Atragon

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source: Atragon

This surprisingly militaristic science fiction movie from Toho Studios finds us surface dwellers under threat from the underwater survivors of the great sunken continent of Mu. Our only defence is the flying, burrowing, undersea-battleship 'The Atragon'*, which is being built at a secret underground shipyard on a tropical island. While Mu agents are searching for the ship and its designer, Captain Jinguji of the Imperial Navy (Jun Tazaki), to neutralize the threat it poses to their plans, Retired Admiral Kusumi (Ken Uehara), Jinguji's daughter Makoto (Yoko Fujiyama), and some reporters locate the secret base and endeavour to convince the Captain to help defend our world against the Mu invasion. Unusual amongst concurrent tokusatsu from Toho (e.g. Gorath 1962), Jinguji has no interest in helping the world but instead plans to use his super-battleship to restore the power of the Japanese Imperial Navy, despite the fact that the war has been over for almost 20 years. He changes his mind after a Mu agent destroys his base and kidnaps Makoto, and so the Atragon goes to war. Despite the fact that the Mu have numerous submarines armed with powerful lasers, flying machines, are capable of generating targeted earthquakes and are protected by Manda, an immense sea-serpent, they don't last long against the might of the Atragon. Considering this film was made less than two decades after Hiroshima, Jinguji's war is surprisingly all out and there is no discussion of negotiated 'peace', just victory vs. defeat. There are a number of scenes in which the Atragon 'away team' use their deadly zero-rays on Mu workers who seem to be only armed with knives and ultimately the entire underwater civilization is obliterated, presumably including non-combatants and children. Even by 1960's tokusatsu standards, the story is contrived and far-fetched. Production values vary: the Atragon may be iconic tokusatsu hardware but looks it looks a little ridiculous when flying and the battle with Manda is somewhat anticlimactic; on the other hand, many of the special-effects shots in the massive Mu power-plant are outstanding for a pre-CGI film. Famed daikaiju director Ishiro Honda does a pretty good job considering he's working with a story that is neither as interesting nor as compelling as his early Godzilla films or standalone science-fiction films such as 'Gorath' (1962) or 'The Mysterians' (1957). Akira Ifukube provided the excellent score, which is similar to his memorable work on in the Godzilla films. All in all, 'Atragon' is an entertaining yarn but it's not as good as most of the science fiction features produced by the legendary studio (although it's much better than 1969's 'Latitude Zero', with which it shares a number of features). *So named in the English-dubbed version I watched - the ship is variously known as "Go-tengo" and "Atoragon" in other versions.

Did this piece of crap get 6.5 stars? Is there a time machine involved and someone went back to 1963 and a couple thousand under-10 year olds gave it this rating?? Because I cannot WILL NOT believe that 21st century people gave it 6.5 stars. OH!!! That's it! An alien plot to rot our brains and conquer the earth! That's as plausible an explanation as possible.

Japan and the rest of the world are under the threat of attack from the mysterious underwater kingdom known as Mu. Their plan is to turn the land into their colonies and enslave the surface dwellers. The people of Mu fear only one thing – Atragon, a super-secret (so secret in fact that no one knows about it) flying submarine that has the potential to defeat the Mu. But Atragon is being built by a Japanese officer from WWII who is unaware of his countries surrender. He's reluctant to use his new submarine for anything but the greater glory of Japan. But when the Mu kidnap his daughter, he softens his stance and finally agrees lead the charge against the Mu. Overall, I can't help but be very disappointed by Atragon. The movie sounded so good – a flying submarine, a mysterious underwater kingdom called Mu, and a giant snakelike creature named Manda. What could go wrong? Well, the plot is what went wrong. Nothing much happens during the first ¾ of the movie. I don't know how many times I found myself waking up and reversing the movie. There's not enough flying submarine, Mu kingdom, or Manda to make Atragon exciting. It's not until the finale that something exciting finally happens. And it's a shame because I find I usually go for the more offbeat of the Toho movies that stray from the usual Godzilla storyline. For example, movies like Matango or The Mysterians are among my favorite Toho films. And Atragon had Ishiro Honda directing and a cast that included several familiar and solid actors. Atragon also features the standout Toho miniatures I always enjoy. But in my opinion, everyone involved was letdown at every opportunity by a less than stellar screenplay. I just expected (or at least hoped for) better.

*SPOILER WARNING* Sort of a Japanese Captain Nemo story, ATRAGON has to do with a super submarine that can do damn near anything and the part that it plays in saving the world from invasion by the evil forces of the Mu empire. When the Mu invaders show up, they boast of their superiority, yet they request that we not use Atragon (the super-sub) against them. Those wussies... Anyway, much butt is kicked and the serpent monster Manda makes its debut here. Manda is probably best known for the train derailment scene from DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, and is kind of cool since it looks like a traditional Asian dragon. As Toho flicks go, this has more plot than usual, but I still think it only rates a **1/2 out of a possible ****.

I'm sorry, but for me, this movie was certainly not one of Toho's gems. I found the film to be quite frustrating actually. I watch these films because I love the amazing creatures and monsters that the humans have to battle. In this movie, the monster did not make its appearance until over halfway through the film. What's worse is that it did not break free and begin attacking anyone until nearly the last 20 minutes of the film. Given that fact, the battle lasted less than 5 minutes with Manda being taken down by the crew of the Atragon very quickly, with no real "battle" as you would have thought there would be. I don't want to say this film was a complete flop however, it seems to me that this film is more of a Japanese patriotism propaganda film in some instances, and a monster flick in others. But to each their own!

This technically gets counted as a Kaiju movie, because it has the serpentine Manda in it for a few scenes. But Manda largely seems like an afterthought. Toho was trying to make other films, but realized that pretty only had one star, and that was Godzilla. The story is the lost Mu Empire lives under the sea and wants to reconquer the Earth. The only thing standing in their way is an eccentric Japanese sub commander who started building a super-submarine on an uncharted Island. This sub can fly, drill through the earth, shoot a freezing ray, and makes a darned nice cup of sake. Okay I made that last part up. A large portion of the film is modern characters trying to convince the captain to use his sub for the benefit of the world rather than the greater glory of the Japanese Empire. Like many Toho films of the 50's and early 60's, World War II is still very much in the rear-view mirror, and it shows here. At the end, the Mu Empire is defeated and the Mu Empress chooses to die with her people, perhaps a commentary on imperialism that had about as much subtly as Godzilla being a stand in for nukes. The copy I saw was on Amazon Prime and it wasn't a very good copy, scenes were blurry. This is a film that could do with a good remastering.

There's something about this film that I can't help but like. Everything is just one step beyond plausible. The bad guys have all sorts of powers that are used once and then never used again. The flying submarine Atragon has been built completely in secret by an Japanese Navy unit, in self-imposed exile, that is preparing to win World War 2 for Japan in 1963! There's a giant pet serpent that attacks the submarine. An entire city is destroyed in a way I won't describe but is completely wacky. Silly and lots of fun. The special effects go from great to cheap to unbelievably weird. The movie is slow at points but when the sub finally takes off, it's non-stop action. You'll recognize the actors from many of the Godzilla films.

Toho have made some fantastic movies over the years, deep powerful emotional bleak epics and titanic monster movies! But when it comes to scifi they tend to fall flat for me. Atragon tells the story of a long forgotten civilization living deep within the earths core that has risen up to seek dominion over the globe once again. With a giant monster in tow, lots of practical effects that certainly haven't aged well and an instantly forgettable cast this is not one of their most memorable titles. I'm quite hard to please when it comes to scifi at the best of times, I'm simply not a sci-fi guy but I've found plenty over the years that I've enjoyed. Toho scifi's however up until now haven't been able to, and this is one of their better efforts in that genre. The Good: Toho charm The Bad: Looks naff Plot is inconsistent Things I Learnt From This Movie: It is difficult to distinguish between fish and submarines Japan is not part of the world