Agon the Atomic Dragon (Review)

Agon the Atomic Dragon

aka Maboroshi no Daikaiju Agon

1968
Directed by Norio Mine and Fuminori Ohashi

Agon the Atomic Dragon began as a 1964 TV miniseries Maboroshi no Daikaiju Agon (Giant Phantom Monster Agon) produced by Nippon Denpa Eiga (Japan Radio Pictures), but a four year argument with the sponsors of the show delayed it airing until 1968. The four shows were combined into a movie in the 1990s, and that is where most Western audiences became familiar with it.

The four episodes are titled:
Agon Appears – Part 1
Agon Appears – Part 2
A Dangerous Situation – Part 1
A Dangerous Situation – Part 2

The Agon monster suit was created by Fuminori Ohashi, a protégé of Eiji Tsuburaya. The suit was modified with sabretooth fangs and resurfaced on the first episode of The Space Giants as Dinosaur, and was then brought back as Aron for episodes 13-16. And that is the end of Agon. More information here.

Agon was released on dvd in Japan, so swim to Japan and pick up a copy. Or order it from the internet. Or if you are in Japan, then just go to the local DVD store and head past the many many many aisles of anime porn until you reach the giant monster rows and it should be there. Somewhere.

Agon (Etsuji Higashi) – Agon is short for “Atomic Dragon” and looks suspiciously like another fire-breathing lizard. Giant Phantom Monster Agon is sort of a jerk, and he smashes up power stations and refuses to kill a little kid that is trapped on the boat that is in his mouth for hours. Why won’t you kill that kid, Agon? Agon then acts like a dog and gets distracted.
Goro Sumoto (Shinji Hirota) – Goro is a star reporter despite being late constantly. This should tell you the quality of journalism in Japan. Goro is the Gilligan of Japanese reporters, for he bumbles around and he wears a white hat a lot.
Detective Yamato (Asao Matsumoto) – Detective Yamato hangs out with his good buddy Goro all the time despite being a hard-boiled detective and Goro being a klutzy simpleton.
Professor Ukyo (Nobuhiko Shima) – Professor Ukyo not only names Agon, but he knows a lot of professor stuff and does work with nuclear power.
Satsuki Shizukawa (Akemi Sawa) – Professor Ukyo’s assistant and love interest to Goro. She owns a dog who likes to sit in the middle of the road and tease drivers. This dog is destined to be a pancake. Is one of those girls who falls down when running from monsters and gets trapped.
Monta (Yoshihiro Kobayashi) – This annoying kid is our stupid Kenny character. Nuke all Kennys from orbit and spit on their graves.


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Young Flying Hero (Review)

Young Flying Hero

aka Return of the Magic Serpent

1970HKMDB link
Directed by Tong Chim
Written by Poon Lui

Young Flying Hero is a rare Taiwan film. It is so rare I even wrote a Rare Movie Time!!!! post about the film, thinking I would never get to see it. But, rare Asian films have been falling out of the sky recently, and one of those films just happened to be Young Flying Hero! There are no subtitles except for permanent Chinese subtitles, so that’s no real help. But this is TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!

Young Flying Hero achieved semi-legendary status as hard to find among collectors, due to a painted poster that appeared regularly on ebay and some lobby cards with giant monsters. But hardly anyone could get a hold of the actual film. Thus, people began to wonder just what kind of monster action happens on screen. Having now seen the film, I can tell you it is actually a children’s film, with a young boy as the main character. The giant monsters appear briefly in the film despite their prominent place on the poster art, with less than five minutes of screen time at the very end. There are too few Chinese giant monster films (other notable films are the equally as rare (or even lost) Devil Fighter and rare War God.)

Taiwan fantasy is rapidly becoming one of my favorite subgenres because it can be both insanely bizarre but amazingly entertaining at the same time. There are about a dozen more Taiwan fantasy films in the pipeline, many of which are responses to the Shaw Brother’s epic movies. But I’ll save a history of those films for one of the other Taiwanese fantasy films, because I haven’t finished writing it yet. One interesting thing is the alternate title for the film is Return of Magic Serpent, which may be a reference to the Japanese film Magic Serpent!

Enough background, let’s get on with the show!

Brother (Pa Gwoh) – Our Young Flying Hero! The son of a family captured by the Evil Warlord, and trained by a mystical sifu who gives him flying powers. Then he frees the kingdom and becomes a bored kid general. His name might be Tee-Sho.
Sister (Hong Ling) – Sister of the Young Flying Hero and the maker of some food that wakes up the Sleeping Beauty. Doesn’t do much except get captured repeatedly.
Goofy Hair (???) – Goofy Hair is the son of the guy who turns in the family of our hero to the Evil Warlord. Unlike his father, Goofy Hair isn’t a greedy idiot, even if he doesn’t have the best hair stylist. He is the Piggy of Young Flying Hero.
Evil Warlord (Chiu Keung) – Evil Goofy Mustache Black Wolf symbol on outfit. He is so evil he takes over the kingdom, but doesn’t kill the rulers right away because of politics. Eventually, the Young Flying Hero kicks his Evil Warlord butt. He reminded me of Phantom of Krankor from Prince of Space.
Scorpion Guy (???) – Scorpion hat and dual claw blades that look like weapons straight out of Battle Beasts.
Centipede Guy (Yeung Fui Yuk) – Have you ever seen a dude with a centipede hat and a centipede weapon? Because you have now.
Spider Woman (Tin Mung) – Special power includes creating giant spider webs and the power to pull people into said spider webs.
Frog Guy (Lu Wei) – Has tiger stripe clothing but his hat is a goofy frog hat and the dude is fat like a frog.
Lizard Guy (???) – Has a snake-themed crown, lizardy weapons and a costume that looks sort of like scales.
Giant Frog (Himself) – He’s a big naughty frog who shows up and smashes some castles but he doesn’t have immunity to little kids flying down his throat and chopping stuff up. Is probably Frog Guy in Giant Frog form.
Giant Dragon (Himself) – A Giant Dragon shows up because we need giant dragons doing…stuff… and then he dies. Yeah. Way to be a dead giant dragon, Giant Dragon. Is probably the Lizard Guy in Giant Dragon form.


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Cleavagefield (Review)

Cleavagefield


2009
Directed by Jim Wynorski (as Salvadore Ross)

Yes, this is an erotic parody of Cloverfield, and it follows most of the plot to the nines. It is complete with random shots of other days, and most of the film is a first person hand held camera. Since the film isn’t entirely taking itself seriously, there are a few instances of breaking the fourth wall. The film occasionally breaks into shots of Tom’s visit to Hawaii where there are two blonde girls (Davina Murphy and Dallas Lowe) that just ended up being annoying, so I fast forwarded through those parts.

Cleavagefield is a humor movie, so don’t expect cool monster sequences and military fights. Expect naked chicks and a monster strolling along every once in a while. The origin of the film is interesting, it started out as a joke on the Retromedia Message Boards and people got interested. Thus, the joke became reality. It was originally joked under the title Chestyfield, for those of you who are interested. At this time there is scant information about the cast online, and due to the fact I am not as knowledgeable about some of these actresses as I should be, I don’t know what other names some of them are probably better known as (Brandee Schaefer in particular) I tried, that is all I can say.

Maggie Daniels (Brandee Schaefer) – Maggie is a good mother to her chihuahua and willing to go to any lengths to get her back. Even braving a giant monster is no challenge.
Vicki Conners (Amy Ried) – Vicki Conners is the most famous stripper in the film, she will be headlining clubs in Asia, one of the few people who will go to Japan to get away from a giant monster! Amy Ried has starred in such fine pornographic fare as Leztravaganza!, The Boobs of Hazzard, and Cum in My Ass Not in My Mouth 5.
Carla (Rebecca Love) – Carla is all about the debriefing. Rebecca Love was seen her previously in Ghost in the Teeny Bikini and Bewitched Housewives, so read those if you want more on her.
Debbie (Lucia Santos) – Debbie is the girl who knows how to operate the TV remote. Yep. She also manages to get attacked by one of Junior’s pets. Her preening for the camera reminds me of Vanessa Hudgens. Lucia Santos is an actress of the adult variety, and was in The Da Vinci Coed.
Tom Warner (Frankie Cullen) – Our cameraman who will give sarcastic jokes throughout the film. At various times he leaves to join in the action himself. Frankie Cullen was in Bikini Airways.
Fifi (herself) – Maggie’s dog who likes to watch. Is a practical joker and watches TV. Fifi is more developed as a character than any other cast member.
Junior (CGI – credited as Guy Green!) – The Cleavagefield monster! He’s green, he’s mean, he’s got a big belly. Junior tramples around downtown LA because that’s what he does. Has snot attacks and is impervious to all weapons. Please ignore how he looks like a monster from the old Superman cartoons.
Junior’s pets (CGI) – Junior is crawling with some flying lobster monsters that were dubbed his pets. One of them tries to make dinner out of Debbie. At one point these were going to be moth-mites and chew off people’s clothes.


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Gehara: The Dark and Long Hair Monster (Review)

Gehara: The Dark and Long Hair Monster

aka Chohatsu Daikaiju Gehara aka Long-Haired Giant Monster: Gehara

2009
Directed by Kiyotaki Taguchi

Gehara is a made for TV short that is the brainchild of cult entertainer Jun Miura, who wrote the screenplay. Special effects guru Shinji Higuchi supervised production on the short film, and it was directed by Kiyotaka Taguchi (who also did the independent kaiju film G.) It aired on Japan’s NHK network in February 24th, 2009. It hit the internet thanks to a Japanese YouTube-like site, and thus TarsTarkas.NET was able to watch it.

Hideo Akihara (Ken Osawa) – Hideo Akihara is a slacker who finds new purpose in life investigating the new monster Gehara. Ken Osawa was in Samurai Fiction
Momoko Akihara (Mina Fujii) – Hideo’s sister who doesn’t have much to do, though it looks like she would have a bigger role in the sequel.
Tsuruko Akihara (Mitsuko Oka) – Matriarch of the Akihara clan and also doesn’t do much doing to the short nature of the film.
Professor Mikami (Shiro Sano) – Professor who explains technical details of the monster attack to Hideo and others. Shiro Sano was also in kaiju films Godzilla 2000, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, and Godzilla Final Wars)
Gehara (???) – Gehara is very hairy. He is not only a giant monster, but a long haired ghost, thus killing two birds with one stone. Evolution may have killed its monster with Head & Shoulders, but here it would only prevent Gehara from getting dandruff!


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Commercial Monster Bios

We have gone and nerded out after our last two articles on kaiju commercials, Godzilla Commercials Part 1 and Godzilla Commercials Part 2. Now we present to you the entire cast list, small bios for each monster, and fun facts you may not know. So enjoy this look into the lives of monsters from commercials, because no one else is crazy enough to pull this off!

Over-analysis and comparison of Commercial Kaiju:

BC Dairy-zilla – Destroyer of cities, except hampered by his lack of nutritional knowledge. BC Dairy-zilla is now on Boniva thanks to the help of Sally Field.
Powers – punching, speech, fire breathing.
Weakness – brittle bones due to lack of calcium
BEMBOS Kong – BEMBOS Kong is a food critic for the local newstalk station KURV, the Curve. Spends most of his time wandering the city searching for new eating pleasures.
Powers – smashes stuff good.

Weakness – gets tired after eating
BEMBOS-zilla – This relative of Godzilla likes to drink espresso and owns a fair-trade coffee collective.
Powers – Raspy voice.

Weakness – overexcited.
Charles Barkley – Charles Barkley is mysteriously gigantic! Again!
Powers – NBA skills, commercial skills, drunk driving skills.

Weakness – not a role model, late night sex hookups.
Ford Kong – Don’t mess with daddy! Ford Kong doesn’t fall for sob stories, and spends his time raising his son right. How sad is it when a commercial gorilla is a better father than the dads of many in America?
Powers – Angry Stare, emotional response, truck stamping, truck tossing
Weaknesses – The power of love, blondes.
Ford Kong Child – Likes them build Ford tough. A fan of smashing things, avoiding dinner, and trying to get away with stuff.
Powers – Truck ramming, crying attack.
Weaknesses – still only a child
Godzilla Charles Barkley Edition – Godzilla just gots to jam some time. But he isn’t very good at it. Get some game, Godzilla!
Powers – Bringing it to the court.

Weakness – Getting schooled by Charles Barkley.
Dr. Pepper Godzilla – Godzilla is mad, and he wants to quench his thirst. Godzilla is also picky, and the only thing that can satisfy him is Dr. Pepper. If this were true, wouldn’t Dr. Pepper plants be attacked more by daikaiju?
Powers – Atomic Breath, smashing stuff.
Weaknesses – Dr. Pepper, Hatred for all other beverages.
Dr. Pepper Godzilla Girl – This female Godzilla smashes into town, and can only be loved by giving her Diet Dr. Pepper.
Powers – Same as Godzilla.

Weaknesses – Handsome monsters bearing Diet Dr. Pepper.
Goody Godzilla – Is a nice Godzilla-like fellow who sends his money home to his family. Due to being a working family man, he has an uninteresting biography.
Powers – Electric flames with curve effect, powerful armor, banking skills, family loyalty.
Weakness – Most actors are unemployed constantly.
Goody Godzilla Mom – Mother of the nice Godzilla-like fellow. Lives with his wife and kids, and reads his mail.
Powers – raising a good son, helping watch over in-laws.
Weakness – if something happens to her son everyone will starve!
Honey – The Honey Nut Cheerios Bee – Cereal spokesbee and all around good person (bee). No longer slave to the Queen, Honey heads the Swarm Liberation Movement in addition to his commercial and spokesbee duties.
Powers – Knows how to solve all problems with Honey Nut Cheerios.

Weakness – If he stings you, he dies.
Hummer Robot – Giant robot with glowing eyes that hangs around the city, Hummer Robot’s life was changed forever when a giant lizard stomped into his life. Now a proud husband and father, Hummer Robot uses his skills to build freshwater wells in Third World countries, giving clean water to millions.
Powers – Lizard seduction, Lizard mating skills.
Weakness – no robot-sized condoms.
Hummer-zilla – Godzilla clone who is a girl and falls in love with a robot. Constantly after her child for not being fuel efficient enough.
Powers – Hair styling, Robot seduction, Breeding.
Weakness – says she’s on the pill when she isn’t, strange pregnancy cravings.
Pepto Max Fly – Giant fly who also does work for Habitat for Humanity when he isn’t making people homeless due to his rampages.
Powers – Flight.

Weaknesses – Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset stomach, Diarrhea!
Pepto Max Foot Woman – The Former Mayor of Davenport, Iowa, is now 50 feet tall and dressing like an Amazon!
Powers – Giant Lady Powers.

Weaknesses – Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset stomach, Diarrhea!
Pepto Max Giant Robot – The coolest commercial robot can blast stuff and fly, and eat things! Is the older brother of Hummer Robot.
Powers – Laser beams from eyes, flight.

Weaknesses – Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset stomach, Diarrhea!
Pepto Max Paul Bunyan – Paul Bunyan and his giant ox Babe have recently done a 180 and now lobby governments for more logging restrictions to protect the environment, while also promoting farmed wood and pay raises for flannel seamstresses.
Powers – Stare power, ability to summon a giant blue ox.

Weaknesses – Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset stomach, Diarrhea!
Pepto Max-Zilla – An avid audiophile, Pepto Max-zilla enjoys collecting vinyl records.
Powers – Tree eating.

Weaknesses – Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset stomach, Diarrhea!
Taco Bell Dog – This dog. This freaking dog!
Powers – brains, speech, box, eventual bigger box.

Weakness – If you don’t look where you step he will be the next Gordita filling.
Thailand Godzilla – Thailand has more Godzillas than Japan. Figure that one out after you figure out how he got his braces fit! What was his co-pay?
Powers – Flame breath, horn power, tongue action.

Weaknesses – Runs out of fuel, humiliation, occasionally blasted into space.
Tiny Guilala – Little Guilalas who run around the city and do little except annoy. They suffer from crushing depression.
Powers – tiny roars, tiny flamespark breath, can almost dent a car

Weaknesses – less annoying than pigeons

That’s all we got for now, but there is still a bit more of March of Godzilla 4 to go!

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Godzilla Commercials Part 2

This entry chronicles commercials starring Godzilla-like creatures and other kaiju. We got some wacky-looking monsters and some just different enough to not get sued monsters both trying to get us to buy their wares. Check out Part 1 for more commercials, and stay tuned for Part 3, which will be where I totally nerd out so much it will frighten some of you.

Bembos – I had no idea what Bembos was until I saw this
not only is there a King Kong creature running through the city, but a Godzilla-ish monster shows up at the end!
Bembos is a hamburger chain somewhere in South America, and make big hamburgers. The only thing big enough to satisfy this gorilla, who grabs one and bites and bites, finally getting stuffed. Too stuffed to play with the raspy Godzilla clone at the end. That Godzilla clone has the most demonic voice I have ever heard. It is crazy. I like it!

[FLOWPLAYER=http://tarstarkas.net/movies/gc/BEMBOS.flv,320,270]

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