Dogora is a flying space squid/jelly fish that feeds by sucking up carbon. While coal and diamonds seem to be the creature's preferred foods, Dr. Munakata (Nobuo Nakamura), the film's resident scientist, is concerned that if the monster decides to ingest other sources of carbon, life on Earth could be destroyed. The rarely seen beast seems indestructible but a swarm of high-flying bees and rocks falling from the sky provide clues to what might be mankind's only hope. "Dogora the Space Monster" would have made an outstanding 30 min episode of "Ultra-Q" (1966) but as a full length movie it's stretched well beyond the breaking point. The tedious secondary plot follows diamond thieves and pursuing detectives. As Dogora eats diamonds, there is a tenuous connection between the two stories but the 'crime' story is neither interesting nor entertaining: it is simply filler to anchor the brief appearances of the titular monster, which are the highlights of the film. Unlike most Toho tokusatsu, there is no suit-mation: Dogora is a puppet manipulated in water. The effect is impressive, especially for a film with an obviously limited budget, as the surreal creature undulates in the sky, drawing up food from Japanese coal yards. The special effects team also made effective use of colour and animation, especially in the scene where Dogora destroys the Wakato Bridge. The movie is directed by "Godzilla" (1954) helmsman Ishiro Honda with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano and music is by Akira Ifukube (both names closely associated with Godzilla and the Japanese diakaiju genre from the 1950s to the early 1980s). I was watching an indifferently English-dubbed version of the film (replete with goofy 'gangster' voices) so I can't comment on the acting or the actual script/story. A full viewing of "Dogora the Space Monster" would be a bit of a slog for anyone but a die-hard kaiju fan; however, fast forwarding to the monster scenes would be well worth it for anyone who likes to see imaginative cinematography and the unreal made real.
Review of Dogora
