Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla

a.k.a. Godzilla vs. the Cosmic Monster

Well, I gotta admit, when I was a kid, this one was one of my least favorite G movies. First of all, King Seesar was lame! How else can you describe a giant lion that runs around on its hind legs and shoots laser beams out of its eyes! And although I knew even back then that he was supposed to look like a Chinese lion, something about him reminded me of a titanic Snoopy. Maybe it was cuz of the way his ears kept flopping around?! And plus there was nothing threatening about him. The Avenging Stuffed Animal tryin to body-slam it with the Flying Cosmic Space-Titanium Laser-Eyes & Rocket-Fingers Mecha-Godzilla, okaaay! Who dya think's gonna win that one? I say it's time to call the ASPCA!

Second of all, I dunno what it is, but I just don't like the idea of having a mechanical monster. It just looks too fake. Plus it's never original - it's always the attack of the Mecha-Something-We've-Actually-Seen-Before. Come on, you know what I'm talking about! Mecha-Godzilla. Mechani-Kong. Even Mecha-King Ghidorah! If, on the other hand, they made a movie where G fought some kinda Mecha-Something-We-HAVEN'T-Seen-Before, (ah-haaaaa!) and defeated it, only to get challenged at the end of the movie by the real, original, flesh-and-blood Thing-that-We-Haven't-Seen-Before, then that would be okay. I'd be pleasantly surprised by that. But somehow I don't think it's gonna happen. (Having said all that, I will say that I liked those three above-mentioned Mecha-Monsters in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla '93, King Kong Escapes, and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah '91. Those movies were cool.)

Thirdly, and this is my last gripe, I really don't like those ape-aliens. They scared me when I was a kid and they scare me now. I don't need to see people with ape-masks running loose, and I definitely don't need to see any of that throes-of-death-transforming-head effect. I grew up loving science fiction, but I was always freaked out by the sf my dad used to watch. Namely Star Trek and Planet of the Apes. Maybe he wasn't really a fan, but I always associated those two series with him. Actually, he was a real Star Trek fan - I still remember him trying to get me to wear his Star Trek snowball hat in the wintertime so I wouldn't come home sick from school. Whatever. The point is, all those Klingons and talking gorillas and things traumatized me when I was a kid. I think it might be because, like my old neighbor's french poodle, I was fearless when it came to Unknown Beings bigger than me but terrified by Unknown Beings that were roughly my own size. When they first started running the TV commercials for Star Wars in 77, and that big hairy thing roared at me, it sounded like a threat when dad said "And that's what I'm taking you to see for your birthday!" Of course, I ended up loving Chewbacca and the rest of the gang and he ended up getting bored ("It's just a circus in space!" he said, the crank) but that's another story.

And you don't think The Planet of the Apes is scary? I will never forget the one where that Ape-couple travels back in time to tell the humans about the future. I saw it when I was about six so I don't remember the title, but I still remember the ending. On a pier, these bad men gun down both the couple and their ape-baby. Ya know how traumatizing that is for a kid to watch? This was back in the 70's when machine guns were still like something out of a nightmare. And the movie ends with a lone gorilla in a zoo jumping up and down and saying "Mama, mama." Freaky shit for a little kid to be watching all alone! (Looking back on it now, I realize the whole thing was probably influenced by La Jetee, the French flick that inspired Twelve Monkeys. Can anybody tell me the title, by the way? I sorta want to rent it now.)

Whoops! Well, Jim Walsh got me thinking one day about all that magic magnetic stuff G does near the end. What was that all about? Well I got a theory. Ever notice, in this movie, in Godzilla vs. Gigan, and in Terror of Mechagodzilla, how often G mimics Bruce Lee? I mean, him and also Muhammed Ali, whom Bruce admired. In GvG there was the spinning tail-whip. In both GvG and ToMG there's the fancy footwork and the head-bobbin-n-weavin. And in the two coup de grace scenes of this movie, where MG maims Angilas, and where G breaks off MG's head, you can see that cold-blooded Game of Death gaze of intense concentration. It's the one where Bruce Lee starts quivering and stares out into space, summoning all his chi for that final, bone-snapping wrench. Talk about Master Killer!

His chi. His life-force. His essential energy. Chi both is and is not the same as blood, oxygen, wind, electricity, magnetism, gravity, warmth, adrenaline, semen, even The Force. Raphie says that the source of your chi is your center, which is located a couple inches down from your navel, and doesn't correspond to any organ in the Western topography of the body. In China that center is called the dan tien. Remember in the '93 remake of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, when MG absorbed G's plasma ray and then blasted it back out through that thing on his navel? That was probably a reference to the dan tien. You can also see it in the SNES "Super Godzilla" game, at the end battle with Bagan where SuperG shoots the super-phallic-serpent ray out of his bellybutton. (That's the one Conster calls "From the Navel with Love"). And the most insane Kaiju Navel Attack scene, of course, has gotta be the end of Gamera 2: Advent of Legion. Gita says the Indian equivalent of chi is called kundalini and the dan tien (located in the same spot) is called the kundala. Remember that guy in the first Mad Max flick who was trying to stop em from getting away? He swung a chain at the trailer, and then when they went to get gas they found the chain and this fucked-up-looking hand still attached to it? And later Toecutter got to say, by way of introduction, "This is Kundalini. And Kundalini wants his hand back"? Well, that's how you pronounce it. *

Learning how to cultivate and harness your chi is an essential practice in Asian martial arts. Broadly speaking, there are two styles, or families of styles - external, or "hard" style, and internal, or "soft" style. People in the U.S. are more familiar with the external, "hard" arts - what you see in Taekwondo or Karate schools, for instance, or in the chopsocky classics they show on TV about Shaolin boxing. Internal or "soft" arts tend to be less well known over here, cuz they're relatively unspectacular - Judo, Aikido, Tai Chi Chuan. These are arts where the emphasis is less on outer, or muscular, strength, and more on inner, or essential, energy. I'm oversimplifying of course - any martial art really uses a combination of both external and internal strength.

Anyhow, one form of chi-cultivating exercise is called chi gong. Chi gong is probably a descendant of the yogic breathing exercises that were imported to China from India along with Buddhism and all sorts of other neat stuff. When you practice chi gong, you focus your mind and body to concentrate and intensify chi in certain areas of your body - usually your legs and/or your dan tien. The most well-known form of chi gong is "horse stance", which is one of the first exercises you'll learn even in a hard style like Taekwondo. The equivalent in a soft style like Tai Chi Chuan is "standing post". You stand with your legs bent about shoulder width apart, with your arms out in front of you as if you were embracing a post. (Don't try this on your own without formal instruction, by the way, cuz if you do it wrong you could damage your joints (knees) or even your back.) As you hold the stance, you concentrate on your breathing and try to regulate the flow of chi throughout your body.

On Monster Island, dummy! Think back to the scene - Godzilla faces Mechagodzilla for the first time. G's plasma ray meets MG's eye laser and causes an immense explosion that wounds G (all you see is blood in the water) and causes MG to malfunction. Like in hundreds of Chinese martial arts films, the first standoff leads to defeat for the hero, who must now retreat to some sanctuary and begin training for the final showdown. In the middle of a gloomy thunderstorm, G drags himself out of the water and up onto the shore of Monster Island. He stands, legs about shoulder-width apart, bent at the knees, with his arms curled out in front of him. This, of course, is kaiju chi gong - he's cultivating his chi, both to heal his wounds, and to harness the kind of energy he knows he'll need if he's going to face MG again. Energized by the chi flowing through his body, he begins to glow and attract lightning. But just like how MG'93 is able to absorb the plasma ray and store it in its dan tien, G absorbs the lightning bolts without getting hurt by them, and that's why you see that ball of pure energy growing stronger and stronger behind him. A few nights of this torturous training and he's ready to come save the day for King Seesar.

When G and MG finally meet again, it's literally a clash of internal vs. external, or mystic-natural vs. soulless high-tech. G's mastery of the chi both in his body and in the space around him romps all over MG's short-sighted dependence upon his "hard", "external" armor made of supertough space titanium. And when MG tries to fly away, G is able to absorb enough of the chi in the air to create a kind of vacuum that sucks MG's helpless body back into the battle. You could call it a kind of magnetism, since other metal objects get stuck to G too, but remember that magnetic force is only one manifestation of chi. If ya think that's going too far, then check out Swordsman II, a classic HK fantasy flick that stars Jet Li and Lin Ching Hsia, and is based on a super-popular series of novels by Jin Yong. In it, there's this scary guy who masters what he calls "essence absorbing stance". It looks like a kind of horse stance, in that his knees are bent and his arms are outstretched, but it's at quite a high level - he's able to suck any unanchored object in the vicinity toward his hands, and if he catches you with this stance, he can suck the life-force right out of your core until your head shrivels up and snaps off your spine! Come on, you gotta admit that's awesome!

Okay, okay, I'm convinced. But didn't you say the movie sucks?

Well, yeah, it does overall, but that's beside the point. It became a lot more enjoyable for me after I noticed the martial arts philosophy in it. And you gotta love the Bruce Lee and Muhammed Ali poses, glares, gestures and moves that all the kaiju pull in all the movies from the late 60's and early 70's. You will never find anything in the new series, for instance, like that shot of MG brushing dirt off his front while tilting his head to one side and giving Angilas the icy stare. (If looks could kill!) Or what about that shot where G blows his plasma ray at MG - only it's a split second too late as MG flies off. So G looks right into the camera and snaps his fingers! (The only thing that comes close in the recent films is maybe the shot in Godzilla vs. Mothra '92 where G detaches Mothra from his chest, roars in triumph, and gives a curt nod, like, "That'll teach her to mess with the big G!") Masaru Sato's ready-to-rumble bongo music and soothing tropical themes are quite wonderful, and a real relief if you ever get sick of Ifukube's militaristic stuff. (Alas, the song sung by the Izumi priestess to wake up King Seesar is almost unbearable.) And there's even a reference to the classic original Godzilla vs. Mothra in how the Izumi elder prays that Godzilla destroy Japan and avenge the colonized natives of Okinawa.

So what's the short version?

All in all, I'd say this is not one of the better Godzilla films. But it gets more interesting with repeated viewings. The music is very refreshing. And the fighting has some great intentional funniness. So when you get tired of rewatching the 1993 remake, pop in the original and have a nice time!

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