War Of The Gargantuas (UPA English Language Version) (1970)

aka’s: Furankenshutain No Kaijû: Sanda Tai Gaira/Frankenstein’s Monsters: Sanda vs. Gaira/The War Of The Gargantuas/Adventure Of Gargantuas/Duel Of The Gargantuas/Katango/
フランケンシュタインの怪獣 サンダ対ガイラ

A freighter is attacked by a giant octopus during a stormy night. The octopus is then attacked by a hairy green giant (Haruo Nakajima). The Gargantua then turns his attention to the ship and sinks it, killing and eating all the crew, except for one (Ren Yamamoto). When the surviving crew member tells the police what happened, they call in Doctor Paul Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) and his assistant Akemi (Kumi Mizuno). Several years earlier, Stewart had a younger species of the same creature and it is feared that the monster has grown up and now views man as an enemy. After several attacks, the monster is cornered in a forest near a mountain area of Japan and is nearly killed when shot with super laser beams. Nearly electrocuted, just before it dies, a second and larger brown monster (Hiroshi Sekita) arrives and saves it. This is the creature that previously escaped from Stewart’s lab, now fully grown to be over 100 feet tall. The brown one then takes the green monster to safety to help it recover, not knowing his “brother’s” evil nature. After the green monster recovers sufficiently, he resumes his rampage. But when he stops to rest, the brown one finds out how evil his brother really is and soon the two begin to fight. The green one then runs off and soon heads for Tokyo. While he is there, he grabs Akemi and is about to eat her when the brown one arrives. The green monster drops Akemi, severely injuring her. The two monsters then resume their fight and eventually wind up in Tokyo Bay, where napalm bombs are dropped on them and a volcano erupts, seemingly killing both. Features an excellent display of special effects photography and miniatures. Also stars Kenji Sahara, Nobuo Nakamura, Jun Tazaki, and with Kipp Hamilton.

This film is a sequel to Frankenstein vs. Baragon aka: Frankenstein Conquers The World (1965). However, all references to Frankenstein were cut from this film.

Tab Hunter was originally chosen to play Doctor Paul Stewart.

When the film was released in America, Russ Tamblyn had to re-dub his own voice because of a malfunction in the soundtrack.

In one draft of the script, the film was to end with the volcano not only destroying Sanda and Gaira, but the lava was to destroy Tokyo and the remaining cells of the two monsters as well.

This film was not released in the U.S. until July 29th, 1970, where it played on a double bill with Monster Zero (1965).

NOTE: This is the rare UPA (United Productions Of America) release of this film, which is no longer being circulated on television and other media outlets. This version is far superior to the International version, which has an inferior audio track, image quality, and omits several special effects shots. This version also has far superior picture quality than the International version (which is currently flooding the market) and is the same version everyone grew up watching in the 1970’s on local television stations.