First off, this movie was one of the first Godzilla movies I ever saw. Godzilla vs.
Hedorah is one of the weirder Godzilla movies. The monster Hedorah is a walking/flying
anti-pollution symbol. The movie opens with a song about saving the planet from
pollution, which basically sets the main message of the film right off the bat. The
build up of Hedorah was nice. They start with just finding the mutated tadpoles. The
anti-pollution message is given strong in the beginning with the fisherman and the
scientist looking at all the mutated fish.

The first appearance of Hedorah was somewhat odd. The monster just swims up and jumps
over the boy and then just leaves for no reason at all. At this point in the movie they
only refer to Hedorah as the "tadpole".

The little cartoon intermissions with Hedorah in the movie also added to the oddness of
the movie. As far as I know this is the only movie to have the little intermissions.

Godzilla's first appearance was that of a boy's dream/imagination while telling a poem.
Despite it being an imagination it was still a relatively good first appearance of
Godzilla in the movie. It also furthered the anti-pollution idea with Godzilla setting
the water pollution ablaze. The Godzilla suit used in the movie was decent looking. It
was not the best of the Showa series, but it was better then suits like the one
appearing in Son of Godzilla.

I like when the Godzilla movies try to add a science to the world of Godzilla. This
movie attempts in a way to do that with Hedorah. The movie has a scene where the
scientist learns how the monster thrives and why it grows to be the size it does in the
movie. This movie really gets into giving a science to how Hedorah came to be. The movie
gives info on how it is made up of certain minerals and that it reacts with other
minerals and so on. There is always a plus with me to give a science to the Godzilla
films.

The first battle reveals an almost full-grown Hedorah versus Godzilla. The battle starts
with a wrestling match of sorts. A good portion of the battle is done with physical
attacks, mainly because of Hedorah's initial lack of any other form of attack. During
the battle the concept that Hedorah is a blob of living pollution is kept up. When it is
swung around globs of it fly off just like any kind of goopy material.

The movie had some interesting special effects, which for the most part were pretty good
for a Godzilla movie of that time.

One thing you have to notice about this movie is that they have a lot of scenes with
people dancing. There a more dancing scenes in this movie then in any other Godzilla
movie.

Battle number two opens with Godzilla chasing a now full-grown Hedorah through a party
of people dancing around a fire. The second battles starts off slow with interruptions
with human parts. In this battle Hedorah displays more of what he can do. You not only
get to see multiple sludge bombs, but Hedorah's laser attack. I thought it was kind of
amusing watching the humans try stopping Hedorah with little burning sticks. Physical
fighting is still very much apparent in this battle, while still including the
occasional special power here and there. Godzilla getting buried in sludge is a scene
that I always remember from this movie.

The infamous flying Godzilla scene is probably one of the weirdest scenes of the movie.
Despite that, it was still my favorite scene in the movie. Though many people didn't
like it, it stuck out to me as a fine point of the movie showing Godzilla's intelligence
and adaptability.

The death of Hedorah was done in a way that was good for ending the monster. Death by
the combined might of humans and Godzilla was a nice touch to end the movie with.

This movie, though relatively strange at times, was a pretty well done Godzilla movie.
I'm glad I was able to watch in both it's English dubbed version and the original
Japanese cut. For any fan of Godzilla or the Showa series movie this is a must.

Directed By

Yoshimitsu Banno

Released

1971