User Reviews

"So, what about everyone else?"

That's what Toei studios was probably saying upon preparing for "Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds." Godzilla and his pals/enemies were on vacation and had become too beloved, Gamera was for the kids, and you can forget about another Gappa or Dogora movie (especially the former.) When was a studio going to make a kaiju flick for a more grown-up audience? Granted, there already was one of sorts with "The Last Dinosaur", and there would be another with next year's "The Bermuda Depths", but how about something with a little "oomph factor" that others seemed to lack? You know, exploitable elements. That's what they tried to do with this movie.

The story deals with an egg that hatches, and unleashes a none too friendly Plesiosaur, who has taken a liking to munching on the citizens. To make matters worse, a Rhamphorhynchus also comes into play, and as will happen in these movies, a fight's going to break out. Oh, and there's some s#!t involving a scientist and a hot girl, but I really didn't care about that.

As I said, "Legend" tends to offer a few things that other kaiju films of the time didn't offer, namely gore and nudity. Granted, the female nudity is brief, and the gore is mostly of the "found a severed limb" variety, but it was more than other such movies were presenting. At best, the people behind this at least deserve kudos for that.

Sadly, there isn't much else worthy of kudos. The two creatures we get are unconvincing and goofy even for the time, and one can just imagine audiences in Japan laughing their asses off at the sight of these creatures. Then there's the score from "pinky violence" regular Masao Yagi, which while catchy, is a jazzy score that really doesn't fit the proceedings. Hearing bouncy jazz/funk play while a girl is menaced by one of the least convincing dinosaurs ever put to screen is funny, no matter how you stretch it. The conclusion is also too bleak for a movie like this. I wanted the hero to come out on top here, but that doesn't happen, which just left me scratching my head.

The biggest problem though, is that it really isn't that much of a kaiju film. Granted, it's not the worst one ever made that some make it out to be (I'll take this over "Gamera vs. Zigra" any day of the week), but it's still nothing much, and that's mostly because, at the end of the day, it's nothing more than a rip off of a certain shark movie Spielberg directed. No matter how you dress it up, it's a knock-off of a much better movie, and not even a very entertaining one at that.

While it deserves credit for trying be a kaiju flick for adults, "Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds" isn't much to get excited for. Believe me, you've seen better, and all the brief boob and butt shots in the world won't change your mind.

We've all heard that(paraphrased)line in a movie, right? When cattle/teenagers/homeless people start disappearing, and dammit, we need answers, who comes to our rescue? Yes, the lovably eccentric wise Native American/discredited scientist/otherwise dubious "expert", with a tailor made "legend" or "fable" or even, if the writers were ballsy, a "report" concerning just the matter at hand. But what does our brave hero do? Well, actually, most of the time he goes along with it. But the AUTHORITIES now, they don't believe that ballyhoo, do they? No. They will pay. Or, in this movie, hippies will pay. With blood. With buckets and buckets of blood.

Consider this movie's "legend"... well, there isn't one, really. But there is this undisputed scientific fact: "If there's a pleisiosaur, there must be a pterodactyl!" There, the voice of reason. And if it's a 1970s Japanese sci-fi, hippies must die. Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. That movie about Nostradamus. And that one with the meteor... Japanese SF of the '70s was a veritable smörgåsbord of reactionary nihilism.

Boy, do hippies die in this one. If I remember correctly, after two hippies play a prank on some other hippies having a little festival, the diving suited clods get dragged under by Nessie. Unless the pterodactyl got 'em. It was a long time ago. But I remember dead hippies, a dead horse, and an apocalyptic climax that almost perfectly complements the end of The Land That Time Forgot.

Watch it as a double bill with The Last Dinosaur... in which feminists AND chauvinists get their comeuppance!

Toei president Shigeru Okada attended several film festivals and trade fairs in America and as he saw the way the film business was shifting toward blockbusters like Jaws, he felt that Japan should follow that trend. After all, who knew monster movies better than them?

Filming started the very same month that Jaws was released overseas. At the same time, everyone had grown obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster. Therefore, this was the perfect movie for Toei to appeal to not just the Japanese movie audience, but one across the world.

The film takes inspiration from the aforementioned shark movie, having attacks on boaters and swimmers and a build of the tension until the monster is unleashed. There's even a gory scene where a headless horse is found hidden in a tree.

It turns out that not one but two kaiju are on the loose: a plesiosaurus and a rhamphorhynchus. They eventually battle and then fall into an erupting Mount Fuji.

Oddly enough, there are neither dinosaurs nor monster birds in a movie named Legend of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds. The plesiosaurus is a member of the sauropterygia and only a distant relation of dinosaurs while the rhamphorhynchus is a pterosaur, which is not a bird.

Perhaps even more strangely, this movie was a big deal in Russia and was, at one time, the 19th highest-grossing foreign film of all time in the USSR.

This film is a pretty bland Japanese offering. Basically the plot goes like this: Some people find dinosaur eggs around Mount Fuji, and then the chase is on for the dinosaurs. It takes Loch Ness and moves it to Japan. There's a festival going on with probably the worst country and western band ever providing the music. (When I think of country music, I really don't think of Japan.) The later half of the film focuses on a male and female diver who dive into the lake just before they close it off and throw depth charges into the lake. They go through hell to get out of the danger, and in the end, you end up not caring.

Avoid this one if possible.

This must be the pinnacle of cheesy Japanese monster movies. I'm not even sure I saw this when I was a child. I remember picking up a review on the internet after googling for reviews of other Kaiju films.

The plot follows the lines of JAWS (or any other man-eating monster is loose movie), so it's not really a Kaiju like Gojira or Gamera.

*****may contain Spoilers**** Basically its centres around one of the lakes or mount Fuji, where legend has it a red-eyed dragon lives; hence the red-eyed dragon boat festival.

A lot of strange geo-related activities occurs prior to this festival. Earthquakes, temperatures rising, old caves suddenly exposed ... get where this is going?

Our protagonist has a history with this lake, or actually his father had. he claimed a living pleisiosaur lived in the lake -kind of like the Loch Ness Monster. Why else would there be a red-eyed water dragon legend? Of course nobody believed him. Not even his son. His son, however, as more inexplicable things happen, starts to wonder whether he should have doubted his farther.

he meets a former flame of his who's diving in the lake because of some project.

Then people start to disappear...

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Unfortunately, the plot is full of holes. Of course, any good monster flick should be, but still... -The protagonist is a silent, closed man up to the point of being grumpy. Why does the lead lady fall in love with him again? Or...why should we, the audience, like him? But that may be Japanese cinematography for you... -The legend of the red-eyed water dragon is underused. -The female lead does ...well only get in trouble so our protagonist can be the hero. Nothing new here, but I found it a bit too much. -where in h#ll does the flying monster come from? The pleisiosaur - the red-eyed dragon I understand, but the rhamphornycus?? It it was a flying red-eyed water dragon I could understand people mistaking two creatures for one... -strange adult-movie-music during the first graphical attic. Some of it should have made the scenes look artistic, but a bombastic the monster is here to eat you music instead of the if you close your eyes you'd think John Holmes is at it music. Not to mention the 70's disco-tune when the rhamphornycus and pleisiosaur make their appearance and start attacking people independent -and eventually each other. But that may be Japanese cinematography for you... -the plot builds up to an all out monster fest, but the monsters appear too late in the movie -for my taste. This was the biggest downer for me.

These things do not make it a worse movie than it already is, but it could have made it better. A better cheesy monster flick.

This movie is still a must see for fans of cheesy monster flicks! The monster effects are fantastic...ally cheesy. The monster fights are ... over the top cheesy ... What else can I say, I enjoyed it. BIG TIME!

And if you like cheesy Japanese monster movies, I know you will too...