a.k.a. KYORYU – KAICHO NO DENSETSU / THE ‘LEGEND OF DINOSAURS’
Toei Co. Ltd [1977] 92′
country: Japan
director: JUNJI KURATA
cast: TSUNEHIKO WATASE, NOBIKO SAWA,
cast: SHOTARO HAYASHI, TOMOKO KIYOSHIMA
Many many years ago, in a time long since passed when Blockbuster Video had more to offer its humble customers than the multiple copies of the latest Hollywood garbage, I stumbled upon a curious and forbidden film. The offending video had a rather crude drawing of a large Plesiosaurus [with an abnormally proportioned head] toting a woman about by the leg. In the background was an exploding volcano and, high above it, a flying reptile of some kind. The title on the video box read LEGEND OF THE DINOSAURS, and I knew right away that I had to see it.
I was very young at the time, no older than five or six and, as it tended to at the time, parental discretion won out over my naive curiosity. For years I ran the gamut of other available dinosaur classics; THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT [1975], THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT [1977], THE LAST DINOSAUR [1977], THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER [1977... feeling a trend?], DINOSAURUS! [1960], and THE LAND UNKNOWN [1957] along with the entirety of available GAMERA offerings. But my interests kept turning back to the mysterious film with the blue box. That my parents refused to allow me to see it must have meant that there were goodies within well worth seeing – so my childish mind concluded, at least.
Several years passed. Eventually my continued pressure won out and I was able to tote a Blockbuster snapper case with LEGEND OF THE DINOSAURS inside home with me. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, wrought with years of pent-up excitement and anticipation, I wasn’t more than a little disappointed with where things went from there – the title of the film wasn’t even LEGEND OF THE DINOSAURS, but a confusing THE ‘LEGEND OF DINOSAURS’. The quality of the VHS was abysmal, with the image fuzzy and constantly fluttering as my aged VCR tried in desperation to play it at a speed that it wasn’t even built to record [others who picked up similar Just 4 Kids releases will surely remember the ungodly LP mode, offering worse quality and lesser stability than SP or the dreaded EP]. Beyond that, the film itself seemed mean spirited and cruel, punctuated with moments of extreme violence that forced my young mind into places it had no intention of going. The tape was tossed back into the snapper case and returned to the Blockbuster chain store post haste, where it remained on their shelf of oddities until the DVD revolution rendered the VHS format obsolete.
The years ticked by and I grew older and increasingly desensitized – a teen-aged obsession with the work of George A. Romero and thousands of Italian imitations thereof considerably altered my perceptions of even the most extreme screen violence. It must have been over a decade since I’d first seen the film in question above, but still it haunted me. I was destined to see it again and the local Suncoast outlet – always happy to sell me films on outdated formats at ridiculously high prices – helped to make it so. That VHS still sits on my shelf, in all of its lo-fi, faded, flickering glory and, to date, has been joined by a Japanese laserdisc, three separate DVD editions of the film, and advertising materials from around the world. Heaven help this man obsessed when Toei inevitably joins in on the Blu-Ray revolution.
But what’s not to be obsessed by? Half horror film, half giant monster movie, half disaster epic, half melodrama, KYORYU KAICHO NO DENSETSU is 200% of something the industry is not likely to repeat again.
The story begins with a drug-addled young woman stumbling about at the base of Mt. Fuji – eventually she stumbles somewhere she shouldn’t and tumbles through a hole in the forest floor and into an ice cave [undoubtedly a nod to the story Alice in Wonderland and how it is often associated with hallucinogenic drugs]. There, she has the mother of all bad trips – she watches as a huge petrified egg cracks open, revealing an enormous and oozing reptilian eye. Understandably frightened, she rushes from the cave and into the arms of a convenient construction team and is taken to the hospital. Takashi Ashizawa [the inimitable Tsunehiko Watase, here playing the James Bond of geology] is waiting for his flight to depart when he sees a story about the woman and her encounter with a petrified egg displayed on the airport television screen. 
It seems Ashizawa’s father once found a petrified egg and, lusting for glory and riches [the film postulates that fossilized egg hunting is a veritable get rich quick scheme] as well to live up to his own image of his father, he drops everything and heads to Mt. Fuji to see what’s up.
In spite of his suave attitude, sweet duds, and fancy amber-tinted sun glasses [which he makes a point to change into before departing for his egg hunt. He even checks to see how he looks in the rear view mirror!], Ashizawa proves much less an adventurer than he might hope – nearly dying when an earth tremor strikes in the midst of his romp through the forest around Mt. Fuji. An old friend of the family and know-it-all mountain guide named Shohei rescues him from trouble and, in spite of his early refusal to assist in a strictly financially motivated operation, aids Ashizawa in his hunt for a petrified egg. While riding along the shore of the Lake Sai, Ashizawa discovers his old flame – a diver named Akiko [Nobiko Sawa], visiting the lake with her friend Junko to cover the local Dragon Festival – as they pack up their trailer. Suave as ever, Ashizawa is invited into the trailer while Junko plays with her dog outside, and makes small talk with Akiko while undressing a disturbingly cute doll. Deciding that however long they’ve been apart is just too long, Akiko and Ashizawa start going through the expected motions – only to be stopped cold when a batch of slimy worms appear in the camper!
Soon even stranger things are happening around the lake – when a paddle boat capsizes and its two occupants disappear, Ashizawa begins to suspect that there’s something a bit more nefarious than a petrified egg to be found in the area. He is reminded of his father’s theory that changes in the environment could bring hibernating dinosaurs in the area back to life – with volcanic eruptions and huge earthquakes being unfortunate side effects! Soon, more evidence is piling up. Junko discovers a headless horse and when Ashizawa investigates the area he finds the creature wedged high in the tree tops and what look to be tail marks on the forest floor beneath. The next day is the Dragon Festival – everything goes smoothly until, in the middle of a song, the floating stage of the musical act [Beau Yatani and his Last Longhorn Band - a bizarre Japanese country group] is ripped apart by an unseen force. A monstrous fin appears in the lake, but it turns out to be the work of visiting trickster Jiro and his two friends, hired to garner more publicity for the festival. The party gets started again and everyone seems to forget that an entire stage was ripped to pieces before their eyes just moments before.
Jiro rushes to meet up with his two friends, who are crossing the lake in an inflatable raft. As Jiro watches from the shore, the two men are tossed into the lake by a huge tail and devoured by a gigantic Plesiosaurus. Needless to say, no one believes Jiro when he heads to the local town hall to report the incident even when a visiting American reporter also claims to have seen the monster. Meanwhile, the creature goes on a rampage, eating a young woman as she exits her shower and biting Akiko’s friend Junko in half while the former goes for a dive. Finally concerned that a monster might be on the loose in their lake, the town makes the area off limits and calls in a group of top scientists to investigate things. But after three days, their high-tech equipment offers no evidence for a monster and the search is called off. Ashizawa, convinced that nothing less than a Plesiosaurus is roaming Lake Sai, dives into the lake just as it is announced that depth charges will be dropped into it. The attack is a failure, succeeding only in knocking the unfortunate Ashizawa unconscious – Akiko dives in to save him and the pair exit the lake via an underwater cave.
Meanwhile, Shohei is showing a visiting reporter around Mt. Fuji – the man seems oddly convinced that a Ramphorynchus might be in the area, in spite of there being less than no evidence for it. The pair enter the ice cave from the beginning of the film, which has thawed out considerably, only to discover that a Ramphorynchus is, in fact, on the prowl. A huge claw erupts from the egg and grabs on to the reporter, then the beast itself emerges, killing Shohei as well. The townspeople are still gathered around the depth charges they purchased with their last remaining funds when the sky grows ominously dark and strange lights appear on the horizon – “There’s going to be an earthquake!” the mayor announces, sending the people into full-on panic mode. Then, without warning, the Ramphorynchus [revealing itself to be impossibly huge] attacks – an unfortunate shot from a rifle spells the end of the townsfolk as the depth charges explode around them. The Ramphorynchus cackles contentedly as it flies away.
Akiko and Ashizawa reach the entrance of the cave just in time for steam to begin erupting from the ground – worse still, the Plesiosaurus is stalking the area. Ashizawa takes in the experience for a few moments before coming to the conclusion that the beast is probably going to eat both him and Akiko if given the chance, and the pair run back to the cave. The Plesiosaurus tries for a few moments to follow them, reaching its long neck into the cave in hopes of reaching the tasty morsels inside, but becomes suddenly distracted. Akiko and Ashizawa peak out of the cave entrance and see something they can hardly believe – the enormous Ramphorynchus is battling the equally enormous Plesiosaurus just outside! As if on cue, Mt. Fuji begins to erupt. With two prehistoric monsters duking it out and lava flooding the forest as earthquakes rip the area apart, can Akiko and Ashizawa possibly survive?
LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS is, without a doubt, a prime example of just the kind of cinema this site was born to cover. The story is contrived to the point of shear ridiculousness – a Ramphorynchus appears for no justifiable reason other than that an asinine reporter thinks it’d be neat and papa Ashizawa’s theory about earthquakes, volcanoes, and dinosaurs obviously exists only to give some reason for all of them to appear on screen at the same time during the film’s conclusion. Ashizawa is certainly one of the hippest cats to grace the silver screen in his vintage polka dotted shirts and matching shades, but he isn’t much of a geologist. He abandons his duties as a scientist, a profession not gotten into lightly [says the boyfriend of a future phd], as soon as a more interesting prospect comes along and approaches the whole ‘living dinosaurs’ angle in the most un-scientific manner possible. There are even a few hints along the way of an ecologically-minded subtext to all the madness, but the story is pure unabashed exploitation all the way.
The weirdest thing about LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS is the amount of money put behind the project by Toei studios – this was the most expensive production in their entire history. One has to wonder just who made that call after reading the preposterous script. That the relatively unaccomplished Junji Kurata, who would work on no future films, was attached to direct is equally strange. Kurata along with fine cinematographer Shigeru Akatsuka [of HORROR OF MALFORMED MEN fame] manage to lend the proceedings a palatable art-house edge, giving the film a one-up on other exploitation fare of the time period. Jazz pianist Masao Yagi [who also worked on HORROR OF MALFORMED MEN] was hired to produce the score for DINOSAURS and, fittingly enough, turned out something truly unique. The soundtrack walks the line between jazz, funk, and rock and is never a notch less than awesome – it is easily the most memorable thing about the film.
The special effects work, in spite of the opinions of many online, are quite above the norm for productions of the time – the Plesiosaurus is reasonably well rendered in a variety of forms, including an impressive full-size mock up of the head. A similar full-size tail is less successful. Faring better in overall design is the impossibly huge Ramphorynchus, which looks genuinely menacing at several points in the film. Unfortunately, the mock-up of the beastie was stiff and difficult to work with, leaving the final confrontation between the two monsters considerably less effective than it perhaps could have been. The most impressive aspect of the production is undoubtedly the full scale set of the forest around Mt. Fuji, which erupts in steam, fire, and fissures at the conclusion of the film. It is utilized very well, to the point that it becomes difficult to discern between the set and actual location shooting. Miniature effects work is present in a limited fashion and is quite good – the miniature forest in which the monster battle takes place is very effective and merges well with both the location shooting and the full scale set. One definite black mark, however, is with the rear screen projection, which is rather pathetic at times.
LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS is obviously an attempt at the sort of blockbuster film making that had originated in America a few years earlier with Spielberg’s JAWS [which is homaged directly at least twice in the film]. The results are spectacularly weird, which may have not been the original intentions. While popular in Japan and the rest of the world [a plethora of posters for the film from Italy, Germany, Mexico, and even Turkey can be found online], DINOSAURS would not appear on American shores until 1983, when Sandy Frank purchased the rights and sent it straight to television, with shoddy VHS releases to follow a few years later. Toei released a fantastic laserdisc of the title in the 90′s with a decent DVD release following in 2005, and Media Blasters [under its Tokyo Shock label] gave the film its first official R1 DVD release early in 2007. The odd German cut of the film [edited considerably and featuring entirely different music at times] has been released a number of times in that country on both VHS and DVD, with a comprehensive [and recommended] DVD of the title appearing in late 2007 from label Retro Film.
More than almost any other film I’ve seen, LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS helped solidify my interest in weird cinema – it was one of the first to be covered by this site in 2003 and I’ve spent more money than I ever wish to reveal on things relating to it. To say this is a personal favorite would be a gross understatement and it should go without saying that it comes highly recommended.
