is a 1961 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it is the first film in the Mothra franchise. The film stars Frankie Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyōko Kagawa, Jerry Ito, and The Peanuts. In the film, an expedition to an irradiated island brings civilization in contact with a primitive native culture. When one sensationalist entrepreneur abducts two doll-sized priestesses for exploitation, their ancient deity, known as Mothra, arises in retaliation.
In 1960, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka hired Shin'ichirō Nakamura to write an original story for a new kaiju film. Co-written with Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta, The Luminous Fairies and Mothra was serialized in a magazine in January 1961. Screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa later adapted the story into a screenplay, patterning his version after King Kong (1933) and Godzilla (1954).
Mothra was theatrically released in Japan on July 30, 1961. An edited, English dubbed version was released theatrically in the United States on May 10, 1962, by Columbia Pictures. The titular monster, Mothra, would become Toho's second most popular kaiju character after Godzilla, appearing in eleven Godzilla films and her own trilogy in the 1990s.
Plot In waters off Infant Island, a presumed uninhabited site for atomic tests of the Eurasian country Rolisica, the Daini-Gen'you-Maru is caught and run aground in the turbulence of a typhoon. A rescue party following the storm finds four sailors alive and strangely unafflicted with radiation sickness, which they attribute to the juice provided them by island natives. The story is broken by tenacious reporter Zenichiro Fukuda and photographer Michi Hanamura, who infiltrate the hospital examining the survivors.
The Rolisican Embassy responds by co-sponsoring a joint Japanese–Rolisican scientific expedition to Infant Island, led by business magnate Clark Nelson. Also on the expedition are radiation specialist Dr. Harada, linguist/anthropologist Shinichi Chujo, and stowaway reporter Fukuda. Chujo has studied the cultures of islands in the area and ascertained that one of the key hieroglyphs in their written language, a radiant cross-shaped star, translates as Mothra. There the team discover a vast jungle of mutated flora, a fleeing native tribe, and two young women only twelve inches tall, who save Chujo from being eaten by a vampire plant. The "Shobijin", as Fukuda dubs them, wish their island to be spared further atomic testing. Acknowledging this message, the team returns and conceals these events from the public.
Nelson, however, returns to the island with a crew of henchmen and abducts the Shobijin, gunning down several natives who try to save them. While Nelson profits off a "Secret Fairies Show" in Tokyo featuring the Shobijin singing, both they and the island natives beseech their goddess Mothra, then in the form of a giant egg, for help. Fukuda, Hanamura, and Chujo communicate with the Shobijin via telepathy; they express conviction that Mothra will come to their aid and warn that "good people are sure to be hurt". Fukuda's newspaper has accused Nelson of holding the Shobijin against their will; Nelson denies the charge and files a libel suit against the paper. Meanwhile, at Infant Island, Mothra in her larval form hatches from the egg and begins swimming toward Japan. During the escort, she destroys a cruise ship and survives a napalm attack on a beeline path for Tokyo. The Rolisican Embassy, however, defends Nelson's property rights over the Shobijin, ignoring any connection to Mothra.
Mothra arrives at Tokyo, impervious to the barrage of weaponry directed at her, and builds a cocoon in the ruins of Tokyo Tower. Public feeling turns against Nelson, and he is ordered to release the Shobijin. As Nelson flees incognito to Rolisica with the Shobijin concealed in a suitcase, Mothra metamorphoses into her imago form and flies to New Kirk City, the capital of Rolisica. While the police scour New Kirk for Nelson and Mothra lays waste to the metropolis, Nelson attempts to flee the city, but he is recognized by civilians and killed in the resultant shootout with police. The Shobijin are assigned to Chujo's care.
As Church bells begin to ring and sunlight illuminates the cross atop the steeple with radiant beams, Chujo and Hanamura remind of Mothra's unique symbol and of the Shobijin's voices. At Chujo's suggestion, numerous other church bells are rung simultaneously in order to attract Mothra to the runway of New Kirk airport, on which Mothra's symbol has been painted. The Shobijin are returned and Mothra flies them back to Infant Island.
Cast
Themes Authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski note that Honda treats the film's nuclear anxiety and proxy relationship between America and Japan differently. They note that Rolisica (an amalgam of Russia and America) is portrayed as a "pushy capitalist superpower" that is more concerned with Nelson's money, allowing his crimes in Japan to go unpunished. They also note that Rolisica's atomic ray gun seems to violate Japan's three non-nuclear principles. They iterate that Honda's ideal of understanding and cooperation is achieved through religion, even noting the religious-like iconography of Infant Island. However, they note that the film's political satire "never gets too serious."
Ryfle notes that some writers compared Rolisica's bombing of Infant Island to America's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Nelson's kidnapping of the Shobijin to America's occupation and forced Westernization of Japan. Ryfle expresses that the film paints a bad portrait of Rolisica and by extension, the United States, noting that Rolisica exploits natives for atomic testing and commercial gain (via Nelson), and Nelson's press coverage restriction on the expedition is an attempt of covering up Rolisica's involvement in the bombing of Infant Island.
Production Crew
Ishirō Honda – director, co-writer Eiji Tsuburaya – special effects director Shin Morita – production manager Toshio Takashima – lighting Takeo Kita, Teruaki Abe – chief art directors Akira Watanabe – special effects art director Kuichirō Kishida – special effects lighting Teizō Toshimitsu – monster builder Masanobu Miyazaki, Shoichi Fujinawa – sound recording
Development During the summer of 1960, Toho president Iwao Mori and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka hired Shin'ichirō Nakamura to write an original story for a kaiju film. Nakamura collaborated with Takehiko Fukunaga and Zenei Hotta (sometimes credited as Yoshie Hotta), with each writer writing one part of the story. The story, The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, was then serialized in Weekly Asahi Extra magazine in January 1961. Tanaka contacted Sho Watanabe about casting The Peanuts in the film. Watanabe gave the twins permission to participate in the film due to being impressed with the "uniqueness" of the idea.
However, Toho had difficulty with scheduling the twins to shoot their scenes due to contractual obligations with Watanabe Productions. For the film, Honda wanted a more Disney-inspired approach, stating, "We wanted to do something that was new, for the whole family, like a Disney or Hollywood type of picture." Tanaka created the name "Mothra" by combining the Japanese word for "moth" (mosu) and the suffix "ra", taken from Godzilla's Japanese name "Gojira". Adding the suffix "ra" would become a common practice for naming monsters, not just in Toho productions (e.g. King Ghidorah, Ebirah, Hedorah), but in non-Toho Japanese productions, e.g. Gamera.
Writing Prior to the original story being written, Toho held story meetings to discuss ideas. One of the ideas included to have Mothra emit a ray beam. While writing the original story, Nakamura chose a giant moth because he wanted a creature that underwent a transformation. Producer Tanaka later confirmed that the female perspective for the film was suggested by another producer during the early planning stages. This inspired Tanaka to come up with the idea for the Shobijin and their roles as guardian spirits of a South Seas island. The character Zen'ichirō Fukuda was named after the writers of the original story.
In the original story, Fukuda is not on the initial expedition and ventures to Infant Island alone later. The natives reveal to Fukuda the legend of Infant Island, with the mythology behind Infant Island including Christian-like overtones which feature two gods (Ajima, the God of Eternal Night and Ajiko, the Goddess of Daylight) conceiving a giant glowing egg, smaller eggs, and a pair of humans who reproduce and repopulate the island. The smaller eggs hatch caterpillars which turn into moths and fly away, which enrages Ajima to condemn all living things to death and commits suicide by tearing himself into four pieces. Heartbroken, Ajiko also commits suicide by also tearing herself into four pieces, which turn into four small, immortal fairies dedicated to serving Mothra of the giant glowing egg.
Fukuda remains on the island and is later awakened by Nelson's gunfire, witnessing Nelson kidnapping the Shobijin and the natives' ritual. Michiko was originally written as Chujo's assistant and the leader of a protest group that unsuccessfully pressures Nelson to release the Shobijin. The original story featured political parallels to a then controversial ratification of a security treaty between Japan and the United States; however, Sekizawa omitted the political backdrop in his version. The original story featured the Rolisican ambassador sending a fleet to protect Nelson and his property from Mothra.
While adapting the story for the film, screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa picked his favorite aspects of the story and ignored everything else. Sekizawa patterned his script after the original King Kong and Godzilla films. Sekizawa felt that too much detail would confuse audiences and that it was more important to keep audiences entertained, stating, "My philosophy is to just add enough to tell the story and keep it moving along." Honda later admitted that the fantasy elements were Sekizawa's ideas while Honda was interested in the anti-nuclear themes. Originally, Hotta wanted to include an anti-discrimination message based on a person's size.
The original story featured four fairies. Sekizawa felt four was unnecessary and trimmed the members to two, feeling that two fairies was manageable. The original story had the Shobijin stand at 60 centimeters but Sekizawa felt the size was too big and would create difficulties when building the sets. One of the original ideas had one of the Shobijin fall in love with one of the leads; however, Sekizawa dropped this idea because he felt it would have required many twists and turns and would have taken time away from Mothra. Originally, Mothra was to cocoon herself on the National Diet Building but Sekizawa felt it wasn't "spectacular enough" and changed the setting to Tokyo Tower.
It was Sekizawa's decision to refer to the twins as "Shobijin" (small beauties), feeling that "small fairies from Infant Island" was too long to write. Sekizawa coined the name "Infant Island" simply because it "sounded good". In the United States, several promotional materials referred to the Shobijin as "Ailenas", despite Japanese publications and materials not using the term. Honda explained that the name originated from the original story that featured a fairy named "Ailena". The name reached the publicity department for overseas markets. Honda had originally written a scene that showed an area of the island bombed by the atomic bomb, but it was not filmed due to budget concerns.
Music