REVIEW: KYORYU: KAICHO NO DENSETSU
REVIEW: LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS
REVIEW: THE "LEGEND OF DINOSAURS"
REVIEW: GIGANTEN DER VORZEIT
REVIEW: JUNJI KURATA [ 1977 ] 92'
REVIEW: TOEI MOTION PICTURE COMPANY
CAST: TSUNEHIKO WATASE, NOBUKO SAWA,
CAST: SHOTAKO HAYASHI, TOMOKO KIYOSHIMA
WTFFILM RATING:

Many many years ago, in a time long ago when Blockbuster Video had more to offer its humble customers than the latest Hollywood trash, I stumbled upon a curious and forbidden film. I was very young at the time, probably no older than five or six. The offending video had a rather crude drawing of a large plesiosaurus (with an abnormally proportioned head) toting a woman about by the leg. In the background was an exploding volcano and, high above it, a flying reptile of some kind. The title on the video box read LEGEND OF THE DINOSAURS, and I knew right away that I had to see it.

But as they tended to, parental preference won out. For years I ran the gamut of other available films; THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975), THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977), THE LAST DINOSAUR (1977), THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER (1977... feeling a trend?), DINOSAURUS! (1960), and THE LAND UNKNOWN (1957) along with the entire collection of GAMERA offerings available at the time. But my interest kept sneaking back to the mysterious film with the blue box. Surely my parents had reason for not showing me this wonder, and I had to know what that reason was.

Several years passed. Eventually my continued pressure won out and I was able to tote the little Blockbuster case with LEGEND OF THE DINOSAURS inside home with me. I have to admit, I was rather disappointed with the film when first viewing it. The VHS quality was ugly at best (thank you Sandy Frank for supplying Just4Kids with such quality source materials for them to master in high grade LP mode), with lots of flickering and jumping of the image. Beyond that, the film was infinitely more violent than I had imagined it would be. I took the VHS back to Blockbuster, generally disgusted, thinking I'd never want to see the film again.

As the years ticked on though, I grew older. Memories of that single viewing kept flashing back to me and the need to see the film just one more time slowly crept into my mind. Eventually it won out and I went back to Blockbuster once more in search of the title. By this time things were starting to change. DVD was beginning to rise in popularity, and Blockbuster had removed most of their low-end videos to make room for the coming DVD boom. Eventually I came across the VHS once more on the discount rack at the local Suncoast, and the rest is quickly becoming history.

To start with, LEGEND OF THE DINOSAURS isn't even the title that's actually in the film on those old and worn VHS tapes. It's the syndication title of THE "LEGEND OF DINOSAURS". Sandy Frank released the film, dubbed, straight to television in 1983, slightly edited, and cropped to full screen. A few years later he sold video distribution rights to King Features Entertainment, who released the film twice. The first was under the Creature Features label, and that print is the same as what ran on television. The version released under Just4Kids was edited slightly more to remove some of the violence (the shot of the plesiosaur rising with the girl in mouth, the disembodied head, and the bloodied body of the man attacked by the ramphorynchus to name a few). This second version is what I purchased at Suncoast.

The film entered its beginning stages in 1975, when the screenplay was first completed. It began production under Toei Company ltd. in September of 1976 and was released April 29, 1977 as KYORYU KAICHO NO DENSETSU. It was the most expensive Toei production ever at the time (earning over 500,000,000 yen for the company). A re-edited German version with a mostly-stock soundtrack was shown theatrically under the title GIGANTEN DER VORZEIT with an Italian release made under the title TERREMOTO 10°. The film wasn't as popular internationally and has been generally unheard of since it's original release.

The story begins with a young woman named Sutakami, who is walking around the Jukai Forest region of Mt. Fuji carrying a soda and a bottle of pills. She slips through a hole in the forest floor and falls into an underground ice cave - which happens to be in the process of melting. In it are a number of presumably fossilized eggs, one of which is emitting a heartbeat. As she stumbles about the cave, the largest of the eggs cracks open and reveals to her a large and slimy yellow eye. Miss Sutakami goes mad at the sight of it and flees the cave. She is found in short order by a group of workers in the forest and taken to a nearby hospital, where she dies of unknown complications.

Ashizawa, corporate geologist, is in Haneda Airport awaiting a plane that will take him to the Yucatan peninsula to do some research. While waiting he overhears a news report about the young woman and her encounter with a fossilized egg. He calls the hospital to investigate and finds out about the eye inside the egg from a nosy reporter there. The strange event peaks his interest enough that he cancels his trip to the Yucatan, pisses off his boss, and loses his position at the office all so he can go to the Mt. Fuji area to investigate. Cue opening credits and the snazziest monster film opening theme song you've ever heard in your life.

Our geologist hero arrives in the area of the accident (the forest around mysterious Lake Sai) just in time for the Dragon Festival. All of the locals are busy getting ready for it and fending off college kids. Ashizawa inquires about the forest and the fossilized egg, only to be warned off by stories about long worms ("They're snakes!") and livestock disappearing. He leaves just before the college students have a chance to plunder his jeep for valuable equipment and goes looking for the ice cave in the Jukai.

After a brief romp in the forest (which gives him a chance to change from regular to amber sunglasses; Ashizawa is the most fashion savvy geologist this reviewer has ever seen) he discovers a multitude of large centipede-type things coming up from the ground (snakes, eh?) and more snazzy monster movie theme music. He continues onward, only to be stopped by a pesky earthquake that leaves him unconcious on the floor of the forest.

He awakens to find himself staring into the gaping maw of a stuffed crocodile (which, understandably, scares the bejesus out of him). Eventually he finds that he is in his father's cabin by Lake Sai, having been rescued by an old family friend and mountain guide (Muku Shohei). Ashizawa explains his purpose to Shohei and asks for his assistance in hunting for fossilized eggs. Shohei refuses, citing that Ashizawa has to have some reason in mind other than profit before he will help.

Cue bubbly underwater pop music. Akiko and her younger (sister/friend/???) are scuba diving in Lake Sai and taking pictures of each other as they swim around. The two surface only to find that something is heating the lake to a point that it is killing multitudes of fish. Neither of them think too much about it. Ashizawa drives by the lakeside just in time to see Akiko putting up the gear from the earlier dive. Obviously recognizing her, he stops to say, "Yo".

It turns out Akiko is Ashizawa's old flame. We are never given details into their past relationship. All we find out is that apparently both of them are really itching to start it up again. After making the most of a half-naked-scuba-girl-doll-prop (see above) he finds laying around Akiko's trailer, Ashizawa makes his move. Unfortunately, a group of slimy green and black eel-worm things have already made their move right into Akiko's line of sight. Gratuitous sex scene averted.

Meanwhile on the lake, two paddle-boaters are having a go as the sun begins to set. It isn't long before an unidentifiable underwater thing has capsized their paddle boat and dispensed with its two occupants. A diver who was under at the time of the capsizing ends up rushing to the surface of the lake fast enough to get the bends. Ashizawa, who just happens to be lakeside at the time, ponders on the nature of the incidents for a moment before heading off to see his old professor (now an imminent geologist in his own right).

The scientist scoffs momentarily at Ashizawa's idea that a monster is responsible for the mysterious happenings around Lake Sai. He then explains that geothermal and seismic activity worldwide is on a steady increase. Ashizawa's father (also a scientist) had believed that such a rise in activity would result in the resurrection of a dinosaur that he was certain was hibernating in the ice caves around Mt. Fuji. The idea was never accepted, it seems, not so much because of the dinosaur part but because of the dinosaurs being the harbingers of earthquakes of at least magnitude five.

Junko has taken a break from diving and underwater photography to talk with the locals of the area and record some of their folk songs. One old woman recounts to her an ancient lullaby that was meant to keep children quiet by threatening them with ingestion by a red-eyed dragon. On her way back to the trailer (through dense fog... on a bicycle...) she is cut off by a horse when it runs across the road in front of her. Her dog goes running after it, and her after the dog. Soon enough she trips and falls into a large pool of blood, the source of which is the horse... sans head.

Ashizawa passes by, picks up Junko, and takes her back to the trailer, where she is understandably distraught. Two townspeople he sent to look for the horse come back with nothing to show for themselves. So, with the grooviest background music ever, Ashizawa goes to look for himself. At first he finds nothing but the remnants of the pool of blood. Soon after, though, he finds imprints on the ground that resemble heavy tire tracks leading out into the woods. He hits paydirt when he finds the headless horse again, however, this time lodged in the branches of a tree.

The next day is the day of the Dragon Festival that everyone has been so busy preparing for. The celebration is filled with the two essential ingredients of any great festival: Corn. And country music (provided by Beau Yatani and his Last Longhorn Band). The festival goes perfectly fine until some unseen force takes to ripping apart the floating stage the band had been using. In the midst of all the panic, one of the college students from the beginning of the film shows up and starts pointing out a mysterious fin in the lake to everyone, claiming it to be a something, a monster, a dinosaur!.

It's actually just his two friends Yuki and Hiroshi in cheap scuba gear toting around a big wooden fin. People get disappointed, everything settles down, and Beau Yatani and his Last Longhorn Band start up once more. Ashizawa asks what happened to the stage (no one knows) while Jiro (the college student) runs off to celebrate with his buddies.

Hiroshi and Yuki reach the opposite side of the lake at roughly the same time Jiro does. The two see him standing on a cliff and take to their rubber dingy to row to him. Bad move. As Jiro relaxes for a few to smoke a cigarette a plesiosaurus with kung-fu tail action rises up from the lake and eats his two best buds. Jiro, frantic, runs to alert the authorities. No one believes him, of course. It seems he was payed by the town to attract more tourists (and failed miserably). But a balding American and his family come to save the day, screaming, "Nessie's in Lake Sai now! It's really super big news!"

The plesiosaurus is already out of the lake at this point though (and stalking young women as they shower). Not satisfied, apparently, with Hiroshi and Yuki, he takes to a resort in the woods to eat the inhabitant just after she steps out of the shower. He then high-tails it back to the lake, where Akiko is diving and Junko is relaxing in their faithful yellow raft. No sooner does she start listening to her recording of the lullaby about the kids being eaten by a red-eyed dragon than the plesiosaurus (also red-eyed) rises from the murky bottoms of the lake to make his forth kill in under fifteen minutes of screen time.

Obviously still digesting his last three victems, the plesiosaurus takes some time to play with Junko before getting down to business. This is probably the most disturbing point in the film. A somber theme plays in the background (mostly flute and bass guitar) as the plesiosaurus toys with Junko for an unnecessarily cruel amount of time. Just the same, the plesiosaur descends back into the lake and Akiko surfaces on the raft just in time to pull the half-eaten remains of her (sister/friend/???) back on board.

KYORYU KAICHO NO DENSETSU packs quite a bit into its last forty minutes. This includes a full fledged monster hunt, a depth charge assault on the lake, the appearance of and two attacks by an incredulously large ramphorynchus, a gratuitous tough-love scene between Akiko and Ashizawa, a town meeting, an explosion, an emminent battle between the plesiosaurus and ramphorynchus, and Mt. Fuji's eruption. A lot of people see this film as nothing but a Godzilla rip off, which is pretty unfair in my book. This film has next to nothing in common with the Godzilla series other than special effects methods and the fact that there are monsters. KYORYU KAICHO NO DENSETSU has far more originality going for it than most reviewers would lead you to believe.

Half horror film, half giant monster movie, half disaster film, half melodrama, KYORYU KAICHO NO DENSETSU is 200% something we're not likely to see again out of the film industry in quite some time. The direction from Junji Kurata is well done and even artsy in several places (just look at the opening shot, picture number two in this review). The cast does an admirable job of pulling off their rolls, and the appearance of Beau Yatani in the middle of a giant monster horror disaster film has got to be one of the strangest in film history.

Of special note, however, is the film soundtrack. The jazz-rock fusion sound that carries through much of the film, while definitely placing it in the 1970's forever, lends the film a level of cool that is sorely lacking in most present day offerings. Whatever the filmmakers may have been thinking in choosing Masao Yagi to do their score, I applaud them for it. KYORYU KAICHO NO DENSETSU wouldn't have been the same without it.

So the special effects aren't the best. The plesiosaurus looks like just what it is in most scenes and the ramphorynchus, while fairing better in overall design, is more than a little wooden in the film's climactic battle scene. But the film offers more than a few unexpected moments and the plesiosaurus' attack on Junko is completely disturbing. In spite of any of its shortcomings I love KYORYU KAICHO NO DENSETSU. Recommended.