Filmoteka
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
69%
- 336votes
- 3popularity
- 97min
- "Will you win, Godzilla? Will you win, Kong? The battle of the century!"
- Budget:$0
- Revenue:$12,550,000
- Release:8/11/1962
- Genres:Science Fiction | Comedy | Adventure | Fantasy | Action
- Original language:Japanese
- Spoken languages:Japanese | English
- Countries:Japan
Overview:
The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.… Expand Reviews
70%
- Created:10/28/2016
- Updated:6/23/2021
What is there to say about an early monster movie where two of the worlds biggest monsters come together and beat each other up in clunky looking rubber suits? Alright, well it may not be up to the high tech standards of film we're so use to today, King Kong vs. Godzilla is credited as being one of the first "versus" films to start the now very popular trend of bringing franchises together. What an interesting idea. You take a character from one film and another character from another film and bring them together, now to do what is beyond them. But now studios are taking interest in something that should have been done years ago and with the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is now catching on like wild fire. But to the credit, this is the one that started it all. With such a colossal idea, you would imagine that it'd look cleaner. Well to it's credit, it was made in 1962 and Toho was asked by RKO to fork over a giant amount of money for Kong's likeness that substantially hurt the budget. So the real question is, how does it hold up? It's cheesy when it needs to be and serious when it needs to be too. Some people think that the added Americanized footage with Michael Keith and the stock music from films like _The Wolf Man_ and _Creature From the Black Lagoon_ butcher the film. I like to think that it helps set it in the mood among the classic Universal Monster Movies. The fight is a little hokey now but back then, was probably mind boggling. And stop motion techniques spread throughout the film are amazing. On top of that, this has one of the least annoying Americanized dubbings to a Godzilla movie I have ever seen. So is it great? No. Is is bad? No. What is it then? Just good old cheesy fun that needs to be seen to be believed.… Expand 
100%
- Created:9/6/2023
- Updated:9/6/2023
The original clash of the Titans you think the first crossover with these two would take a long time, but no it happened in 1962 and was both monsters third movie but their first in color the characters in this movie are actually pretty entertaining. Definitely better than the characters in raids again. Mr Tako definitely being the stand out in the movie
Godzilla’s design looks pretty good although if you do look at him face on, he doesn’t look that great but him profile he does look pretty incredible. I like them more hunchback to look and this is the first Godzilla movie where we got to see the atomic breath in color and its blue, which would become iconic
King, Kong, design however, is not that great. The body looks like an app that looks fine. It’s really the face that’s a problem. It just looks bad. It looks like they got run over 50 cars and then a semi truck but yet again, the design does work in a way the scene that the movie itself is very goofy and silly so in a weird way it does work, but has a design on its own. Yeah it’s not that great.
You do you have to wait a while to see Godzilla fight King Kong but once you do, it is worth the wait I mean sure they have a brief encounter but it’s very very brief and it’s really just Godzilla shooting his atomic breath at Kong and then Kong running away but the final battle is so entertaining there’s so many great moments like when Godzilla does the drop kick and when he’s just constantly beating on Kong and obviously the tree in the mouth Just a fun fight
Overall, this movie is really entertaining and a lot of fun and definitely one of the better Godzilla movies out there… Expand
TOHOJapan
Tokyo LaboratoryJapan
