Weirdhouse Cinema: Atragon

Published Apr 29, 2022, 1:14 PM

The surface world fights back against undersea aggression! In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss Ishirô Honda’s 1963 Toho film “Atragon,” which features an armored submarine and the debut of the kaiju Manda!

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be talking about the nineteen sixty three Toho special effects Bonanza Atragon, directed by Ishiro Honda, who was probably most famous for making the original nineteen fifty four Godzilla, but who did a bunch of other things. I mean, made dramatic movies as well, but made some of the Kaiju classics like Mothra and things like that, but also some of the weirder ones I was seeing in the film list. Looks like Honda did, like Matango, the movie about the mushroom Island. Yeah, the mushroom people in it. Yeah yeah. I mean we'll get into him a little bit more in a bit, but he he's he is, without a doubt, Kaiju Royalty. It's not to say that that Kaiju movies would not have existed without Issu Rojanda. They might have, but they wouldn't have been the same with a trigaon here. I would say, I went in thinking I was going to get a straight Kaiju movie, but actually this turned out to be something very different than what I expected. It's, uh, I would say, primarily a morality tale about the dangers of nationalism and the virtues of cooperation in the face of great obstacles. And there is a there is a strange beast in it. There is a dragon monster featured towards the end of the film. But I'd say the real special effects spectacle centerpiece here is the submarine. This is also a movie about how submarines can fly. Yes, yes, this is more of a model submarine movie than a rubber monster movie in the end. And and yeah, I too was was It was surprised because the trailers and the emotional images for this film, they really sell the fantasy elements of it, and you think you're going to get more of a you know, sort of a you know, a Pulp era Flash Gordon sque clashing of human civilization and some sort of fantastic hidden civilization that just also happens to be humans and you know, different outfits. But yeah, there's this this deeper message they were going for here. Yeah, this was interesting. So I was reading a write up about this in a book called American International Pictures, A Comprehensive filmography. Now This was a Toho Studios movie, uh when it was made in Japan, but it was released by a I P internationally or at least in the United States. Uh. This is a book by Rob Craig, and one of the things he points out about the film that the villainous entity in the film, the MoU Empire, is that it's an example of an anachronistic motif that was common during the golden age of pulp fiction, the so called lost Empire. Would you know, there's like a nation of people which secretly still exists, unknown to anyone outside of it. And usually this empire combines the esthetics of some kind of pre industrial society with futuristic technological superiority. So they've you know, they're like ancient Egypt with ray guns or something. Yeah, this is um. This is a whole idea of like lost continents and so forth, and that you see. Of course, it's part of a whole occult movement back in the day and and sort of you know, sudo like not pseudo, but I guess a pre conspiracy theory. We would call it conspiracy theory thinking today, I guess, uh, turn in in the culture. But but also of course it leaked into various fictions. So you see it, you see it in uh, in both pulp science fiction and pulp fantasy of the old days, you know, like various like Roberty Howard and Clark Ashton Smith tails. They often concern things that happened on some continent it doesn't exist anymore, so sort of you know, I've forgotten iron age or have forgotten um, you know, history in which these fantastic tales could happen. And then also, uh, you know you can you can cast about and find numerous examples of undersea Kingdom style uh and adventure shows from back in the day. But coming back to the idea of this movie as a moral melodrama, I would say a lot of Kaiju movies have a clearly identifiable moral. It's usually not super complex, you know, It's something kind of simple, like war is bad and should be avoided, or you know, we should not pollute and damage the planet Earth. But despite the simplicity of of these themes, I'd say, for me, somehow, the moral of a Kaiju movie usually comes through with a kind of weird sense of integrity, despite the fact that it is writing into your brain on the vehicle of two radioactive lizards suplexing each other. So the central conflict in this movie is that the Earth is threatened by a force called the MoU Empire. It is a sort of evil atlantis at the bottom of the Pacific. It's ruled by an empress with red hair who wants to subjugate and destroy everyone and the the The Empress will not be satisfied until all of the land lovers on the planet are either killed or kneeling before her, and over the course of the film we find out that there's really only one weapon capable of standing against the superior technology and the and arguably the magic of the MoU Empire, and it is a giant submarine which can fly in the air, drill through rock, and shoot freeze raise. But that submarine belongs to a Japanese naval commander for whom World War two basically never ended, so the war is over, but he goes into hiding after the war and continues to work on this super weapon, which he wants to use to restore the Japanese in Pire to its place of glory and in when he's presented with the situation in the movie, he refuses to join in common cause with the other nations of the world against the MoU Empire, because he's only interested in fighting for the glory of the Japanese Empire specifically, or in the I'm sure it wasn't saying this in the original. In the dub that I watched, one line called it the imperial Empire of Japan. But anyway, the moral ark of the film is his discovery that he must put aside his his sense of nationalistic honor and superiority and and stand up with a good of humankind as a whole. And I think this was a common theme in Japanese films at the time that would sort of promote the idea of international cooperation and and be critical of the idea of nationalism or imperialism. But it uh, it seems to fit also very well with issue ro Honda's particular sensibilities. Yeah. Yeah, it's a you know, it's a it's a monster movie. It's a more like I said, more of a submarine movie. But it is a it is a fantasy adventure. But you gotta fill up. The rest of the film was something and it's not just um, just popcorn in the area. It's a film that's that's trying to say something uh, while also entertaining us with toy submarines and rubber monsters. Now, a note on the title. The Japanese title for the film literally translates to the Undersea Warship, but Toho went with the Atragon for the international title, presumably because it combines the English words atomic and dragon. I guess the worship is the titular atomic dragon here, though, I guess you could also make a case for maybe maybe the actual dragon is an atomic dragon. I don't know. It's supposed to be pretty powerful. I love these Toho portmanteaus. You remember the story about the origin of the word godzilla That was from combining the words for guerrilla and whale. Oh yeah, that's right, it's the guerrilla whale. He's not really either of those things. No, no, now the Yeah. The trailer for this is uh is pretty flashy and impressive. It's it's hard to once you start seeing the looking at the posters for this film, once you start looking at the trailer footage, it's hard to not be pulled into it. It's like a whirlpool. That's how we wound up here, looking around for some sort of Kaiju or Kaiju adjacent film to watch and the uh uh for the elevator pitch. You can't get much better than than what is actually featured on at least some of the English language posters. It is see the Juggernaut of Destruction challenge the Incredible Empire beneath the Sea, which is accurate. That's that's kind of what That's basically what you see in the film, but with a little more padding than that. Well yeah, well, one thing I will also say about this movie is it takes a long time to get to the Moon Empire. There is a lot of this movie has a surprising amount of plot, Like there's a ton of intrigue people sort of chasing each other around. There's a lot of characters that it spends the first twenty minutes introducing all these different characters and essentially just positioning them all on the chessboard to eventually move them to the island where the the Japanese naval commander Jing Gucci is working on his his super weapons submarine. Yeah, it's it's an interestingly kind of complex plot in a way. The way it's constructed here and the way it differs from from your pure Kaiju film, it does make me wonder if something like you could have, like a Shin a Trogon movie take place to you know, be produced today where they take this this basic concept just ultra seriously. Yeah, so we see all the meetings and the rescheduling of the meetings and the moving the meetings to a different location, and yeah, yeah, my mind turns back to to Shin Godzilla. I guess anytime I watch a film that involves you know, Kaiju, and even in the slightest and I guess one of the great things about Shin Godzilla is it's kind of a um, you know, the fantasy there is is both the monsters, but also it kind of presents this optimistic view in which modern governments work, in which they they like all the things they are doing, or a can can actually be pushed in a beneficial direction and solve big problems like monsters attacking the you know, the country, or other things like, um, you know, some of the wicked problems in the world or climate change, etcetera. It's funny. Just the other day I was rewatching one of the original trailers for Shin Godzilla that I think is just a great trailer doesn't reveal too much about the movie. It's just a very well chosen edit of of short sort of scenes of characters again going to meetings and stuff. But it's got this soundtrack set to it, this uh escalating sort of uh string riff that's recorded on almost what sounds like an old timey telephone line or something. Uh, and it it creates this wonderful sense of impending doom. It's really all right. Well, on that note, let's go ahead and hear the trailer audio for the English trailer for Arica. Atrigon the most devastating device the mind of man has yet created. It travels on land and in the sea. It tunnels through the earth. It's cruel. All superman with superweapons can freeze their enemies and enslave them. Fire and fear are the gods of terror. On the hidden content, no thing, no man, no adventure can match the nine amazing wonders of Atrigon, nor the massive powers of its allegoric destroyer. You will see wonders that challenge the imagination. You will see flying saucers. You will know terror that panics the world. At moroccos On me I am Agent number twenty three of the Mule Empire. This earthquake is not accidental. Sounds pretty exciting, right, Dragon, submarines, freeze, raise everything you could possibly ask for an emotion picture. So let's talk about some of the people involved. Certainly at the top we already mentioned is Shiro Honda, who lived in nineteen eleven through legendary tote film director of course Hill nineteen Godzilla, the movie that started at all. He directed forty four pictures in total. Eight of those were Godzilla films, culminating in ninety Terror of Mecca Godzilla. But yeah, he also directed Rodan, The Mysteriens, The Human Vapor Matango, Frankenstein Versus Beragon, The War of the Gargantuans. Those are both films that deal with giant Frankenstein's I was that I think has grown from a Nazi brain or something. Um. I think I was reading the Michael Weldon summary of Frankenstein Versus Bearragon and invited memory serves the heart of Frankenstein's monster is like sustained or resurrected by Nazi scientists to get shipped off to Japan, where a young boy eats it and then transforms into a gigantic Frankenstein. That's basically the plot of Jason goes to Hell. Yeah, yeah, and and and Honestly, it's pretty true to Mary Shelley's vision. I don't think she would disagree with this film at all. Uh. Was just there a part where the giant Frankenstein reads Paradise Lost. Yeah, probably it's they have. That's how they try and um and defeat it. I'm guessing is they have to build a gigantic copy of Paradise Lost it out there with Banks and try and trick him into reading it, make it realize that it is satan. Yeah. Let's see other movies. There's a Space Amba and others. He was a friend of legendary Japanese director at Cua Kasawa, and you see him popping up on some of his projects as well. For instance, he served, as I've seen it, listed as director counselor but also chief assistant director on Kurassow epic Ron. This is the one that is basically like a samurai uh, sort of riff on king Lear. Yeah, it's a great one. Yeah, has unbelievably staged battle scenes. Yeah. Honda. His name continues to a year in the credits on Godzilla movies moving forward, of course, but also you see there are also other homages to him in various Godzilla and Godzilla adjacent pictures. Alright. The screenplay was by Shinichi uh secon Zawa, who lived nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety two, a frequent collaborator with Honda. Inscribe of many Godzilla movies, beginning with nineteen sixty two's King Kong Versus Godzilla, and then this is interesting, This is not a The screenplay was not based on one novel, but kind of took ideas from two different books and sort of mashed them together and then use that as a space, uh to to to comment on the things. I guess that that Honda and the secon Zawa wanted to comment on. That makes sense. Yeah, I can see this being a mash up. Yeah, and I think that's something that ultimately works in its favor. So the first novel would be this, UM. This novel UM The Undersea Warship by shoonro O Chicawa who lived eighteen seventy six through nineteen fourteen, Japanese author and journalist who was also a pioneer in Japanese science fiction. UM, I don't think His influence was was was felt outside of Japan, but was it was very influential within Japanese um uh you know, pulp writing of the time, science fiction of the time. He was inspired in large part by the works of Jules Verne uh So, of course he wrote about sci fi submarines, but in his book apparently the villains are themselves Japanese imperialist who build a great drill headed submarine. Now, the second book is won by Shigeru Kamatsuzaki uh the novel being The Undersea Kingdom. So Kamatsuzaki worked in the in the art departments on this film as well as Honda's fungal horror film A Tango. And he was a prolific artist in Japanese science fiction, specializing in futuristic vehicles. He did in a lot of covered illustrations for model kits, particularly model kits that had some sort of like sci fi TV show or movie tie in, And it's a definite style that I think many people will recognized, Like even if you're not familiar with his work, if you look up his name and look at some of these galleries of particularly of these uh these plastic model kit boxes you'll you'll recognize the style and it's you know, it's it's very like like you know, you know, classic sci fi, a lot of fantastic vehicles with unnecessary drills on them, that sort of thing, polished shiny metal on the surfaces, things that look like flying toasters. Yeah. Yeah, flying toasters is a good a good description. But yeah. He also wrote this novel, Undersea Kingdom, which serves this partial basis for this film, and it concerns an undersea kingdom threat. Okay, so smashing these together, you take what's originally the idea of a sort of remnant Japanese imperialist who who builds a dangerous super weapons submarine, and that's originally the villain of one novel, but in this it's do you take that same character and turn them into a reluctant hero or somebody who starts as uncooperative with the heroes but then comes around. Yeah, and then you combine this with the actual villain being this golden arrow of pulp fiction kind of idea of a lost empire, except it's under the sea and they have a dragon at their command and they have all kinds of technology. Yes. Now, normally we talk mostly about some human actors in this film, but like I said, most of them were Kaiju movie regulators, and we'll mention a few of them when we get into the plot. But really the real stars of this film are are the submarine and then also the dragon of the submarine battles. Um So, I guess starting with the submarine. The submarine is called the Go Tingu um or Go Tango, which apparently literally means roaring heavens, which a nice name for submarine. Like you said, it is the ultimate submarine warship, and it is so ultimate that it not only travels beneath the sea, it can also tunnel through solid stone, it can fly through the air, and it is a spectacular model in a movie that's filled with a lot of really solid model work. Um And, I think it shouldn't be a surprise at all that this apparently sold a number of Gotango model kits over the years, um So. I included a picture from from one of these model kit boxes. I do very much love the look of the design, though I have some practical concerns about this submarine I can raise later now. The Gotango here it was simply just too good to remain in one motion picture, so it would ultimately ultimately return you and Godzilla Island, a TV show that ran through Godzilla Final Wars in two thousand and four, super Fleet Caesar X the movie in two thousand five, and god Zaban, which has been is a web show that at least started in twenty nine and is perhaps still going based on what I could tell on the on the wiki zilla dot com website. I don't think I know any of these except Final Wars. Yeah, and then I should also mention that there was there was. There was also an Intragon two part anime series that came much later, which of course features the submarine You can't You can't do a movie about the Atomic Dragon, about having the Atomic Dragon itself in it uh And speaking of dragons, that brings us to Manda Uh. This is the god bio weapon of them of the move a great serpentine sea dragon that strongly resembles traditional Japanese depictions of dragons, which is one of the things that's into instantly interesting about this this monster design, because you know, you see things like Godzilla. Godzilla just looks kind of like a well, I guess a whale and a gorilla, but more more or less like a big dinosaur and other creatures that Godzilla battles or Gammera battles. You know, they don't they don't really look like monsters that one is instantly going to necessarily identify with Um with pre Kaiju Japanese culture. But here's Manda, and Manda basically looks like, you know, a traditional depiction of some sort of a serpentine Japanese dragon. Um And I think that that ultimately works in its favor um And I imagine it was quite intentional. Apparently it was. Originally some of the early UH pre production art showed Manda is like a big snake, but then they made him a dragon instead, And you think about, like what he's supposed to be. He's kind of a manifestation of war and imperialism, certainly for the people of MoU. But MoU is all so again presented is this dark reflection a kind of underwater world to mirror this this you know, the remnants of warlike sentiments in Japanese culture of the nineteen sixties. So it makes sense that the horrors of the past might be symbolized by a monster that is also draped in history. Yeah, that that makes sense to me. Now he's brought to life via or I can say he it could be a sheet or we don't know. Manda has brought to life via puppetry. But it's not you know, so it's not a rubber suit Kaiju. Uh. So it's uh, it's a slightly different beast than say Godzilla and so forth. But that doesn't stop Manda from coming back in other films and so again. This list is via wiki zilla dot com. Manda returns at least as in a cameo in Destroy All Monsters in sixty eight, All Monsters Attack in sixty nine. That's stock footage. Also comes back at stock footage in Terror of Mecca, Godzilla in seventy five, and then also Godzilla Final Wars in two thousand and four, uh, god Zaban uh in nineteen, and then Godzilla Singular Point a TV series in one so a, Manda still very much part of the Kaiju Toho Pampion. Now, as I mentioned, though Manda is not a major figure throughout most of the film's runtime, Manda pops up basically right at the end um And one of the things that I think makes Manda interesting is that it uh some of it's like big confrontation and fight scene involves underwater puppetry, which I don't know what the challenges were in shooting that, but I found that interesting. Yeah, the underwater scenes, I think are are brought to life rather well in this film, you know, through the use of models and puppetry. Uh. And then I mean there are scenes also with some aquatic humanoids or frog band uh, swimming their way through the water, and it's you know, it's clear that they're they're not actually filmed underwater. They're just they're like hang by wires or something, but it still works. I gotta say, any movie that has long underwater sequences is where where you're actually like out swimming around in the water. I don't mean like in the interior of a submarine or something that's got to fight uphill to hold my attention. I'm not quite sure why, but I think about a lot of movies that have diving scenes, and I just think a lot of those scenes I I tend to want to doze off, Like Thunderball. You know, the James Bond movie Thunderball has got like twenty minutes of just diving underwater, fighting between divers with masks, and stuff and uh and it's it's nearly impossible for me to pay attention throughout that entire sequence. Yeah, and you often have like a prolonged sequence on deck, putting the swim the swim gear on, putting on the wet suit, so that kind of drags it out as well. Weirdly, I would say the same is true for underwater levels and video games. People almost even like those. You ever heard people complain about this. I feel like that's a common sentiment. It's like, oh, it's a water level. Huh, Well I never really thought about that. I mean sometimes it's great. I mean, like the video game Solma that we've talked about before, Like, oh, that is great. But I feel like that's different because that's a sort of atmospheric horror thing instead of something where you're just waiting for the pace of of the action to pick up. Yeah. A lot of times watching an underwater scene in a movie feels like watching an extended slow motion sequence, you know. Yeah, Well, it's often a great place to dump some stock footage as well. You need to pad out the picture. But like I said, I was, I was okay with the underwater stuff in this one. Real quick um. Note on the music here. The music was by Akira if A Kubi, who lived nineteen fourteen through two thousand and six. If A Kubi was a Japanese classical composer who scored such films as the Original Godzilla, Rodan Dimigen, and The Snow Woman, which is a horror film. Uh so he did quite a bit. But certainly this is the name that is also attached to that icon Godzillam musing alright, so well, shall we leap right into the action of the plot, much like this movie leaps right into the action of the plot. Yeah, it does. I wonder if this was an artifact of the version we watched. So I watched the one that was on Amazon Prime, did did you? Well? Yeah? Okay, um, Well, A couple of things about that. One thing is that any any lines I quote are a product of that particular English stub. I don't know if there are other dubs or how well they capture the spirit of the original. But there was some very weird and funny dialogue, and I suspect that a lot of that has to do with the translation. Yeah. In in general, this is often the case. We can give the film the benefit of the doubt regarding the the original dialogue in the motion picture. Yeah, yeah, but so the version we watched also, it just open just jumps right in, like you see a car driving through streets at night, their tires screeching as it whips around corners. It's going into tunnels. And then we see inside the car there is a strange driver in sunglasses and it's nighttime but he's wearing sunglasses, and a passenger riding in the back seat. And then the guy in the back seat suddenly looks around as if he is as confused as the audience about what's happening right now, and he goes, hey, what's up? Where are we going? And uh, and he tries to like grab the driver, but it's it's almost as if the driver is hot or something like he pulls his hand away. He's like and then sort of wilts into the back seat. And then next we immediately cut to an unrelated scene where there are two goofball photographers and a model. The model is wearing a leopard print bikini and they're doing a photo shoot, but they're doing it at like a deserted shipyard at night. Yeah, yeah, okay, so it wasn't just me. It's like it would in fact not be normal to stage a a swimsuit photo shoot at an empty concrete pier in the dark. I mean not without significant lighting, right, I mean, which I don't think these guys had. Is this like Miss Shipyards nineteen sixty three. Yeah, it's for the calendar. So the two photographers will become major characters in the movie. They are named Susumu and Yoshido, and the swimsuit model is played by an actress named Akimi Kita. And if I understand correctly, I think marketing for the American release of this movie may have possibly implied that the bikini lady is a main character of the movie. She is not. I think she's only in this one scene for like thirty seconds. Yeah. I looked Akita up and she was born in nineteen forty and actually has fifty eight credits in IMDb. Looks like a lot of it is. You know, it looks like she was in the various crime thrillers of the day. Yeah, the stylish kind you know, where there's some dude with black sunglasses in it. Yeah, there's a lot of sunglasses in this movie. Did you notice how all the people who we find out our later agents of the moom Pire or wearing sunglasses. Well, that makes sense that they're going to need him to filter out the light of the sun. But anyway, so back to the scene. This scene is a lot like this movie generally is trying to cram a lot into a little bit of run time. But that's especially true in the first two minutes. So you've got the guy in the car being driven by the sunglasses creep. He starts to panic. Then you have the swimsuit photo shoot down at the docks and that's going on, and you have the model. She's like sneezing, I think because it's cold, um. And then the photo shoot is interrupted when the model sees a humanoid figure in a weird outfit emerging from the ocean with steam pouring off of it. It looks like it's wearing a wetsuit covered in crumpled aluminum foil. Yeah, and it kind of it kind of walks that nice line where you're not able to tell is this a wetsuit that is dressed up to look like a monster or is this supposed to be an alien wet suit? You're not sure exactly what you're looking at, uh, given the expectations for a film like this. But so she starts screaming in terror. And then the goofy, or of the two photographers is like, he says, come on, this isn't a funeral, implying that what you normally do at a funeral is scream. Yeah, that's got that's gotta be in this translation. Yeah. Um. And then they they and then they all see the creature. The photographers do to they start screaming, they take pictures. The flash from the camera seems to repel the creature back into the water. Uh. And then immediately the car from earlier with the confused passenger in the back, it just drives off the end of the pier into the water and then there's steam bubbling out everywhere. Then the credits. Yeah, this it really captures this the feeling you have when you decide to get popcorn despite the fact that you're running a little bit late, and then when you get into the into the theater itself, the movie is already up and running and you have no idea what's happening. That's how it feels if you're on time for the big ending of this film. But this opening sequence sets up a mystery in which the two photographers will be players. What actually happened, What was the steamy man? Why did a car drive into the ocean? Who was in it? The story moves on with the car being retrieved from the water with a big winch, and the photographers are being interviewed by the police and they say they say he came up, and I guess they're talking about the guy in the frogman or the guy in the wet suit. He they say he came up, he was steaming, He was steaming. And then there's a police detective. They're talking to them, and he's like, you expect me to believe that, And the guy says, you have to. The camera got a clear picture of him. The cops says, oh, I know you guys and your trick photography. And then the photographer says, oh no, not this time. So, like if they interacted before, I'm not sure. Again, I think maybe something's being lost in translation here, but they do make a connection with what's happening. They say that the guy who was supposed to be driving the stolen car was choked unconscious, and and so somebody else posed as him to drive this guy, and the driver says when he choked me, his hands were very hot. So like, okay, that seems to connect with the the steamy guy coming out of the water. But Robi have a question, now that we have both seen the whole movie in its entirety, did it ever resolve why the agents of the MoU Empire are hot? I don't think they did. This feels like something that maybe was cut or maybe was it was was explored more thoroughly in one of the source novels. Um So, I don't know. I guess they for some reason, their bodies need to run at a higher temperature. They're like cats, I get, yeah, I don't know. So when they're in the water, they're steamy. If they touch you there, they burn you. It's yeah, I don't know. So if they did explain that, it went past me. But from here, right after the interview with the police that was just happening, the photographers look up and they see a woman disembarking from a ship. This is going to be another major character. This is Makoto played by Yoko Fujiyama, and in one of many many weird coincidences that drive the plot of this movie, she will become a major player because she is the daughter of the lost naval commander Jinguji, who is the guy we were talking about at the beginning, who is the uh, you know, the the the guy who never gave up on World War Two. But here she enters the action just because the two photographers happened to see her coming off of a boat and they both do the cartoon wolf eyes popping out thing or they're they're like, I woo, and Susumu is like, hey, look at that random woman we've never met. She's the perfect model. We must photo her. So they like run after her, yelling she's clearly not interested. These guys should take a hint, but they do not, And so she gets in a car and speeds away, and the dude just takes pictures of the car. Yeah, and it's funny too, because I mean, obviously, Makoto is beautiful, and the actor playing Mikoto is is very beautiful. But are they so beautiful that you're just going to run after the car taking pictures of the back of the vehicle. I don't know. You've got a great one of the back of her head through the windshield. Yeah, And later there's a scene where they're like they're developing photos in their dark room, and Susumu is is telling Yoshido, He's like, you have to find this woman. She's perfect, you know. I guess he's he's just he sees her once and he's smitten um and so he gives this order to Yoshido. But Yoshido is like, hey, Tokyo has ten million people, at least half of them are women. How am I supposed to find her? I'd love that he crunches the numbers. But of course they decide they're going to track her down using the license plate number on the car which he caught in those photos. Yes, by the way, I remember how this is going to be a movie about an undersea empire that threatens humankind with global war. Yes, about a juggernaut battle. Yeah, an undersea kingdom. But there's a lot in the beginning about just chasing this lady around. Ye Oh. But then right after this, there's a funny thing where their secretary in their office like buzzes on the intercom and says, excuse me, have you done something wrong? There's a policeman here, and so the police are here to inform the photographers that another man has been kidnapped and taken to the ocean, and just like the previous guy who got kidnapped, he was a civil engineer and an expert in geologic faults. So, m it seems like these people getting driven into the ocean and cars are like they've they've got similar expertise engineers who know about earthquakes and seizemic activity. So it's got to be those steaming man that's right. In fact, they yeah, they're talking to the police and one of the Susumu I think, is like, was there a vapor man again? And the detective says, according to witnesses, he was very steamy, okay, And then it's onto introducing more characters again. As I said, this movie has a lot of characters. So we follow Mikoto to her place of work. You know, she she's the beautiful woman who the photographers had to find and uh so she works as an assistant to the retired Rear Admiral Kousumi played by Ken Yuhara, and in Kasumi's office, Makoto informs him that there is a visitor asking to see him. It is a journalist named Mr. Umino or Mr. I think his name was translated in different ways, but in the dub they were I think they were calling him umn No, but they say he's a journalist and he works for True Story magazine. This guy is my favorite. I love umin No. I love his whole vibe. So he's played by an actor named Kinji Sahara. And in this movie, he's a big guy wearing this big and overcoat along with what looks like a red velvet plaid flat hat and a red scarf. And he's always wearing sunglasses, even indoors, and he is sporting a wicked chin strap beard. He looks like a minnonite beat poet. Yeah. Yeah, And this guy, this guy, he was actually present in an earlier scene of the scene that the docks where they're fishing the car. He was just hanging around, kind of leaning over people's shoulders, acting weird. Yeah. This actor, by the way, Kinji Sahara born. And I still I think it's still I think he's still around. Um. But yeah, not only is the visual presentation of this character great, but I feel like he has also has the most outrageous English dub. He has this wonderful, wonderfully gruff voice. So every time he says something, he has your complete attention. Yeah, everything is like, oh, you're not in a yeah exactly, which is I feel like that is a staple English dub voice of Japanese these films, because I know I've heard, if not the same voice actor, I've heard somebody doing essentially that same voice for certain characters, probably in spaghetti westerns as well. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway, I love Umino. Kinji Sahara is great in this role. I love his outfit, I love his energy. He's just he's just powerful. Uh So the um though, so he's not in the room yet, Like Makoto comes in and says to Kasumi, um you know this journalist wants to see you. And he's like, well, do you know what he wants and she says yes, he wants to talk to you about some naval mystery during the war, and Kasumi says, naval mystery. Tell him I'm not in, but uh, Umino is already in the room and he's like, oh, so you're not in huh and uh And then so I was trying to understand that the doving he says, oh so you're not in huh. And then he says I am in, and I couldn't tell if that was Kasumi saying it or if that was Umino saying it, but either way it was funny. Yeah, oh you're not in, ha, Well, I am in. But anyway, Once they're alone, the journalist reveals that he knows about some secret prototype submarine that is connected to kassume He's past. And honestly, I did not care very much about all of the like different submarine model intrigue, where the different the the A four oh one or the A four oh two or the A four oh three. Uh So I do not really plan on trying to keep all of that stuff straight. I will just say the the weird journalist claims to have knowledge of submarine doings and Kasumi he wants consuming to tell him about more submarine doings, and Kasumi will not. Yeah, for the most part, we just want to see the submarines. At this point, like he keeps talking about submarines. Let's just see him, Let's see him in action. Yeah, exactly. But then the journalist reveals something else. He says that the naval commander Jing Guji, who was presumed to have died in the war, is actually still alive. Somewhere in hiding. And it turns out also this is the scene where we find out that Jinguji is Mikoto's father, so she has believed him dead this whole time. And Kasumi rear. Admiral Kasumi here, the retired admiral was jingu Chi's friend, and he swore to take care of Makoto, to to bring her up, and Kasumi does not accept the journalists proposition that Jinguji is still alive, and he gives a speech. He says, like, your father was a great naval officer and a genius when it came to marine engineering. On the very night he left us, he came to me and asked me to take care of you. He wanted you to have a good life. And then she says, if he wanted me to have a good life, why did he go away and leave me? And then the retired admiral says, he had to do his duty to his country. That's patriotism. You young people don't seem to understand the word, but it meant a lot to us. And I thought that this is a good scene. Yeah, yeah, and you know, because we're establishing uh this uh, this tension between these two characters, but also one of the underlying cultural tensions has explored in the in the picture right Meanwhile, the we cut back to the two photographers, who are still just being frivolous perverts. Uh. They're trying to track down Mikodo to see if she will model for them, and in doing so, they get into a car chase where they inadvertently help foil a plot to kidnap Mikoto and Kasumi and take them beneath the ocean. Uh. So if this I'll try to make sense of this whole thing. So Uh, Kasumi and Makoto are riding along in a car. They're being driven somewhere, and they start talking about how a strange man has been following Mikodo around lately. But she's not talking about the the magazine perverts. She's talking about a different guy who also keeps popping up. But then right in the middle of this, we see that the driver of their car is dressed like the driver of the car and the opening of the movie the guy with the sunglasses. Uh. And but the sky also he's not just wearing sunglasses. He's wearing a captain's hat like Skipper. I wonder if it's just like you know the Moo agents is they're sent out into the world. They just kind of grab surface human garments off of a rack and guess at how humans actually dressed. Like this guy just went into a costume shop and he's like, I'll be a captain today. He's very yacht rock. So Kasumi tries to protest. He's like, wait, where are we where are we going? And and the guy tells them to keep quiet and obey his orders, and then he drives them to the beach. He points a gun at them, and he gets gets him out of the car, order marches them to the water's edge, and he's like, all right, we're we're going to go to the MoU empire. And it like they're standing there at the water with the gunpoint and it really reminded me of the Simpsons episode where where Mr Burns is uh pointing the gun at Smithers and telling him to hop into the plane, but it's a model plane he's holding in his hands, the Casino episode yet one. Uh. There are multiple scenes in this film where basically, if you get to the edge of the water and you jump in, you're in the Empire of move I don't know if it means that like they're supposed to be buildings right there, or if at any given point you can jump into the water and there's probably a moose submarine nearby that will pick you up and take you where you need to go. Yeah, I think the implication is that these people who fall into the water, like drive in in cars or just jump into the waves, are picked up by submarines. But you don't see that happen. So instead, it's just very funny that it's like, Okay, get in the water, then you then you yeah. Yeah, they're withholding a lot of submarine footage for the at least the first third of this picture, if not the first half. But then so the two photographers, because they were chasing after this woman, they run up on this hostage scene and they're like, hey, what do you think you're doing, And the guy in the sunglasses and the captain's hat points a gun at them and says, I'm going to take these people to the Empress of the Moo Empire. Okay, And that's the first we hear about it in the movie. He says, I'm an agent of the Moo Empire. I'm Agent number twenty three, and then uh Kasumi, with a gun like pointed into his stomach, says, listen, you must be crazy. The Moo Empire is the legendary country which disappeared ten thousand years ago, and I think they argue about that a little bit, but then the agent says, I have a special energy, so you can't hurt me, and he demonstrates his power by like, I don't know, like magically heating up a wringe. I think, oh, yeah, that's that body heat coming into play again. Yeah, you can't physically touch them. He certainly can't punch them because they're hot. Yeah, he says, so I have a special energy, you can't hurt me. I'm gonna kidnap Kasumi and Makoto take him to the MoU Empire where they will be enslaved by the Empress. And then there's a scene of tense music as you see the masses of the sort of the entourage of the Moo Empire coming towards the beach too, I guess take them away. And this scene was actually I thought kind of spooky when you see the the vaporman poking their heads up out of the water, and then there's a submarine rising behind them in the distance. Yeah, this, this shot reminded me a lot of what we'd see much later in nine seven Shock Waves, which we talked about on Weird House Cinema. In in that movie, you had undead Nazis emerging from the Florida surf in a shot that that looks a lot like this. I don't know if there's actually any connection here or if they're both inspired by something else, but it's a nice visual. Nonetheless, Anyway, what are we gonna do? You know? Agent twenty three, he's got special energy. Well, despite his special energy, Susumu disarms him, like the photographer guy just knocks the gun out of his hand and wrestles him into submission. Because sum he grabs the gun and points it at him and he's like you're coming with us? Uh, and the the agent just says basically, he's like no, no, and then he jumps into the water, instantly picked up by submarine. Yeah. So we regroup back at the police department where the detectives are investigating the physical evidence for for this whole story, including by looking at the gun, and the one detective is is checking out the gun by pointing it at his face, and clearing down the barrel. Yeah. And then they so they're hanging out at the police station and they receive a package in the mail. It is addressed to Admiral Kasumi, care of the Metropolitan Police Department, and it is from the MoU Empire Agent twenty three. This is where the film really begins to kick it into higher gear. Oh yes, oh yes, I love this. But before we get to the contents of the package with a guy in a white lab coat comes in. He says, hey, the package might be dangerous, let me open it. So they're all like, oh, it's a bomb. But then they just stand around looking over his shoulder while he opens it, so like they I don't know. They don't take it to a secure location. But of course it's not a bomb. It's a film strip. So then we're treated to a movie within a movie. They they appear, they apparently gather all the big wigs to watch this film strip that has been sent to them by the agent, and it is a like it is a short film made by the MoU Empire explaining the MoU Empire to these people. It's like, here's what we are. We're going to conquer you, and this was one of my favorite parts of the movie. It's a Moo propaganda film and it raises a number of questions, like that, does the move Propaganda Department have just like their own cinema uh squad down there? Have they kidnapped cinematographers and cameraman and brought them down? If they have their arther Jacques Gustas who have gone missing so that they can be used for for this function, And then of course I love that. You would think if like an underwater imperial nation wants to make itself known to the surface world, like they they wouldn't just send it to a you know, a random admiral they like, wouldn't this go to heads of state or something or to the United Nations? No, no, they want Kasumi, like for his eyes. So what that say? Well, they say, this is the Pacific Ocean. They show a map of the Pacific Ocean. Thank you, and then they say, for twelve thousand years the MoU Empire has prospered at the bottom of this ocean. This film will prove our existence to you. So they go on to claim that throughout ancient history, the MoU Empire ruled over the entire world, but However, they say, quote, however, because of a curse, our empire was buried beneath the waters of the Pacific that I wish we knew more about the curse, but um. Nevertheless, our ancestors managed to survive by utilizing the heat store deep in Earth's center and other resources unknown to you. We have we have made great progress, as you can see. And well, this narration goes on. They show a bunch of what appears to be futuristic cities in underground caverns, and they have like, uh, I don't know, rail transport and and futuristic looking I don't know, catwalks and stuff, and and flying cars of course, and steam coming out things. It's it's very good. I like the miniature models. Yeah, huge caverns in the earth filled with glass and steel and spheares and also like weirdly old fashioned looking clock towers, um, and and all of it powered by geothermal energy, which which is a cool sci fi concept for for something like this. You know, if you're gonna have underground people have geothermal power, makes sense to be their their energy source. But they also revealed that they have possession of one of those submarines that came up earlier of the A four O three, a Japanese secret submarine that had been commanded by Jinguji, And the film says that Jinguji was not a board when they captured it, and he is currently somewhere designing an even more powerful, more advanced submarine in a secret base. And then the film orders Kasumi to locate Jinguji and tell him to stop work on the super sub immediately. Then the Moon Empire, it says it intends to recover its former domination, and it says the Impress move will soon be supreme ruler of the world. And they show like scenes from the throne room inside the Palace of Moo and all these adoring citizens bowing before the Empress in this throne room with big flames, with a vaguely ancient Egyptian theme. Yeah, yeah, but I think you could also say, maybe, uh, stuff that looks sort of like elements of ancient Greek or Mesoamerican all kind of mixed together. Yeah, also reminds one of various like the Sword and Sandal epics. You know, a lot of a lot of robes going on. Dude standing around with spears, and you know, I feel like this now. I want I want to really I want to like the move propaganda agency here, but I feel like they really miscalculated things. Like basically, they're saying, hey, there's a guy out there who has a weapon and we're afraid of it. Uh, you need to stop him because we want to take over the world. And then you look at us, behold all of our our weird mix of of advanced technology, but also um uh you know, spears and fires, open flames, and yes, we had to steal a submarine. So it seems it seems like they would something more subtle would have made more sense, Like couldn't you just like leak the location or the existence of this uh advanced submarine that you want taken out of the picture. I don't know. Yeah, it is strange that they're like they're saying, Okay, we're going to conquer you, and the only way that you could prevent us from doing that is with this submarine. So we need you to stop making that submarine immediately, and that appears to be true. They're not lying that, so okay. Yeah, well, I mean they are an isolated totalitarian society, so maybe they just don't know how to interact with the world at large anymore. Not great at at negotiating or diplomacy. Yeah, oh sorry. One last thing is they say, if you don't surrender to the new Empire immediately, our god Amunda will bring destruction down upon your heads. I know, we've been saying both Manda and Munda with an A or an u. It's been spelled both ways. All right, so balls in your court, surface world, How are you going to respond? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So we this the film has been screened for this large gathering of political and military big wigs, and they review the film and discuss how to respond. They're saying things like, do you think the Moon Empire really intends to take over the world? I think it's all a big fake, etcetera. So they argue about it. But one thing I love is in this scene, the two photographers are still there and they're like dominating the conversation about what to do. It's one of those classic cases of I mean, I guess there are a lot of movies like this, but like, why is this person still allowed to be part of the decision making process here? Yeah? Yeah, Especially these are just photographers who just who earlier we're chasing around a stranger trying to see if she wanted to become a model. Well, anyway, from here, it's segues into UH into showing us a bunch of attacks by the Moon em Are on the world of the surface. But but first it shows us a newspaper headline that is translated in the subtitles as film threatens Nations. Nice, but it says there's an emergency meeting at the U n how are we going to deal with the problem? And then we see ships out in the water being attacked by submarines. We learned through newspaper headlines that the New Empire has attacked and destroyed the cities of Venice and Hong Kong. Uh. And then uh, in a minute, there is a conflict with a submarine and this is a very weird scene we actually rob Do you want to describe the Red Satan scene? Yeah? So, yeah, we're introduced to a submarine that is known as the Red Satan. And I know that sounds exciting and it's bringing all sorts of fantastic images to your mind. But we're showing this submarine and it just looks like a submarine. It's a it's a nice submarine. It's a like like all the toy submarines in this movie. It's very well executed. Uh wa Utterer and models. It's kind of like flames and models and pictures. You know. If the scale is wrong, if they don't know what they're doing, things can really look like like like toys on fire and toys in the bathtub, and you don't really get a toy submarine in the bathtub. Feel. From most of this picture, I feel like they did a really good job. That being said, the Red Satan is basically a Red Shirt submarine because the Surface Nations they send it out to follow the move submarine and find its base. But in pursuing the move vessel, it travels too deep and the pressure crushes it. And uh, this scene too is uh is pulled off with models and it looks really good. Uh you see the pressure crush this thing like a tin can. Yeah? I like that. But so the big question is whose submarine is this? Like? The crew appears to be from their accents, a combination of American, French and maybe Russian too. Yeah, I don't know a United Nations submarine. I'm not sure. I mean, I don't as far as I know that there's no such thing as like a an attack submarine with an international crew that belongs to no nation, and maybe there is, I don't know, but uh, like this isn't an exploratory scientific vessel or something. This is military war submarine. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, these are changing times, these are challenging times, so the surface world is having to to try new things out. Yeah, and it would fit with the themes of the movie about international cooperation and uh, you know, the good of humanity as a whole superseding the narrow nationalistic interest. All right, So at this point we actually have toy submarines in this movie, but we need more toy submarines, so our fractures have to go out and find them, right, So at this point the movie is propelled to the next stage where okay, finally we've assembled this huge cast of characters and they've all been introduced so that they can end up traveling to the mysterious island where Captain Jinguchi has been hiding ever since the war, which again he basically hasn't given up on um. And so how we actually get there is we meet that you remember the creepy guy who Makoto says, has been following her around. Well, it turns out this guy works for Commander Jinguchi, for for the captain, and he has been with this guy on his island base for a long time. But I guess he's been sent back to Tokyo to watch over his daughter. Or wait, was that the reason? I actually didn't make a note of this. I don't remember exactly why he says the reason he came back. I think that's it. But when they start interrogating him, they find out, okay, he can take us to to Jinguji's island, and he's very cagy about where it is, like he won't just say, but he will lead them there by boat. So our cast of characters are swooshed away to the island of Jinguji where he, as the documentary film by the Moon Empire suggested, he has in fact building a new submarine that is the ultimate weapon. Not only can the submarine fight under water, it can fly in the air and it has a drill allowing it to travel through rock. And not to be pedantic, because like, the submarine can fly, and I'm not bothered by the fact that it can fly. That's great. Somehow, I was a little bit bothered by the fact that the drill submarine, like it has a subterine function. To go back to something we've talked about in a couple of episodes, Uh, it has a drill bit, but the drill bit is narrower in diameter than the sub itself. Yeah, that that wouldn't quite work with it. No, And not only that, the submarine also has a sail, you know, the part that sticks out at the top. So yeah, well we do see I think we see a scene where that that that part of the vessel can retract. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember if we actually see it retract later on when this thing sails through solid rock. So when we get to the island, the characters finally meet the commander who's been built up so much, Captain Jing Gucci, and he and Kasumi, his old friend, are reunited. He and his daughter are They sort of meet each other for the first time. I guess she was three when he left um. But it's a sort of bitter sweet reunion because it turns out he is not very interested in helping them out with their problem. They're like, hey, we're here on behalf of the entire world. We're being threatened by the MoU Empire. We've got to do something about it. They so they want to get him to join in with the rest of humanity and use his super sub to protect it. But Jing Gucci will not budge. He is he is a hard man, and he is stubborn, and he's just still overwhelmed with nationalistic pride. The only thing he wants to use this submarine for is to restore the Japanese Empire after its defeat. And again, I like this because it's You can compare this to various Saint James Bond films, like what if you had to seek out the super villain with his super weapon, but not to stop him, but to say, hey, that's a nice super weapon you got there. Might you help us defeat another threat with it? Yeah? I would. This is kind of like if there was a James Bond villain and James Bond's mission was to go to that guy and say, hey, I know you wanted to use your heat ray against whatever you know the enemy of your country is, but actually we're being invaded by aliens and we need it for that. Yeah, Specter, only you can save us. Uh, don't. Don't you want to do the right thing here? And the question is will he come through in the end? I think you can. You can guess yeah, we will get a happy ending. Jing Guji will be one back over by the by the appeals of his daughter for his daughter's love because you like, they have an argument where he's like, you know, you don't understand. I have duty, I have I have patriotism, I I have responsibilities to uphold and she she's just like not having it. She's like you, you know, I didn't expect you to be like this, and I hate you. And that clearly cuts him to the core. And he eventually comes around in the end and says, yes, he will stick up for humanity against the move. But there are a bunch of other things to talk about along the way, because eventually we get some uh some more conflict with the MoU Empire itself, such as meeting the MoU Impress and the Excellent High Priest of the MoU Empire. Yes, oh, man, I love this guy's whole hair situation. He's great. The MoU Empress also has a great hair situation. She has like like like candy red hair. Um and uh always she always looks really mad. Yeah, she has kind of a like a moody pop goddess look to her. Uh if a moody pop goddess was in a like a sort of biblical epic of the nineteen sixties, Yeah, a lot of folks standing around. And then I did find it interesting that the uh the the ethnic makeup of the people of MoU, it's um it's fairly diverse, much like our scenes of the people of Earth. Uh, you know, the various political uh um groups, different nations coming together and trying to decide what to do. Yeah. I think I read that they reasoned that because MoU is actually gigantic, it's like a continent under the Pacific, that it is a a massive, multi ethnic continent that I guess they have banded together in common purpose to destroy all the land lovers. Yes, so they've overcome their differences. Yeah, yeah, why why can't we? I mean, well, they've they've overcome their differences, but they just want to conquer the world. They're not an example we should aspire to exactly, but but still we have to stop them. Now, there is a great plot line I really liked where Makoto and one of the photographers is kidnapped and taken to the MoU Empire by a double crossing double agent. Can you guess who the double agent among the main cast is. It's Jan Strap, of course, of course it was. He was wearing sunglasses inside all the time. Of course it was going to be him. Yeah. Yeah. Plus he's got that great gravelly voice. Yeah. And there's a there's a really good scene where, uh, they're trying to he you know, he's like you're going to the moo impress and they try to struggle with him, but he can do a thing where he like makes their their head flash with like an overexposed camera effect, and then they just pass out. That's that that body heat, which, by the way, you think they would have picked up on that, right if he's a if he's a move operative, how do they keep from steaming all over the place. Yeah, that's a good question. Maybe they can. Maybe they only steam on command, or they they're constantly eating ice cream, constantly have an ice pop or something. So Makoto and Susumu are kidnapped by the reporter. Uh, and I think the reporter or some other double agents somebody plants a bomb in the in the hangar where Jinguji is super super Sub is captain, and you think, oh wow, that's that's it for Earth. But actually the super Sub survives the bomb attack, and I think it's the fact that Makoto has been kidnapped that sort of finally breaks through Jinguji's shell and he's like, okay, I will help, I will help. Now there is just a lot of plot going on in this. I feel like this should have been a television series or a board game or something. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I feel like you really could have stretched this out, because this is actually a type of plot I really enjoy which has been done in some other science fiction works, where like a sort of outside or alien force threatens Earth as a whole, and especially uh undercuts our ability to defend ourselves by exploiting national divisions and exploiting divisions within Earth to keep us squabbling with each other and not banding together to fight them. Yeah. I mean that this is one of the things that made Game of Thrones so enjoyable. Oh yeah, yeah, that's basically what's going on there, and it's always something we can relate to UM as an international community, as an international viewers can look at this and be like, yeah, why why can't we work together towards these bigger problems? Why are we wasting all of this energy on on strife amongst ourselves. Yeah, it's always easy for some narrow concerned seem more pressing at the moment. So, I mean it's a great type of story. Other sci fi things have done it well, and I think this, Yeah, you could totally have stretched out this, uh the the idea of a trigon over a whole series, or you know, the more of the politics comes into play and stuff like that. But you know, ultimately in the end, we need to have some submarine fights and some monster attacks. So that is what we're gonna get. So we see the New Empire attacking. We know they've already destroyed the cities of Venice and Hong Kong, and now we see them attacking within Japan itself. Yeah, so in this we get into the last third of the picture, which is just constant submarine battles. We finally see uh Manda or Munda released. I really like that scene, by the way, where they basically throw open a door and they're like behold Munda and you just see like a wall of scales there at first, which I really like. Yeah, well I think they do that when they're telling the prisoners from Earth that they're going to be sacrificed to Munda. If I can't remember, if something doesn't happen, if Jinguji doesn't turn over the submarine or something. Yeah, I like this this uncertainty about the monster. Is it is it just a monster? Is it like a bioweapon? Or is it or is it a god? You know, they speak of it as if it is their god. Yes. But eventually what happens is the heroes are able to kidnap the Impress of MoU and take her to the submarine. Uh. And so she's she's there, and uh. There's a scene where they try to negotiate with her. They're like, hey, just you know, tell your tell your monster is tell your people to surrender and we can end this. And she is not having it. She's like, no, no, it is victory or death. Yeah. She's like you can kill me. They'll just keep coming because that's what they've been told to do. So, because he believes he has no other choice, Captain Jinguji is like, okay, I've got a sabotage their technology, so he activates the drill. Oh well, actually first he has to fight munda Um, which they do with a freeze ray up and you know, so this thing is not dead, it's frozen. It can come back in another movie. That's right, and and and does to a certain extent. We do get a nice sequence there where uh Ramondo Amanda wraps itself around the submarine, which of course is great because this is such a Jewels Verne esque moment in the picture. And I've seen that there have been a number I'm not sure if they're model kits or maybe high end model kits or like high end collectibles, but you can see I see that there various statues at least of this interaction between the monster in the submarine. Right. But so after this fight, the submarine drills into the technology at the core of the Moon Empire, shuts down their ability to wage war, but it also causes this cataclysmic explosion that destroys the palace and they so they escape to the surface in the submarine. The Moo Empress is still with them, and I thought there was an interesting scene right at the end, as like things are exploding in the water us the palace is still blowing up, and they she just swims away into the fire and they go They're like, they're like, she wants to die in her own empire or something like that. They're like, let her go. Yeah, yeah, that was that was That was a nice moment, I guess. But also when when MoU is exploding there, it really does look apocalyptic on the surface, all these like billowing like dark reddish clouds of smoke ascending into the atmosphere, and I think this, this can't be good for for for the surface world entirely. I mean, they had to defeat Move, I guess, but I wonder what the ramifications of this are. Yeah, I guess we didn't talk much about, but they're they're extensive shots earlier when the MOVE is uh, when the Moon Empire is attacking Japan of like these strange uh bombing like guided bomb devices that come up out of a volcano and the stuff. Yeah, yeah, I did. I didn't quite get exactly what those were supposed to be, but uh, it looks great. In via archive footage from another A motion picture, it's shown that the Move also have satellites in space, which I don't know. I thought that kind of undercut the idea of an undersea kingdom reaching up into the surface world. But fair enough. Um, there there's all. And they also have the move submarine, which one of the details I liked about that is that they have a debt cannon that shaped like a dragon that shoots laser beams. Yes, well wait, I actually had a question the laser beams. So that was a cannon on the submarine. It wasn't actually supposed to be Munda himself, I don't think so when it when I first saw it, I thought that's what it was. I was like, Oh, it looks like here's here's the monster. But then I think we see that cannon again after the monster has been frozen on the bottom of the ocean. Okay, all right, that makes sense. But it is hard to tell, especially in a pictures like this. Okay, I think that's all I've got on atrigone. Yeah, that's atrigone. There's a lot there. Um. I would struggle to say that it's must see. Um it is. It is an interesting picture. It's interesting and what it tried to achieve. Um, it has some some creative ideas, some creative plot elements. Um. If you if you happen to. I think it would be a fun one to put on in the background, uh, if you were having some sort of a get together or whatnot. Um, the trailers really nice and if you want to watch it as well, well you can do what we did and find a digital rental of it. I think we got our through Prime, but I believe I noticed some other places had it as well that you could at least watch as part of some sort of a package or or by trying the streaming service or another. You can also get it on DVD from Tokyo Shock. And there was also a two part anime follow up, super Atragon, which I don't know much about other than it appears to have the submarine and the dragon in it. Again, I'm not sure if it's a sit full on sequel or just kind of a reamat jenning off the same plot, but hey, maybe somebody out there is familiar with it and can chime in. Alright, alright, so where there we are, we're gonna go ahead and close it out. But hey, we invite everyone out there to share your thoughts on a trigon about any of the various Kaiju movies, uh that we have discussed here will remind you that we're primarily a science podcast with core episodes that publishing the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we put aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema. UM I blog about these movies on Samuda music dot com. Also, we do have a letterboxed account that's l E T T E R b O x D. If you're not familiar with this website, it's like a sort of social media site just about films, and if you want to look us up there, our user name is just weird House. I try to put in Weird House Cinema, but that's too many characters. I would have to do weird House Cinema or something, and that that just doesn't work. Yeah, he's thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind It's production of I Heart radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Deep in the back of your mind, you’ve always had the feeling that there’s something strange about re 
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