Absolutely Brilliant!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This movie is unbelievably good - regarding the time it was made. The SFX are really spectacular and everything looks visionary and good. Sure you can see that their capabilities were limited and they worked with drawings or matte paintings which is also well visible. But the story is quite straight forward and contains no flaws. YES, there is a story. The movie focuses on the post WW II world of Japan and how it changed from the end of the war until the mid sixties. It also discusses the issue of war orphans and interweaves it with the story of a - presumably - lost captain who handed his daughter over to his former admiral, she works now for. The 'lost captain' secretly build a hidden base where he has constructed the ultimate submarine to be used to restore 'Japans glory' after the lost war. But his former admiral and his now adult daughter can change his mind to fight for the world against the thread of the MU people - something like Atlantis, just located in the Pacific. As you may notice, this is pretty much of a story, you might not expect with such kind of movie. The movie also lives from many atmospheric shots on the tropic island. Don't forget, this movie was made during the sixties. I own the DVD from Tokyo Shock and I can only recommend it, transfer and sound are very good for an over 40 years old movie. For people interested in this kind of story plus some SF action, I can highly recommend this movie.

I really, really wanted to love this film. Ishiro Honda directing, Ifukube score, relatively obscure giant monster, high-tech flying submarine; all the elements are there for a truly satisfying kaiju experience.But, on that level, Atragon just ain't that great a movie, mainly due to a sad lack of giant monster scenes. It seems like Honda blew the entire budget on the sets and costumes for the Undersea Empire of Mu, and had nothing left for Manda. When cities get leveled, it happens off-camera, with only some newspaper headlines to clue in the viewer that something actually happened, somewhere.Fortunately, it's not all bad. There's a lot of Japanese post-war angst thrown around on the screen, and that's at least interesting from a sociological point of view. You see, there's this Japanese submarine commander and engineering genius, Capt. Jinguji, who went missing at the end of WWII, leaving his baby daughter in the care of his commanding officer, Admiral Kosumi.Meanwhile, at the bottom of the ocean, the Muans are feeling peeved that they no longer control the world like they did in the days before they sunk into the depths, so they decide to reveal themselves and take over. Everyone quickly realizes that the only chance the surface world has against Mu is to find Jinguji and the secret project he's been working on all these years.Unfortunately, Capt. J. has no interest in such petty concerns as saving the world; he built his Supersub solely to restore the glory of the Japanese Empire, and refuses to use it for anything more than (I guess) re-subjugating East Asia, and probably getting back at those meddlesome Americans.Of course, this plan doesn't really fly in post-war Japan. Even the Admiral has pretty much resigned himself to Japan's surrender-enforced pacifism, and J.'s daughter and the other young members of the cast are absolutely horrified at the Captain's goals. This leads to extended debates over patriotism vs. realpolitik, until the Muans find J.'s secret base and attack. Now, it's personal. So, the Atragon is finally launched against Mu, and Manda finally gets let out to play with the sub in the movie's climactic scenes.The scary part is how even-handedly the debate is handled. Neither side is presented as inherently above the other - concern for the fate of the world is seemingly on par with fanatical patriotism and the desire for Empire throughout much of the film. For every scene where, for instance, J.'s goals are equated with the Muans' (a fair comparison), there's a scene where one of the youngsters is scolded for not upholding the banner of Japanese supremacy. Actually, it explains a lot about the craziness of Japanese culture.It's all quite interesting, but kind of dry, and totally lacking in any city-stomping goodness. So, if you're looking to see Manda run amok, you'll want to skip this. Try Destroy All Monsters, instead - Manda gets a few good scenes in that one.

This is one of the better non-Godzilla films from the minds of Honda, Tanaka, Tsubaraya and Ifukube. Even though this film pretty much covers the same ground as they did in the Mysterians (even using some stock footage from that film), it still was a great film. The special effect's work by Tsubaraya has to rank as some of his best and the story is better than average for this type of film. I loved how they pretty much showed how tortured Jinguji was as he was torn between his loyalty to Japan, his love for his daughter and the needs of the world as they were being attacked by the Mu Empire. Also, in an interesting bit of casting, Akihiko Hirata and Kenji Sahara play villains instead of their normal heroic roles. It also was interesting that the threat to Earth in this film didn't come outer space but from beneath the ocean by one of the most legendary lost civilizations after Atlantis. This is definitely a great film.

This is a great kaiju movie from Toho Studios. Right off the beginning of this film, we see an already intriguing scene when a scientist gets kidnapped by a creature from under the sea. The suspense builds when the creatures reveal themselves to be habitants of the Undersea Kingdom of Mu, and that they have come to Earth to reclaim its land (of course the Earth people do not accept that, so it's the super-submarine Atragon to the rescue). The scenes where it show the origin and the places of the Mu Kingdom are very entertaining. We actually get to see what the Mu Kingdom looks like. The scene where the Mu people sing and dance and worship is a real charmer. For this movie, the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya are spectacular and the screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa is exciting, spellbinding, and full of suspense and drama. The plot is solid and perfect and Ishiro Honda's directing is superb. The music by Akira Ifukube is excellent and fantastic. The main title music is full of melody and harmony and is probably my favorite Akira Ifukube music score. And, virtually everybody is in this movie: Tadao Takashima, Yoko Fujiyama, Yu Fujiki, Ken Uehara, Jun Tazaki, Kenji Sahara, Hiroshi Koizumi, Yoshifumi Tajima, Akihiko Hirata, Eisei Amamoto, and Susumu Fujita.The scenes where the Earth humans and the Mu people battle each other is inspiring. Manda, the giant sea serpent, is an awesome-looking monster. He is the protector of the Mu Kingdom. From the sounds of the worships, Manda seemed to be a powerful creature. However, he is actually pretty weak since he hardly put up a descent battle with Atragon, and he appeared only briefly throughout the entire movie. That was a disappointment - more scenes of Manda would have made this an even better feature. But overall, this film is a great one from Toho. Grade B+