King Kong vs. Godzilla

1963 "The Terrifying Battle Between The Mightiest Monsters of All Time!"
5.7| 1h36m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 26 June 1963 Released
Producted By: TOHO
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

When an underhanded pharmaceutical company goes to a remote tropical island to steal King Kong for advertising purposes, they get more than they bargained for when the gigantic ape attacks an unsuspecting village and an enormous octopus.

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Reviews

Dorathen Better Late Then Never
BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Jayme Schmitt King Kong vs Godzilla! The east vs the west! Japan vs The United States! This movie even today acts as one of the biggest and most successful Godzilla films of all time. For today's standards though, it is without a doubt considered flawed. First off is the fact that it's release state was so early in it's time. Considering it was only the 3rd for both franchises and made in the early 60s doesn't help at all. I remember when Syfy use to hold their annual Godzilla movie marathons and this premiered right after Godzilla vs. Gigan. I asked my father to Tivo it and when we watched it the next morning when we watched it the next morning and King Kong showed up, I laughed my ass off. He looked like a deformed Elvis. And after reality sunk in, I turned to my Dad and said "are they serious?" Second off, the aspect ratio of the two is miles apart. From what I understand, Kong is 50 feet tall in the original and Godzilla's about 50 METERS TALL! There's a size difference indeed. Now to be fair, this is probably an entirely different take on the monster altogether and by that I mean like in the Godzilla universe how there are multiple Gojiras running around, this is probably either a relative of the '33 Kong or just another one altogether. But when the fight begins, none of that matters because it's highly entertaining on the sheer factor it's just a fun watch. KKVG is a gem that stands it's ground being the original crossover from two different company icons. And despite it's flaws, it will forever be considered a classic.
BA_Harrison A submarine crashes into an iceberg, freeing Godzilla from its frozen grip; meanwhile, over-sized ape King Kong is captured by a pharmaceutical company and shipped to Japan. When the radioactive lizard heads for Tokyo, smashing all in its path, some bright spark has the idea of using Kong to bring an end to the scaly beast's rampage. Cue even more destruction as the pair duke it out on Mount Fuji.King Kong vs. Godzilla is far from what I would call a great film (quelle surprise), with a preposterous storyline, dreadful performances, and woeful special effects (crappy men-in-suit monsters and lots of miniature model-work, none of which is very convincing). It does, however, mark the only time to date that cinema's mightiest ape and its greatest mutated lizard have gone head to head, which makes it a must for monster movies fans, no matter how manky the creature suits are.In addition its legendary monster smack-down (which includes the unforgettable sight of Godzilla getting a tree shoved down his throat), this silly Japanese/US co-production also offers plenty of (unintentional?) laughs, including Japanese extras blacked up to play natives (who perform a prolonged dance routine to pad out the running time), Kong getting sloshed on berry juice, a giant octopus latching itself onto Kong's head, and the great ape taking a hot air balloon flight.
bigjackfilms REVIEW - So from watching King Kong first and only hearing allot about Godzilla as a kid, somewhere in my brain, it was kind of obvious that this idea would come up. Two of the most famous monsters of all time duking it out, and this was new in people's minds when they made it. So what's the history?HISTORY - Well in the late 50s, Willis O'Brian was going through some troubles in his career, having many ideas that he wanted to put on screen thrown out by studios. Looking for a way to bump his career up again, he went back to the giant ape that got him fame and decided to fill a few ideas to bring Kong back to the screen. Though remaking the film entered his mind, the idea of Kong fighting another famous monster was to him a better approach since the 1940s had made big bucks off Universal Monsters teaming up in fighting each other with Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman, and House Of Dracula. Being a fan of the Frankenstein Monster in novel and film, he began to write a script for King Kong VS Frankenstein. Meanwhile in Japan, Toho Studios had just made their first big successful monster film that began the Kaiju genre. Enter Godzilla or Gojira, a film that showcased a man in a dinosaur suit stomping Tokyo as a symbol of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima. The film was a successful hit in Japan, America and around the world in 1954. So much that Toho made a sequel called Godzilla Raids Again where he battles another monster Angirus. Toho would later make other Kaiju films such as Rodan and Mothra in the late 50's. Losing a bit of steam after a few films, producer, Tomoyuki Tanaka decided to bring Godzilla back in a widescreen color feature. The question was who would be his competitor?Being fans and insipid to make Godzilla because of the original King Kong, Toho thought that the idea of bringing the two monsters together would make big money not just in Japan and America, but around the world. So they went to RKO personally to pitch the idea. RKO agreed, but did not tell O'Brien. Wow, dick move guys! Shortly after the deal, Marian C. Cooper heard the news and was rightfully angry about it since he created the character. What followed was one of the many battles over the course of 6 and half decades over the rights of King Kong. In this round, Cooper lost.CHARACTERS - The movie is a Kaiju film, meaning that the monsters come before characters. But I will try to talk about non monster characters the best I can, even though there bland and very forgettable. First there's Mr. Tako, who is the most memorable of the cast. Playing a Denham like role, his character is more comedic than brave, always acting hyper and on some sort of drug that makes him twitch. The two guys hired by Tako to explore the island are bland, boring and uninteresting. The only scene that I gave a crap about them is when they confront Tako on the ship porting Kong to Tokyo. Fujita is bland. Fumiko is only there for Kong to have a love interest. The Army General is there to be the 2 dimensional general guy and the natives, um, they're Japanese extras painted to look African. Kind of racist there Toho. VISUAL EFFECTS - With this being a Godzilla movie, all the effects were done with men in monster suits and model sets. Allot of scenes from the movie are memorable like Kong's encounters with Godzilla and a giant Octopus. And although Godzilla looks great and the rest of the effects and sets are standard issue, Kong looks terrible. The suit has a visible zipper and the arms are long and skinny, not at all like a real gorilla. The masks look like a combination of a 5 year old clay sculpting of Kong 33's long face made tiny compared to the body and puppet on strings facial features. They also dumbed down Kong's character, making him a tad stupid. TRIVIA - Now as allot of people have covered that there was an alternate ending were Godzilla won the battle, I have two theories about this rumor. 1st this rumor started in a series of children's book by Crestwood, explained in the Kong edition. 2nd, if Godzilla did win, I don't think the ending would have been so victorious. OVERALL - Though the idea is awesome, the movie is kind of poorly made. Don't get me wrong, I love Toho and the effects in this film are mildly good, just not there best.
Al_The_Strange Here it is: the most gargantuan battle of monsters anybody could come up with. From the west, there's the massive gorilla that was worshiped by natives and went on to climb the Empire State building. From the Far East, the giant fire-breathing lizard spawn from the atomic age that crushes entire cities. This film unites the two iconic titans in a vicious match of pure bestial muscle power.As cool as it all sounds, the film may inspire more absurd laughter than actual thrills. When the two beasts collide, King Kong throws his arms around in a hokey ape-like manner, while Godzilla throws a hissy-fit and flaps his arms erratically. In the confines of gaudy rubber suits, it looks incredibly silly. The actual mass destruction is plentiful, but these scenes seem so few and far-between. By the film's end (after a ridiculous scene where Kong is airlifted by balloons), the conflict just kinda fizzles out with no clear winner or loser. It's a cheap and dated film with horrid special effects and bad costume work; even if you look past that, the execution is so weak that it can't be taken seriously.Of course, if you don't take it seriously (and you probably shouldn't for monster flicks anyway), then it's still pretty fun. Fans should get a kick out of the epic clash, despite all its cheesiness and flaws.The story is pretty standard stuff; most characters exist to simply to provide a human conduit for the audience to follow as the monsters roam around. The plot does take a few stupid turns (seriously, King Kong flying around on balloons? And since when can he grow stronger with electricity?).This film is pretty cheap, featuring okay photography and editing. Acting is pretty cheesy, and is made even worse with terrible English dubbing. Writing is pretty nutty (possibly marred by the changes of the US cut). This production uses some cheap and gaudy sets, props, costumes, model-work, and some horrid-looking compositing effects. Music is okay.This film has had a pretty spotty history. For the US, parts of it have been cut out, and many new footage has been cut in, in a manner similar to Godzilla: King of the Monsters. I don't know what the exact changes are, but the added news reports and exposition feel quite forced, and some of the explanations given seem misinformed, and possibly biased to appeal to Americans. Even in Japan, parts of the film have gone missing (some of which has been restored for home video releases), and the overall condition of the film has been poor. This film is probably best seen for watching the two titular beasts duke it out, in all their cheesy rubber-suit glory. It's not a good film, and the story is pretty dumb (at least for the US version), but if you ever wanted to see two of the biggest and most popular monsters engaged in epic combat, this film has its moments.3/5 (Entertainment: Pretty Good | Story: Marginal | Film: Marginal)