In short: Gappa the Triphibian Monster (1967)

Original title: Daikyojû Gappa

Sent by some rich fool to acquire undiscovered new species from an not as unexplored by Japanese people as they think South Pacific island to populate a resort fake pacific island called Playmate Island, a group of explorers meet a tribe of Japanese people in brownface. When they’re not doing risible “native dances” that make those parallel dances in Toho movies look downright sensitive, these guys and gals pray to something they call “Gappa”.

The expedition members discover an egg from which a rather ugly new (to them) species hatches, some sort of flying, amphibian dinosaur thing. Let’s call it Gappa. Obviously, our “heroes” grab the thing to take it with them to Japan.

Just as obviously, where there’s a giant monster egg, there are also giant monster parents, and these ass-ugly dinobirds follow the expedition to Japan to go on a rampage.

Nikkatsu’s only kaiju movie – after three or four earlier aborted attempts – is generally seen as an inferior rip-off of Gorgo crossed with a bit of Godzilla vs King Kong, and inferior it certainly is. Director Hiroshi Noguchi has little experience with this kind of material, and directs the human drama bits with often surprising leadenness, given how pop Nikkatsu’s movies in other genres typically were. Consequently, things are pretty dull when it comes to the scenes featuring people, at least whenever they aren’t hilariously “problematic”.

It doesn’t help the film’s case there that most of its characters have all the ethical depth of a black hole, but its attempts at talking about that little problem for their part have all the depth of that cardboard cut out over there.

The effects, supervised by former Toho man Akira Watanabe, are a curious case. The kaiju carnage is generally at least competent, usually even genuinely good, particularly in the miniature work. However, the design of the monster suits is abysmally ugly, and the suits themselves look terrible awkward in action and even worse in those scenes where the parent Gappas are supposed to express emotions.