The Big Picture
- The first time Godzilla fought King Kong was in 1962's King Kong vs. Godzilla, the third film in each monster's franchise.
- In the clash between B-list monsters, King Kong appears to emerge as the winner, defeating Godzilla at the end of film.
- The ending of King Kong vs. Godzilla is left ambiguous, as urban legend has it, the American version ends with Kong's victory, whereas in the Japanese version, Godzilla is the clear winner.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, as the old adage goes, which sums up the latest MonsterVerse offering, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Of course, if you remember the last film, 2021's Godzilla vs. Kong, you'll know that the pair didn't start off on the right foot. Or paw. Or giant lizard toes. Mind you, since their first title fight was way back in 1962, a rematch was long overdue. Don't remember that one? It's true. Round one of the clash of the titans (but not Clash of the Titans — different movie) came courtesy of Toho,in King Kong vs. Godzilla, and it's awesome, in a "so awful it's awesome" kind of way.
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
NRActionAdventureComedy Horror Sci-FiThe advertising director of a pharmaceutical company seeks to boost the ratings of their sponsored TV program by capturing a legendary monster in a marketing scheme as Godzilla re-emerges. (Japanese Version)
- Release Date
- August 11, 1962
- Cast
- Tadao Takashima , Kenji Sahara , Yû Fujiki , Ichirô Arishima , Jun Tazaki , Akihiko Hirata
- Runtime
- 91
- Main Genre
- Action
- Director
- Ishirô Honda
- Writers
- John Beck , Bruce Howard , Paul Mason , Willis H. O'Brien , Shinichi Sekizawa , George Worthing Yates
'King Kong vs. Godzilla': Round One
As we've seen on countless movie screens and in real life, the root of the conflict in King Kong vs. Godzilla is drugs. Kinda. See, Mr. Tako (Ichirō Arishima), head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, is looking to boost ratings for the shows his company sponsors on television. You know what would work and doesn't remotely seem to have any downside whatsoever? Bringing in the giant monster a doctor told him about on Faro Island, a big ape named King Kong (Shoichi Hirose). Tako sends two men to find Kong and bring him back. At the same time, an American nuclear submarine gets caught in an iceberg. Good news: they break free. Bad news: so does Godzilla (Haruo Nakajima), who has been frozen in the iceberg since 1955. For their troubles, Godzilla destroys the craft and makes his way towards his old stomping grounds (literally) in Japan.
‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ Ending Explained: Which Titans Reign Supreme?
Who ends up victorious in Adam Wingard's latest MonsterVerse entry?The film shifts back to Faro Island, where a monstrous octopus crawls on shore and attacks the nearby village in search of Farolacton juice, made from a red berry unique to the island. Thankfully, Kong arrives and defeats the beast, and as the villagers perform a ceremony, he helps himself to several vases of the juice, causing him to fall asleep. Tako's men put the slumbering ape on a large raft and start towards Japan. Mr. Tako arrives at the ship to take in his prize, but a Japanese Armed Forces ship demands that Kong be kept out of Japan. There's always that one kaiju that destroys Tokyo who ruins it for everybody, right? It doesn't matter. Kong wakes up, breaks free, and makes it to the mainland himself, where he meets Godzilla for the first time. Kong throws giant rocks at Godzilla, because that'll work. Shockingly, it does nothing, and Godzilla forces Kong to retreat with his heat ray.
'King Kong vs. Godzilla': Round Two
The army digs a large pit, fills it with explosives and poison gas, and lures Godzilla into it. Shockingly, it does nothing — that sounds familiar — so it's on to plan B. Plan B involves a barrier of power lines around the city filled with 1,000,000 volts of electricity, enough to send your DeLorean back in time. The shocking shockingly proves effective against Godzilla, but then Kong shows up and tears through them, feeding off the electricity which makes him stronger. Now in Tokyo, Kong captures Fumiko (Mie Hama), the sister of one of Tako's men, and takes her to the top of the National Diet Building (at five stories, it's a far cry from the Empire State Building), but Fumiko is rescued when the army hits Kong with capsules of vaporized Farolacton juice (see, again), putting him to sleep.
What do you do with a giant monkey flaked out on juice? Attach a bunch of balloons to him and drop him at the summit of Mount Fuji, where Godzilla is, and hope for the best. Godzilla takes the fight to Kong, hitting him with a dropkick and repeated tail blows to Kong's head before using his atomic breath to set fire to the area around Kong's body. Fortunately, a bolt of lightning strikes Kong, charging him up and giving him his second wind (seriously, folks, you can't make this stuff up). With the odds having evened out, the battle carries on down the mountain into Atami, where the dueling kaiju destroy Atami Castle before falling into Sagami Bay together. A brief scuffle takes place underwater, but only Kong resurfaces and swims home. Godzilla is nowhere to be seen, but the Japanese forces speculate that it's possible he survived. Spoiler: he did.
Who Is the Winner in 'King Kong vs. Godzilla'?
It's virtually impossible not to love King Kong vs. Godzilla. Sure, King Kong looks like some weird cross between an ape and that creepy-ass rabbit from Donnie Darko, while Godzilla looks like some dollar store rubber toy. Which I guess he pretty much is. And yes, there's no plausibility whatsoever, unless you subscribe to the notion that mammals and 1,000,000 volts of electricity do pair well. But there are balloons, and an epic battle that resembles something out of the WWE, but with wrestlers that can't do much more than waddle at each other. King Kong vs. Godzilla is also the third film for each franchise, with Godzilla following 1954's Godzilla and 1955's Godzilla Raids Again, and King Kong after 1933's two-fer King Kong and Son of Kong. It also marks the first time that either character appeared on film in color and widescreen.
While the meeting of the two iconic movie monsters seems like a no-brainer now, King Kong vs. Godzilla actually started life as a battle between a different pair of iconic movie monsters: King Kong and Frankenstein's monster.Willis O'Brien, the man who brought Kong to life in 1933 with stop-motion animation, had proposed the idea, but it didn't work out. No, not because of the logistics of a giant ape fighting a reanimated corpse of spare parts 100 times smaller than himself, but concerns over the rights to the Frankenstein character. Toho wanted to work with Kong, so they stepped in and offered their Godzilla as a replacement. They now had the contestants for their prize bout, but who would win? That's where things get really interesting. At the time, Godzilla was still a "villain," so Kong was the obvious choice to come out on top, but the film's ambiguous ending didn't really establish a clear-cut winner. As per the previously cited New York Times, it led to an urban legend in which two endings were filmed and released: American audiences would see the ending we know, where Kong appears to be the winner, and Japanese audiences got an ending where Godzilla was the winner. The ending remains contentious to this day, but the real winner? Fans of B-grade films featuring A-list giant monsters going mano-a-mano.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is now in theaters in the U.S.
