah, as Anguirus and Varan were not considered bankable enough to guarantee a box-office hit. Skeptical at first, he managed to work the two monsters into the film.

The film is especially notable for the changes made to the monsters. For example, King Ghidorah typically played the villain in previous Godzilla films; this film has him as a hero. In fact, King Ghidorah is actually portrayed a few meters shorter than Godzilla; previous incarnations of the monster were much larger, and towered over Godzilla.

Originally, the idea was to have Godzilla to walk with his back and tail parallel to the ground; however, this idea was dropped due to the strain it put on Mizuho Yoshida (the actor playing Godzilla), and Godzilla retained his traditional posture.[4]

Mothra was also revamped. Like King Ghidorah, Mothra is portrayed as being far smaller than normal and looking more like a butterfly than a moth. Her poison powder and hurricane wind attacks were removed, and were replaced with a burst of stingers fired from her abdomen. In addition, Mothra's fairy servants, the Shobijin, were dropped completely, (though a homage exists in the form of twins (from Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris) who look up in awe at Mothra as she flies overhead).

Baragon was also altered. His heat ray was removed, his roar was changed and his horn is no longer bioluminescent.

Apparently, the reason behind the changes to King Ghidorah, Mothra, and Baragon were made in order to make Godzilla seem stronger. Director Kaneko wanted Godzilla to be the most powerful monster in the film. He originally wanted to use monsters who are notably smaller and less powerful than Godzilla as his opponents. When advised by Toho to replace them, he compensated by making Ghidorah and Mothra weaker than they normally were. Fuyuki Shinada, who designed the monster suits for the film, was disappointed that Varan (his all-time favorite monster) was not going to be in the film, so he compensated by putting Varan's facial features on King Ghidorah's three heads.

In addition, the radioactive element has been replaced with a more mystical element. Godzilla has origins rooted in Japan's World War II past. Although Godzilla is still a mutant dinosaur created by the atomic bomb, he is also described as an incarnation of those killed or who were left to die at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War. The extent to which his nuclear and spiritual origins balance is never specified. Kaneko, a lifelong pacifist, wanted to give the film an anti-war angle. The nuclear origin was left in because he knew that audiences wanted a realistic Godzilla, but he thought it worked better with a fantasy element.

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 63% rating from critics, based on 16 reviews with an average score of 5.29/10.[7]

Troy Guinn of Eccentric Cinema gave the film a score of 8/10, calling it "one of only three Godzilla films I would recommend to anyone besides giant monster-movie fans or sci-fi buffs, the other two being the original Gojira and Mothra vs. Godzilla."[8] Bryan Byun of DVD Verdict gave it a positive review, calling it "one of the most exciting entries in Godzilla's long cinematic history."[9] Stomp Tokyo gave the film a score of 3/5, calling it "one of the better-looking entries in the series, albeit one of unfulfilled potential."[10] John Wallis of DVD Talk felt that "the story is quite weak and somber" and that "this new take on [Godzilla] doesn't really work,"[11] while Gemma Tarlach of the Milwaukee Journal said that "GMK is best when it embraces its unabashed cheesiness. But when it tries to make Statements with Meaning, whether on Japan's past aggressions or ersatz samurai ruminations on the duty of a warrior, the movie flounders like a giant lizard hogtied by power lines."[12] Film critic Leonard Maltin gave it three out of four stars, one of only two Godzilla films to receive more than two and a half stars, with the other being Godzilla 2000.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

• Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack at IMDb
• Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack at AllMovie
• "ゴジラ・モスラ・キングギドラ大怪獣総進撃 (Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaijū Sōkōgeki)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-07-21.