Movie Reviews of the Old, Odd, and Obscure (Part 4)

Dogora starts out as a space cell

A nice shot of Dogora lifting a bridge

This photo exemplifies the gorgeous colors used in the film for these shots

The DVD cover

Dogora, the Space Monster (1964) Toho


The movie begins and occasionally reverts back to a silly plot about Japanese diamond thieves trying to figure out who or what is taking their stash of gems. Well, you guessed it. Large floating cellular creatures are eating these gems and as they continue to consume they eventually mutate into giant jellyfish looking creatures from space. They are ultimately revealed hovering in the upper atmosphere and are then shown sucking up carbon based material from the earth. At first we see a jewel thief, vehicles, and then eventually scenes of whole piles of coal being pulled up into the clouds. After a while, the creatures use more and more power and eventually trains, bridges, and other structures are shown breaking apart and then flying up into the sky.

Dogora is fascinating to me for no other reasons than it's weird and kind of cool. Although the movie is not exactly a thrill ride and the characters are rather dull and wooden (not to mention the atrocious dubbing of American actors voices in place of the original Japanese - worse than usual anyway), the movie contains some absolutely beautiful special effects shots. Once the goofy plot gets out of the way and the creatures are finally revealed floating in the atmosphere, the viewer is treated to some really nifty shots of destruction. The scenes of coal, trains, and bridges flying into the air are probably the best effects work ever created by Eiji Tsuburaya (Toho special effects master behind most of the original Godzilla movies as well as other Toho creations). The movie was also directed by Ishiro Honda who helmed most of those same movies.

The DVD showcases a nice clean print with vivid colors and very few blemishes from the original film source. If you're not a rabid fan of these kinds of movies like I am, it's probably best to just skip ahead to all the monster sequences and ignore the dull and annoying dialog scenes.