MOSURA

(vt Mothra)

   Film (1961). Toho. Dir Inoshiro Honda, starring Frankie Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyoko Kagawa and the twins Emi and Yumi Ito. Screenplay Shinichi Sekizawa, based on a story by Shinichiro Nakamura, Takehido Fukunaga, Yoshi Hotta. 100 mins. Colour.

   Aficionados of Japanese MONSTER MOVIES find their delight not only in the monsters themselves: the attraction depends also on the sheer bizarreness, to Western eyes and ears, of the stories and dialogue. M is perhaps the most notably grotesque of all in this respect, its relatively mundane giant moth being amply compensated for by the eccentricities of the story. Two 6in (15cm) women (the Ito twins), kidnapped from an island whose inhabitants have beenmutated by radiation, are used as nightclub singers by an evil "Rosilican" (i.e., US) showman (Kagawa). Back on the island a huge, venerated egghatches in response to prayers from the local natives, and the giant caterpillar that emerges swims off to Japan to save the dwarf-girls, whose piping singing voices act as a homing signal. It makes a mess of Tokyo and spins a cocoon; the giant moth that emerges goes off to Rosilica (where the showman has retreated) and saves the girls. This is Toho's most sophisticated MONSTER MOVIE; its imagery, though lunatic, is surprisingly poignant.Mosura never developed the following of GOJIRA (Godzilla) and GAMERA, but did reappear 4 times, in Mosura Tai Gojira (1964; vt GojiraTai Mothra; released in English as Godzilla Vs. The Thing; vt Godzilla Vs. Mothra), where, called by the tiny twins, she saves Tokyo from Gojira; Ghidorah Sandai Kaiju Chikyu Saidai No Kessan (1964; vt Chikyu Saidai No Kessan; released in English as Ghidrah, The Three-Headed Monster), in which she defends Earth from an alien monster, helped out by Gojira and RADON (Rodan) when she can't do the job on her own; Nankai No Daiketto(1966; released in English as Ebirah, Horror of the Deep; vt Godzilla Vs. the Sea-Monster) dir Jun Fukuda, the first of the series not to be dir Honda, in which Mosura takes part in an aerial evacuation of people froman island about to explode; and Kaiju Soshingeki (1968; released in English as Destroy All Monsters; vt Operation Monsterland; vt The March ofthe Monsters) dir Honda, a poor film in which all 11 Toho monsters get together.

   PN