It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Daikyoju Gappa introduces us to another of those Japanese monsters who delight in wrecking the urban areas of Japan. A great country apparently to be in the construction business.He's not the most fearsome of monsters. Imagine Godzilla with wings and a chicken head and you have Gappa. Scientists from Japan on another expedition to a south sea island come back with the recently hatched Gappa as the natives call him. They also don't take it away from them, but the scientists know better.Quite frankly the monster looks so ridiculous I can't imagine it scaring anybody above the age of 4. Still these Japanese monster films do have a goofy enjoyment factor in them no matter how bad they are.And they made tons of money back in the day.

First let me state that I didn't hate sitting through this film nor did I find it as bad as some others may have painted it. Nonetheless, there is no doubt it is not a particularly well-made movie nor is it cleverly acted nor are the special effects really good even for its time nor is the story very well-conceived. Some rich Japanese guy sends his magazine reporters with scientists to find tropic flora and fauna in the South Seas. They end up discovering an island with Easter Island-like totems/idols, some very primitive yet surprisingly educated jungle natives, and a prehistoric egg that happens to house Gappa - one of the dinosaur, reptilian bird-like creatures that has lorded over the island since the beginning of time or such. The egg opens and this crew decide to take this creature back home for a theme park island. Trouble awaits them though when the baby bird-like creature's parents rise up from a watery pit and look for their spawn - destroying Japanese industry, homes, and everything that lies in their path. It seems that the baby can emit some kind of signal to its parents alerting them where he/she is, but they have no idea as they continually land in heavily populated areas so we can see them destroy miniature sets. The miniature sets are probably the best thing about the film as they are first-rate, but the costumes of the monsters are rather ludicrous as is their sound and the flying that they do. This film has some campy fun moments reminiscent of Godzilla movies, but also lacks some of the creativity and talent ion particular behind the director's chair. Still, this movie is okay I guess. Not much of a recommendation but certainly not a condemnation.

This turkey involves a wealthy Japanese man recovering a bird-like monster from an expedition. Combining the "King Kong" and "Gorgo" story lines, they take the creature home for fun and profit. It turns out to be a baby, so mother and father chicken do a ballistic "Godzilla" walk over Japan. There are a lot of unbelievably poor "special effects". Toys go crash! Bang! Boom! Re-titled "Monster from a Prehistoric Planet" for English speaking audiences; it's laughable in some respects, offensive in others. Unfortunately, it's more offensive than funny, and only a cut above washing diapers.* Daikyojû Gappa (1967) Haruyasu Noguchi ~ Tamio Kawaji, Yoko Yamamoto, Yuji Okada

Okay, first of all, the "Prehistoric planet" of the English title is Earth. "Monster from a Prehistoric Planet" is, in fact, yet another Tokyo rampage style big monster film with lots of buildings being crushed, planes shooting rockets, and hysterical Japanese people running around aimlessly for hours on end. It's also, in my humble opinion, not only a lot of fun but good in it's own way, despite the fact that it definitely fits the MST3K style interest.Really, the movie is about familial piety in traditional Japanese society. The nervous explorers take the child Gappa away from the pious traditional family, and as a result they send Tokyo into flames. Their boss, who is shown refusing his daughter the opportunity to have a mother, never learns his mistake because he's blinded by greed. The woman explorer sums up the movie by stating, "I should be like other women and stay at home." Yes, it's sexist, ridiculous, and absolutely bizarre. But considering it holds on to those values while glorying in the imagery of men in rubber suits crushing models of cities, it seems more like the camp of this movie is a result of it coming from a perspective that has changed in society, both East and West. At any rate, it's not really that much worse than Godzilla.On the other hand, yes, mostly the reason why I like this movie is because I couldn't stop laughing during its entire play-length. Some of the most absurd situations are shown in this movie, one of the most bizarre being the, "This sound is hurtful to HUMAN ears..." dialog. A little girl running around a corner saying, "Wow, it's really big!" A comedic relief foolish person who constantly trips over everything. A "cannibal" parade on what is so obviously a sound-stage. The fact that the heroes decide that when rockets don't work, they should try again, this time with, you guessed it, rockets. It's all very laughable, but charming in its b-movie way.At any rate, I enjoy it.--PolarisDiB