King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

In case you were unaware, GODZILLA VS. KONG isn’t the first time these two titans have battled…

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Director: Ishirô Honda
Stars: King Kong, Godzilla, Tadao Takashima

A giant ape and a nuclear lizard duke it out for TV ratings.

A note before we start: There are actually two versions of this movie. The story goes that Willis O’Brien, a stop-motion artist that worked on THE LOST WORLD, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, and the original 1933 KING KONG, came up with an idea for a King Kong vs. Frankenstein movie. He pitched it around Hollywood in the early 1960s, gaining the attention of HARVEY producer John Beck. Beck took the project to Japan behind the writer’s back and sold it to Toho Studios, who promptly replaced Mary Shelley’s monster with the much taller Godzilla.

Beck’s deal included the rights to craft an English version of Toho’s final product and release it stateside. So he hired two writers (neither of whom were O’Brien, who remained royally screwed) to reframe the events of the movie as a television news report that overexplained everything in true American fashion. They cut and rearranged scenes, filmed entirely new sequences, and even inserted footage and music from other movies. The result is very…different.

Suffice to say, I’ll be reviewing the superior Japanese cut of the movie (though both versions are available on the Blu-Ray, if you’re curious), because no one wants to watch an American Godzilla vs. Kong movie. Oh, wait….

“It’s over, Kong! I have the high ground!”

KING KONG VS. GODZILLA is actually only the third movie in Toho’s GODZILLA series and the first time their beloved title creature was ever seen in color on film. The movie itself is a mixed bag. Studio heads wanted to broaden the appeal to all ages, as opposed to the original’s more ominous tone and message, which resulted in a lot of unexpected humor and silliness in the performances and action. I definitely wouldn’t call it one of the best GODZILLA films, but there’s a delightful cheesiness in seeing these legendary, over-the-top creatures come together in such low-tech ways that makes it highly watchable.

And it was a strategy that—for better or worse—paid off. KING KONG VS. GODZILLA was insanely popular upon release, still ranking as the Godzilla movie with the highest box office in Japan. It also kickstarted the franchise again after the second film’s lukewarm response from critics and audiences, so thanks King Kong!

How I let my wife know I’m in the mood.

In a prophetic bit of timelessness, the movie opens with a scientist on television talking about the Arctic melting and sea levels rising at alarming rates, to which the person watching changes the channel and yells, “Boring!” This man is Mr. Tako, the head of a pharmaceutical company, who thinks the key to industry domination is corporate sponsorships on television and garnering huge ratings no matter the cost. (He also keeps flipping a coin to let fate make his decisions like Harvey Dent.)

Tako hears a story about a “Mammoth Evil Spirit” that lives on an island in the South Pacific, so he does what any rational person would do—sends two of his top employees to find whatever this large malevolent being is and bring it back to Japan, so he can put it on TV and sell advertisements. This satiric message about valuing sensationalist entertainment over meaningful discourse and corporate greed over people’s lives is just another part of this movie that feels eerily modern.

The two men arrive at Faro Island, which is populated solely by Japanese people in blackface, and of course discover that the “Mammoth Evil Spirit” is, in fact, King Kong. There’s an awesome sequence where Kong fights a giant octopus that mostly uses a real octopus slimily sliding around a miniature village. Soon after, Kong gets drunk on some red berry wine and the villagers put on a full song-and-dance sequence to lull him to sleep, giving the pharmaceutical goons enough time to build a gigantic raft and sail Kong back to Tokyo. (That must be some good wine.)

Around the same time, the aforementioned global warming also reveals a glowing iceberg that contains a hibernating Godzilla, who wakes up and also starts making his way to Japan.

This fighting move is called "Middle School Slow Dance."

There are two title fights in this movie. The first one is so disappointing, I almost believe that they did it on purpose just to make the second, final showdown feel amazing by comparison. The bystanders watch as the two titans square each other up, with one dubbing it “the battle of the century.” Instead, King Kong just throws a couple of rocks at Godzilla. The giant lizard breathes fire and scares Kong, who scratches his head, turns around, and walks away. That’s the entire scene.

This might be a good time to also point out that RKO Studios, who owned the official rights to King Kong, told Toho that their version of the character legally could look nothing like the one from the American films. Perhaps that’s the reason this King Kong comes across so amateur and laughable, not just a guy in a costume, but a guy in a really bad costume. I recognize this was almost 60 years ago, but even by the standards of that time, this monkey suit wasn’t impressing anyone.

The face that sunk a thousand ships.

The two giants split up and separately wreak havoc on various Japanese municipalities while the army tries to rein them in. First, they get Godzilla to fall into a shallow pit and bury him, which goes as well as you imagine. (Although it does lead to one great moment where a general answers the phone and is like “What do you mean that didn’t work?!”) Then they try to electrocute Godzilla with 1,000,000 volts of electrical wire, a slight increase from the 50,000 they used in the first film. This actually deters the king of the monsters, but when they attempt the same tactic with his furry enemy, King Kong decides to instead bite the wire, absorbing all the electricity and making himself stronger. The movie realizes this is completely absurd, so it has a doctor explain to a reporter that “Lightning once struck a postman in Switzerland. He survived, but he was charged like a battery.”

And in true Kong fashion, the giant ape also manages to find and steal a pretty girl and take her to the top of a really tall building. You may be wondering, in the middle of all that’s already going on, why would they recreate such an iconic moment? Apparently this was another legally-binding requirement when RKO licensed Kong to Toho: at some point in the film the big monkey had to stand atop a building holding a screaming woman. Luckily, while Kong is ripping off his own movie, the military takes this opportunity to make bombs out of the same red wine from earlier. They drop the bombs and play the racist tribal song until he falls asleep again.

The UP – OPERATION DUMBO DROP crossover took everyone by surprise.

This leads to the ultimate showdown in the most spectacular way possible: the army ties Kong to a bunch of balloons and airlifts the snoozing ape to Mount Fuji and literally drops him on to Godzilla. And thankfully, the ensuing brawl is much more satisfying.

The final fight was inspired by professional wrestling, which was gaining popularity in Japan at the time. As a result, it looks exactly like two grown men in suits fighting—punching, kicking, rolling around on the ground—instead of monsters of enormous scale attacking each other. It’s completely, gloriously ridiculous. At one point, King Kong runs at Godzilla, who moves out of the way, causing Kong to trip and knock himself out. And in true wrestling fashion, Godzilla turns around and starts celebrating to an imaginary audience instead of noticing his opponent is getting up.

Since Kong’s previous encounter with electricity, he’s no longer susceptible to Godzilla’s atomic breath. But that’s not the only benefit: Out of nowhere, during what is otherwise a perfectly sunny day, a lightning storm appears and strikes Kong, which, as one character so astutely puts it, is “like Popeye’s spinach.” The massive monkey is now super strong and supercharged and can electrocute Godzilla with every strike. First order of business: uproot a tree and stuff it down the lizard’s throat.

Eventually the fighting leads them to a cliffside spa, where the two proceed to fight the building more than each other. Eventually they fall into the ocean together, which is sort of a cop out. However, only Kong eventually surfaces, and immediately starts swimming home to his island, so I guess he wins?

Adam Wingard, you have your work cut out for you.