Quite hilarious to watch. So many miniatures were used in the production that it feels a bit like revisiting the toy shop where you used to go as a child. "Yosei Gorasu" tells a variation of a familiar storyline "planet on collision course with Earth" insofar as its logical conclusion is not "blow up the invader" but "try and move the Earth out of the way", and for that purpose, an assembly of huge rocket engines is built in the Antarctic region which normally should take 20 years, but they manage the calculation, transport and construction work in a week or so. While any scientist will cringe, the producers openly admit the end of the world is not so serious after all by adding a giant walrus = a guy in a suit who appears without any reason and attacks a power station. The most impressive scenes are those of the flood sweeping Tokyo: a lot of miniatures again with attention to detail, the best you could do in 1962. Mixed bag, but it has memorable moments.

Gorath (1962) is a Toho classic that I recently found on a random streaming service. The storyline follows a giant rock on its way to collide with Earth destroying mankind. A group of scientists set out for the South Pole to build a missile site in hopes of destroying the rock before it collides with us. They'll have time against them as well as other issues in the South Pole as they try to save the planet.

This movie is directed by Ishirô Honda (Godzilla, 1954) and stars Ryô Ikebe (Pale Flowers), Akira Kubo (Sanjuro), Kumi Mizuno (Ebirah), Akihiko Hirata (Godzilla, 1954), Kenji Sahara (Godzilla, 1954) and Takashi Shimura (Ikiru).

The storyline is fairly slow and focuses on the science of the circumstances. The models and "toys" created to create the South Pole and outer space scenes were excellent and very well done. The walrus in this is legendary. The acting and dialogue in this is pretty solid for a science fiction picture. They did do a good job of creating drama heading into the final conclusion.

Overall this is a fairly slow science fiction picture with some great scenes sprinkled in here and there. I would score this a 5.5/10 and only recommend it to diehard science fiction genre fans.

Taking a break from his giant monster movies, Ishiro Honda here offers us an end-of-the-world outer space tale in which Earth is menaced by a giant planet seemingly on a collision course with our own. It's a slow moving and rather ponderous tale which feels like a precursor to ARMAGEDDON at times. Takashi Shimura is a welcome presence in support, but the whole thing is so talky that it takes a very long time to get anywhere, and only the extended climax - involving the usual destruction and giant monster mayhem - livens things up to a degree.