Gappa, the Triphibian Monster

Enjoyable kaiju film with big giant blue birds as the monsters. Annoyingly family friendly but that’s usually the case with many of these older monsters flicks. I’d like to see a subtitled copy as the dub is grating.

AKA Monster from the Prehistoric Island, typical Japanese monster movie, you either love them or hate them, this one is about average for it's age, maybe a little better than average.

This movie has a very strange vibe to it, which I think can be attributed to the fact that I've never seen an even reasonably clear copy of it. I own this on DVD and have streamed it from a couple of different sites and the picture quality has made it almost not watchable in every instance.

From what I have been able to see, a group of explorers visit an island of natives in the South Pacific who fear and worship a god called "Gappa". So this is basically stealing from the original "King Kong". Eventually they find an egg that hatches, producing a cute baby Kaiju. Against the natives wishes, the explorers take the baby back to Japan. Then, a Mom and Pop pair of kaiju, that look like a cross between Rodan, Godzilla, and Woodsy the Owl, attack Tokyo or some semblance of a Japanese city. This is more or less a swiping of the plot of the British monster flick, "Gorgo".

The attacking kaiju couple wreak havoc and cause mass destruction until the stubborn cradle robbers give the baby Gappa back to its parents. Once reunited, the baby Gappa is taught how to fly by spreading its wings. This lifts it and the grownup Gappas off the ground, where they glide without ever flapping their wings, into the sunset.

I watched this again today with the hope of seeing a better print of the movie. Nope. It was the same washed-out, fuzzy version as every other time I've seen it. So, I'm convinced there are no good copies of this in existence.

I'm not curious as to whether the lack of print quality has an overly negative impact on the movie anymore because I can't force myself to watch this pretty bad movie again.