It's Kaijuly! Movie #1 is "Mothra" (1961)

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Mothra (1961), which is part of our inaugural “Kaijuly” look at some giant monster films (which we both love thanks to seeing them in our childhood of the 60s and 70s).

Synopsis

An expedition to Infant Island discovers a native population and tiny twin fairy priestesses of the island's mythical deity. Named Mothra, she sets out to rescue her fairies after they are kidnapped by an exploitative businessman.

The Good

Joseph: I had an absolute blast watching Mothra for the first time in ages! I’m a sucker for Eiji Tsubaraya’s model work, and once the titular kaiju starts wreaking havoc, especially once fully formed, the devastation looks remarkable. Buildings leveled, cars and boats crashing, army equipment being laid to waste, and everything else kaiju fans love in their old-school, practical effects movies. And of course The Peanuts rule as the Shobijin fairy twins, especially with their unforgettable song to Mothra, “Mosura No Uta!”! The characterization and commitment by the main actors are exactly what is needed here.

Mike: It’s obvious that Toho wanted to aim at a younger market with Mothra, making it lighter in tone and making the creatures less malevolent than Godzilla, Rodan, and others that preceded it. The phrase “like a mama lion protecting her cubs” could be applied to Mothra’s aggression; leave her and Infant Island alone and everything’s cool, but snatch her fairies and try to make money off of them and the gloves are coming off. Most kids could appreciate seeing a “mother” protect her young, even if it was just metaphorical and on a subconscious level. Of course, tha fantasy elements of the fairies and humor injected by some of the characters certainly didn’t hurt the appeal to the kids.

As for the technical side of things, the miniature work in Mothra is exceptional and some of the best from the “Showa era” of Toho’s films and both of Mothra’s forms - larvae and moth - are quite effective. Filmed in TohoScope, the bright colors used in both Mothra and the jungles of Infant Island look great and are a big departure from the black and white and more “earthy” toned colors used in the films before it.

The Bad

Joseph: The religious imagery gets a bit heavy handed in the third act, and the humor can be a bit corny — one of the newspaper reporters single handedly fending off a crew of tough-guy bodyguards calls for almost as much willing suspension of disbelief as is needed to think that a giant moth can devastate two cities. I’m not one for musical numbers in films, and the King Kong nods can be overly obvious at times.

Mike: While a great number of the Toho monster films are aimed at children, I always felt like this was for a much younger crowd - even when I myself was the said younger crowd. So I feel that, depending on one’s exposure to the realm of kaiju eiga, this might come across in the same fashion as it did to me when I was younger. Not that Mothra is a bad or poorly produced movie - in fact quite the opposite - but it’s certainly on a different wavelength as many of the other monster flicks out there.

The Verdict

Joseph: Loads of fun are to be had with Mothra. For those who think of her only as a gentle savior of the Earth and occasional foe and occasional friend of Godzilla, this origin story shows how single-mindedly fierce she can be. Ishirô Honda strikes again with this psychedelic winner! Sheer entertainment for giant monster fans of all stripes.

Mike: My first exposure to the giant monsters from Japan was, like most people, Godzilla. I was glued to our old B&W TV as he battled sea monsters, giant grasshoppers, spiders, three-headed space dragons, and whatever else he was pitted against. Out of all of the foes and friends (?) he had, I never quite latched on to Mothra. It sure seemed like Mothra was a “she” and girls were, to a single-digit boy in the mid-70s, icky, so maybe that’s it. Regardless of “why”, the fact remains that Mothra - as a caterpillar or moth - was a throwaway character in my eyes and certainly not deserving of her own feature film. But I watched it anyway and, well, I didn’t hate it, but I still wasn’t sold (even though she made a good ally when battling Ghidora). I watched it a few times over the next handful of decades because it’s a Godzilla-adjacent movie, and again for this review, but just never felt compelled to buy into her and the twin faeries.

Mothra, from Toho Co., is available for streaming online and on physical media

Mothra