KaijuKing What can I say? I thought this film was funny! Some of the humor may get lost in translation, and kaiju fans looking for epic scenes of city destruction will be disappointed. The locations are limited and the scope is small. I do not mean these as criticisms, just facts.The acting from the Western stars is decidedly awful, but endearing in a hilarious way. The various schemes the leaders devise are quite comical and struck a humorous cord. There is enough tributes and homages to daikaiju eiga for fans to appreciate.

MartinHafer Minoru Kawasaki is a filmmaker who just ain't right. His films are ultra-bizarre and are not for normal people. And don't worry...the same strange guy who brought us "Executive Koala" (about a guy in a koala suit who works in corporate Japan) and "Rug Cop" (about a cop who fights crime...along with help from his sentient toupee) is pretty much in form with this strange picture.This film is a sendoff of the guy in a giant monster suit films that made Japanese films so famous (or infamous) in the 1950s-70s. You either love 'em or you hate 'em, but they made a ton of them. In this case, Kawasaki made a follow up to The X From Outer Space...a film made decades earlier. Why they chose to make a follow up, I don't know...perhaps they used some old footage or perhaps they just had the monster suit lying around.The film begins at a summit in Japan of the G8 leaders. During this meeting, a monster arrives from outer space in Sapporo and the Japanese try to get these heads of state to leave the country. However, in a show of solidarity (as well as stupidity) the eight world leaders vow to stay and help the Japanese rid their country of a weird monster named Guilala. And how do we know its name? Because one of the silliest clichés in Japanese monster movies, a cute little boy wearing a baseball cap appears and tells everyone about the beast...and they soon slap the kid and tell him to get lost! What follows are attempts by the various leaders to kill the monster using missiles, poison gas and the like...but the monster only grows stronger.At this point, the film goes from a nice little parody to ultra- bizarre, as the Japanese leader yanks off his disguise to reveal that he's...Jim Jong Il?! Yes, this crazy North Korean dictator has arrived to kidnap the summit and he vows to use his nuclear missile to rid the world of the monster once and for all. But scientists soon inform them that the nuclear payload will actually make Guilala stronger as well as multiply! So, it's up to the ancient god, Take- Majin to appear and try to save the day as well as President Sarkozy to flash the summit! What happens to that nuclear missile? You wouldn't believe me if I told you...you just have to see it for yourself!Compared to other Kawasaki films, this movie is downright normal...but it still is very strange and very funny. I especially love the way the various world leaders are parodied. It's all in good fun and is a treat for anyone who could use a laugh. Then, perhaps you could try some of the director's other films. In a way, I see "Monster X" as a gateway film...if you can handle that, you'll soon go on to the 'hard stuff'--Kawasaki's weirder movies!

brad kittleson I'm one of those who saw "The X From Ouer Space" often on TV's Saturday matinée movie back in the 70's. I loved it then, and was eager to see if Guilala could still deliver the goods to my less imaginative, more cynical adult self.Yes and no. This movie is played as a comedy (what else COULD they do with the giant chicken/lizard with a kitchen sink on top of its head). The comedy reminds me of "Saturday Night Live".. some clever political satire mixed in with infantile humor (try imagining Will Ferrell is playing Take-Majin, he's a perfect fit). There's even silly drug humor when Guilala gets stoned. The comedy isn't uproariously funny at any point, and does dip into absurdity a few times, but it generally works.The movies special effects seem intentionally cheap, capturing perfectly the old school look and feel of the giant monster movies. sadly most of the monster action takes place in the first minute of Guilalas arrival. I was really looking forward to watching my old sentimental favorite monster get to fight another monster. The fight between Guilala and Take-Majin was the biggest disappointment for me. As i said earlier, it was like watching Will Ferrell in a gold leotard running around having nuclear missiles shot up his back end and exploding in his colon. If I'm drunk enough, its priceless comedy.As you can likely guess, poor old monster X/Guilala gets his in the end once more, and he really doesn't put up much of a fight. But I loved seeing him again (I know, why?? I guess you need to have seen the first movie when you were 8 years old to understand). There were some things I really wanted to see that I was denied: 1- Guilala never used that silly looking crab claw on the tip of his tail in either movie. I want to see that weapon deployed! 2- He also never used the odd faucet device on top of his head. I long ago figured it was his "energy sensing tube" so I'll stick with that theory.3- I'd hoped they were going to dig up some original cast members. the human story in the original was the funniest one in any of the old giant monster flicks.Overall, if you liked the original, you already know you must see this one and will love seeing Guilala back in action. If you didn't like or haven't seen "The X From Outer Space", you will likely find a few chuckles out of this one, but little else. 7 stars the former viewer, 5 for the latter.

Perception_de_Ambiguity Seen at the Vienna International Film Festival in October 2009. - During a G8 summit Japan is attacked by a Godzilla-like monster from out of space and all the attendant heads of state decide to stay and help kill the monster, pretty much because they want to prove to the US-president that they aren't pussies. Utterly uncinematic, beyond silly and often boring. One element that reflects this is that although the heads of state are all named after the real people they bear close to no resemblance to them, neither visually nor otherwise, and instead are just amateurishly acted, cheap stereotyped representatives of their respective countries.One by one they come up with methods to kill the monster, resulting in one failure after another. It's like Coyote and Road Runner with a more powerful but also more incompetent Coyote; when the monster is down and defenseless, instead of covering it in bombs they wait until it recovers again to move on to the next plan. In the other plot line we have a female journalist who finds a small town near the G8 summit where the people "pray" to their monster god which will eventually defeat "Godzilla" in a fistfight. Overall the film dedicates about ten minutes to showing the forcefully silly dance of those people (their "praying"), which serves to materialize their god and save the world. Useless to say the film didn't have a single actual character. Everyone was just there to spout whatever unoriginal line the filmmakers could come up with and to finally SOMEHOW arrive with the plot at the inevitable conclusion.I found it to be bad and an unpleasant experience. The film got laughs from the audience, especially in the first five minutes, and continued to get laughs throughout, often with big gaps in between and never any big laughs. I assume much of it was the forced kind (many of them were drinking beer there, which needs to be considered as well). As for me I had a little laugh about every ten minutes. (There is the occasional apt and unexpected stereotype joke.) It wasn't all bad, it could have made an OK 20-minute film. The monster scenes with its destruction of the city are old-school Godzilla fare. In fact it's so old school and unoriginal that they might as well could have used footage from old Godzilla movies. Except that most of the time the monster just stands around acting exactly like Joe Cocker (no kidding). Such a thing can't be funny for long. Not for me anyway.But I'll be the first to admit that usually I don't much like B-movie comedies as they often turn out overly shallow and silly, so if you know you like that kind of thing don't let this user comment stop you.