REIGO, KING OF THE SEA MONSTERS (2008)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

By happenstance I saw the 2009 quasi-sequel to this film first and assumed that director/co-writer Shinpei Hayashiya was just another kaiju-hack. But the original movie, while not quite complex to stand with the best of all kaiju flicks, is one of the few such movies worthy to stand beside Ishiro Honda's 1954 GODZILLA KING OF THE MONSTERS, at least in a dramatic sense.

Most will remember that the first GODZILLA takes place ten years after Japan lost WWII. By that time, as I mentioned in my review, Japan has become somewhat Westernized, and when the Big G raises his fire-breathing head, one doesn't know if he represents an ancestral dragon, wrathful at Japanese apostasy, or if he's the incarnation of the bomb by which Japan's military was laid low.

Reigo himself is not that ambivalent, but Hayashiya definitely means to center Reigo's threat in the culture of WWII Japan. But he comes at the problem from an earlier vantage, in the waning days of the Japan's naval action. In what is presumably the 1945 of this fictional universe, the legendary flagship Yamato-- often pictured as a symbol of Japanese might-- is in on its way to its next mission, which will culminate in its destruction. But before the crew of the Yamato meets that fate, they are allowed one last victory, over the menace of the deep-sea dragon Reigo.

I won't dwell on the individual characters, but they're good two-dimensional types that encourage viewer identification, even though they serve a cause to which most American audiences would be opposed. Its narrative strategy thus strongly resembles that of Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 DAS BOOT, which encouraged viewers to sympathize with WWII German submariners. But even before the assorted sailors report to their next assignment, one of them learns of the legend of the sea dragon Reigo. Thus, like Godzilla, the giant monster has had some previous contact with humankind.

Naturally, it takes the intrepid Japanese military men some time before they fully credit their sense: that they're being attacked by a colossal finned monster that generates electrical bursts. But the creature doesn't play favorites, for it's already destroyed an American destroyer. One survivor of the blasted ship is taken aboard the Yamato and as it happens, he speaks almost perfect Japanese and can tell the soldiers about his experiences.

One never knows why Reigo keeps repeatedly attacking the Japanese flagship. Maybe he just recently came close to the surface after a long deep-sea hibernation, and assumes that all big ships are rivals for food? At any rate, even though REIGO was independently made and its starring monster is thus an obvious puppet, Hayashiya makes up for this minor defect by emphasizing the varied emotions of the sailors as they try to defeat the menace so they can, well, get back to killing Americans and Europeans.

Despite some reference to the 2008 film in the 2009 quasi-sequel, the two creatures have very different forms and powers, and I tend to consider "Reigo" and "Raiga" separate entities.