Just the Ticket #204: King Kong VS Godzilla

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Master Of Crossovers.

Yeah; I changed things up with the byline this week because "Master Of the Tickets" (a "King Of the Monsters"-inspired take on my usual Ticketmaster alias, not to be confused with the byline for my One Piece Multi-Piece reviews) is awkward to say, and I've done more than my fair share of crossovers on this platform. It may be called Just the Ticket, but if you're reading my content for the first time, I review anime, comic books, music, books, and TV series as well as movies, and I have occasion to mash them together or create themed weeks if there's a common thread.

Also, welcome (back?) to the Month Of Love, and to Goj-Year-ra!

Over the past several years (possibly the last decade or more), there has been much critical conversation about tonal consistency in big-budget cinema, particularly the toxic derision of "Marvel humor" or "James Gunn humor" by media-illiterate, self-identified critical personalities as a means of dog-whistling their "side" in the culture/fandom war they perpetuate, giving the illusion that they can recognize when or if said humor undercuts serious moments in the films they claim to have seen.

I am not a credentialed critic myself, but I am educated enough and have watched enough movies in my lifetime to generally be able to articulate my opinions and experiences in amusing ways, and am possessed of a personality that compels me to share such things with whoever will listen to (or in this case, read) what I have to say.

And most importantly in this modern era of content, I am human. I write, format, and curate visuals for, everything you see on this blog. My humanity should be evident by the fact that I'm still writing a blog in 2026, but I digress. Support human-made content, Ticketholders!

The story of King Kong vs Godzilla is a pretty interesting one, but also grimy enough that I'll try not to let it affect my opinion of the the film itself. Long after King Kong's previous entry (Son Of Kong in 1933, the same year as the first film), original Kong stop-motion animator Willis O' Brien began shopping around an idea for a King Kong Meets Frankenstein crossover (eventually workshopped into King Kong vs the Ginko and then King Kong vs Prometheus because of studio ownership rights). Due to the prohibitive cost of stop-motion animation, shifts in the studio system of the day, and producer John Beck being an underhanded turd, the idea wound up in the hands of Toho (with Willis O'Brien not receiving creative credit because the deal was made by Beck behind his back, and relatives claimed the stress of this contributed to the animator's declining health and death). Again for rights issues (though three years after King Kong vs Godzilla hit screens, Toho and director Ishirō Honda would bring us Frankenstein vs Baragon, a.k.a. Frankenstein Conquers the World, which would get a pseudo-sequel in War Of the Gargantuas) and because it would be a cool thirtieth anniversary release for Toho, Frankenstein's monster was replaced with Godzilla, and in 1962, magic was born.

The team of Honda, Tsubaraya, Nakajima, and Tezuka returned to the Godzilla franchise after nearly ten years (Godzilla Raids Again was in 1955) with "tough guy" actor Shoichi Hirose suiting up as Kong.

I mentioned tonal inconsistency earlier for a reason, and unlike the modern aversion to comedy in "serious action cinema," King Kong vs Godzilla is dragged down by the opposite issue in greater concentration, with greater contrast. King Kong vs Godzilla is a silly production from the start, serving as a reboot of the classic Kong origin and being predicated on a satire of corporate-sponsored television. A cartoonish pharmaceutical company CEO (Ichirō Arashima, a.k.a. "The Japanese Chaplin") is dissatisfied with the ratings and income of the science show he's sponsoring, and so risks his company's reputation by sending two bumbling goons (Frankenstein vs Baragon's Tadao Takashima and Mothra vs Godzilla's Yū Fujiki, both in stereotypical pith helmets and khakis)

and their interpreter sidekick (character actor Senkichi Ômura in brownface) to bribe the natives of Pharaoh/Faro Island (more Japanese people in brownface and stereotypical tribal dress) with transistor radios and cigarettes so they can...somehow...capture King Kong for a publicity stunt (that has not been thought out or planned beyond "gEt GiAnT mUnkEy"). Thankfully, an American submarine (where everyone wears dress uniforms and business suits and they're badly dubbed over in their own English voices, but still scream "Gojira!" in Japanese, because this is just so enjoyably silly) collides with the iceberg that Godzilla has been frozen in since the end of the last movie seven years ago. How did the iceberg get from the middle valley of a mountainous island to the middle of the ocean? Don't worry about it! The new plan is "gEt GiAnT mUnKeY tO fIgHt GiAnT lIzZuRd, GiT mUnNiYe." I haven't generally enjoyed the human plots in these movies (I couldn't tell you any of the characters' names, relationships, or actors in this movie without looking them up, either, to be honest) because they're either unlikable or completely forgettable if the movie doesn't blatantly remind me who they are, but I was almost disappointed when the slapstick corporate satire I had been watching for roughly half the runtime was suddenly replaced by rampant scale model destruction and two furries throwing fake rocks at each other.

There is an enjoyable middle bit where Kong fights a giant octopus (you have to ratchet up the brightness to see anything, but it's worth it) and gets drunk while the natives perform an elaborate dance number to the tune of a rearranged "JSDF gets ready" theme. But after that, the movie's attempts at re-hitting the beats of the classic Kong (including the big ape being fascinated by a random woman, played by Bond Girl Mie Hama of You Only Live Twice, and carrying her to the top of a building one sixth the height of the Empire State Building—so he just walks up to the central tower of the National Diet Building and stands next to it with a doll in his hand for a few minutes before the humans arrive to put him to sleep and rescue her), while also trying to adhere to the spirit of the first Godzilla, start to get in the way of enjoyment and genuine human interest that I felt in the first half or so.

There is also a decent plot progression with the two international titans of cinema (Kong handily loses the first round because of Godzilla's atomic breath, but a holdover from the Frankenstein script gives him the upper hand in the rematch) and the hilarity is not entirely gone (characters seeming to randomly teleport from certain death scenarios into important conversations because of editing, Japan erecting massive but ineffective pieces of infrastructure overnight and wasting a small country's worth of fossil fuel to lead Godzilla a few miles away for a few seconds, air-lifting an unconscious Kong with weather balloons, etc.), but there comes a point where you're stuck in this third act purgatory of wondering what happened to the movie you were watching, but also waiting for the big fight to start already and hoping it isn't a disappointment.

Thankfully, the rematch delivered. With both suits being bipedal, the second Kong vs Godzilla is more varied than the Anguirus fight in the previous film, feeling like a wrestling match rather than an awkward, feral scrap. The titular monsters use the terrain of Mount Fuji to their advantage, sliding, rolling, tackling, and trying to bury each other in rubble, and it gets even more epic when a thunderstorm rolls in, turning the tide of battle.

The ending isn't the most exciting or clear with regard to Godzilla's fate, but the message of the film is clear (basically that the money you get for fucking around isn't worth the cost of finding out, that wild animals deserve the respect of not being disturbed for our amusement, and that giving children cigarettes is deserving of a fate worse than levigation by giant ape), the variety of effects on display were creative and enjoyably hokey, and I had a fun time watching in an MST3K/RiffTrax kind of way.

C+

A sequel was planned that would have seen Kong as the target of a misunderstanding after rescuing a baby from a plane crash, with Godzilla being revived to stop him and both kaiju being destroyed in a volcano, but it (and a Frankenstein vs Godzilla film) was ultimately scrapped in favor of a Mothra crossover (that I will be reviewing next week). Toho would later collaborate with Rankin/Bass on King Kong Escapes in 1967 as a live-action adaptation of the animated King Kong Show, with plans to have Godzilla face Mechani-Kong from that film in the future, though that was also scrapped in favor of 1993's Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (which I will get to because this is Goj-Year-ra).

Until then and as always, please Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read because there's no such thing as easy money, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content, like what's coming up next week.

108

Ticketmaster,

Crossing Over,

And Out.