Space Amoeba
                                                   
Director: Ishirō Honda
Year: 1970
Rating: 5.5
Aka - Yog: Monster from Space (American title)

Ishirō Honda throws a number of Kaiju at the screen but missing are the classical Monsters that the audience had come to love over the past decade. No Godzilla, no Rodan, no Mothra, no Ghidorah. It was a sign of changing times in the Japanese film industry. Hard times with studios cutting back on output, lowering their budgets or simply moving into a different style of film. The Chivalrous Samurai and Yakuza genre (Ninkyo Eiga) had run its course and had entered a much more cynical and brutal phase, the directors from the Golden Age like Ozu, Naruse, Mizoguchi. Akira Kurosawa, Kobayashi had either died or had their best work behind them, actresses like Junko Fuji and HibarI Misora had given way to a new generation of actresses unafraid to make exploitation films. Toho which had made so many great films and had created the Kaiju genre was hurting like all the rest. This was to be their final sci-fi film and Honda was not to direct another film for five years when he directed Terror of Mechagodzilla.



The Kaiju here are fine though the special effects master for so many films, Eiji Tsuburaya, died two days into shooting and his assistant Sadamasa Arikawa took over those duties. Overall though the film feels sloppy and lazy as if no one really had their heart in it. What had begun as a very ambitious script from Ei Ogawa which included a global aspect, an alien invasion and nukes had slowly been whittled back to save money and ended up all taking place on one of those isolated south-east islands with a tribe of local natives who enjoy singing and worshipping the monsters - ie Mothra. The nukes were out, the alien invasion was cut down to a fuzzy blue thing that possesses creatures and thinks it can take over the world. Toho was in the process of releasing many of their actors, so there are none of the familiar faces from earlier Kaiju films.  The film for me is saved basically by Gezora, one of the coolest looking Kaiju ever.



Japan sends an unmanned spacecraft, Helios 7, on a three-year mission to Jupiter, but on its way it is intercepted by an alien creature - our Space Amoeba, which later explains that it is so advanced that it has lost its arms and legs and has become this amorphous floating species. It takes over the ship and turns it around and heads it back to earth. In order to conquer it. It lands near the island of Selgio, but it is witnessed by Kudo (Akira Kubo) on a plane flying back from Brazil. He is a professional photographer and since no one will believe him, he decides to head to the island to get a picture. Along with him is Dr Miya (Yoshio Tsuchiya) who says there are rumors of monsters on the island and Ayako (Atsuko Takahashi) - whose name is never actually mentioned in the film but we know from the credits - who is looking to see if the island is amenable to a huge resort. Sure, except for the local tribe who hate outsiders and the monsters.



Once on the island, the Kaiju start showing up - Gezara is the first to appear out of the sea - a giant squid like monster with multiple tentacles with suckers, a giant forehead and green yellowish googly eyes - and it walks. Very cool. Turns out that the space creature can possess animals and grow them to huge sizes. Later on, a giant crab and lizard take a bow. This is how it plans to conquer the world. But the island first. Sadly, for its species, it doesn't take well to fire or ultrasonic sounds of bats and porpoises. If you can't beat these folks on an island, the entire earth may be a tough go. None of the characters are that appealing and the plot is clearly impacted by the low budget. A hut gets stomped! Woo-hoo.