User blog:Danzilla/Review: King Kong Escapes

Author: Danzilla
If you are reading this right now, chances are you're probebly a fan of japanese monster flicks. In addition, you probebly know who Eiji Tsuburaya is. If not, read on. If so... well just read on anyway. The driving force behing japanese kaiju eiga (or monster movie) was Mr. Tsuburaya, who created the special effects that make those films so memorable even today. From 1954 to 1969, Tsuburaya brought monsters to life, both on the big screen and on television (go Ultraman!). But every great man has his inspiration. It is very unlikely that Tsuburaya would have even gone into special effects in the first place if it had not been for one, very important factor: King Kong. Released in 1933, the original Kong is said to not only be the first real "monster movie", but also the film that has inspired more people to be film makers than any other film ever made. One of those people was... you guessed it...Eiji Tsuburaya! Ever since first watching the film, he yearned to make a monster movie of his own. As you all (hopfully) know, he got his chance in 1954. Needless to say, the film Gojira (Godzilla) has become a classic itself, and was responsible for launching more than 50 years worth of japanese monster films. Even after working on Godzilla and numerous other films durring the fifties, Tsuburaya would get to fufill another dream in 1962... to create his own King Kong film! King Kong vs. Godzilla alowed Tsuburaya to combine the "inspiration" with the "inspired" (not to mention allowing him to get that Giant Octopus concept out of his head). But there was still more to come. In the mid 1960's, the American film studio Rankin Bass approched Toho Studios with the idea of combining forces to create a film version of their popular cartoon The King Kong Show. The film, featuring an amalgom of American and Japanese actors and actresses, was to be Rankin Bass' first foray into live action filmic entertainment, and trusted Toho, producer of many a monster fick, to make it work.

The King Kong Show told the story of the courageous Prof. Bond and his family, who work with Kong himself to regularly save the world, while avoiding the eeeeeeeevil Dr. Who (cue: creepy/omonous organ music), who (no pun intended) wants to use Kong for his own eeeeeeeevil plans (not the least of which is avoiding the lawsuit a certain British "Dr. Who" has been threatening him with). The new film version, now dubbed Kingu Konu no Gyakushu (or King Kong's Counterattack), was to keep some aspects of the show intact, but really did it's own thing in terms of plot and charactors in the end. Tomoyuki Tanaka, producer of all of Toho's kaiju eiga at the time, was signed on as producer, and director Ishiro Honda, who had helmed five of the then seven Godzilla films and numerous other science fiction/fantasy films also joined the project. Composing the score was the one and only "Monster Mestro" himself, Akira Ifukube, who has scored almost all of Toho's monster films for more than ten years. And last but certainly not least ,when it came to special effects, there was only one man for the job... the one and only... drumroll please... Chuck Berry! ..................................................... Well, that lame joke/disturbing visual aside, Eiji Tsuburaya eagerly jumped at the project and gave it his all. In 1967, Toho reliesed not only Godzilla's eighth adventure (Son of Godzilla, in case you were wondering), but also the studio's second King Kong film, which would be reliesed internationally as King Kong Escapes.