--- title: "Godzilla vs. Hedorah" year: 1971 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/godzilla-vs-hedorah" fi1m_id: "godzilla-vs-hedorah" imdb_id: "tt0067148" tmdb_id: 39464 wikidata_id: "Q200432" fi1m_score: 64 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-09-28T20:40:56.784712+00:00" updated: "2026-09-28T20:40:57.223421+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) Directed by Yoshimitsu Banno · 1h 25m · MPA G · Science Fiction, Action, Horror ## Identity Godzilla vs. Hedorah - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/godzilla-vs-hedorah - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** godzilla-vs-hedorah - **IMDb ID:** tt0067148 - **TMDB ID:** 39464 - **Wikidata ID:** Q200432 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067148/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/39464, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q200432 **Fi1m score: 64** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A monster made of drains, a boy in shorts, a song about the sun, and Godzilla looking as baffled as we were > Yoshimitsu Banno’s one Godzilla film is the strangest in the series: a grubby, sincere, often frightening picture about pollution, stitched to a children’s monster fight with cartoon interludes. Much of it does not work. None of it is dull. ## Synopsis Japan, 1971. Gohei (Yoshio Yoshida), a fisherman, brings marine biologist Dr Toru Yano (Akira Yamanouchi) a thing like a tadpole the size of a cat. Yano’s son Ken (Hiroyuki Kawase) names it Hedorah. Father and son go to the bay to look for more; Yano dives and surfaces with half his face burned away, and Ken is scorched on the hand by something rising from the water. The creature is feeding on the sludge and smoke that Japan’s factories pour into sea and sky, and it is growing. While Yano’s wife Toshie (Toshie Kimura) nurses him, Ken insists Godzilla will come to fight it. In a nightclub, singer Miki Fujiyama (Keiko Mari) and her boyfriend Yukio Keuchi (Toshio Shiba) watch the smog roll in over the dancers. ## Review Eleven films in, Toho’s monster had become a mascot, and *Godzilla vs. Hedorah* is the first film to seem embarrassed about it. Yoshimitsu Banno, directing his only entry in the series from a script he wrote with Takeshi Kimura, takes a real subject, the filth that Japanese industry was then pumping into its bays and skies, and builds a monster out of it. Hedorah is a heap of living sludge that drinks smoke from factory chimneys and grows. That is a good idea, and Banno is serious about it. He is also making a film for children, with a cheerful theme song and animated interludes, and the two halves of his intention sit side by side for 85 minutes without ever quite agreeing. The first half hour is the film’s best and the reason to see it. Yôichi Manoda shoots the polluted bay as it must have looked: brown water, a dead fish floating past a dead crab, a kitten on the beach coated to the eyes in oil. Dr Yano (Akira Yamanouchi) goes diving and comes up with half his face burned off, and his son Ken (Hiroyuki Kawase) is scalded on the hand by something that is barely there. Later a man falls into a pool of the stuff and comes out as bone. We were horrified, and by more than we expected from a film with a cartoon tadpole in its opening credits. The horror works because Banno keeps it small and physical, a hand, a face, a drainpipe, before he lets the thing stand up. When it does stand up, Nobuyuki Yasumaru’s costume work gives it red eyes set in a slumped, dripping body that never holds a shape for long, and Yasuyuki Inoue’s designs put it against smokestacks and refinery tanks that look like the sets they are. That is not a complaint. The miniature Japan of these films has always been half toy and half nightmare, and here the nightmare gets more of the time. Riichirō Manabe’s score is a different matter. It is jaunty brass and a wobbling, comic motif for Godzilla that undercuts nearly every entrance he makes, and it is used often. We came to dread it. The young people belong to a different film. Miki Fujiyama (Keiko Mari) sings in a nightclub while the dancers’ faces are replaced, for a few frames, by fish heads, and Yukio Keuchi (Toshio Shiba) proposes a party on a mountainside to see the end of the world in. Banno throws in split screens, negative images, a cartoon Hedorah eating a cartoon factory, and a montage of real belching chimneys cut straight into the story. Some of this is arresting and some of it is a director trying every idea he has been saving up. We laughed at the fish heads, and then realised the film meant them. Yoshitami Kuroiwa’s editing does not help the middle stretch. Whole minutes pass with the Yano family watching television reports of what Hedorah has done, and we watch them watching. The film also has a habit of stopping for a lecture: Yano explains the creature’s chemistry to a room, an announcer explains it again, and Ken explains it to Godzilla. By the halfway point we were bored, which felt like an achievement given what had been on screen twenty minutes earlier. Against the series’ own standards, this is closer in spirit to Ishirō Honda’s 1954 original than anything made in the fifteen years between. That film was about the bomb and did not shout it; this one is about smog and shouts little else. The monster fights themselves are slow, two suits pushing at each other in mud, and Godzilla’s role as protector of children is taken as read. There is a moment in the final battle we will not describe, except to say that no one who had seen the previous ten films could have predicted it, and Banno plays it entirely straight. It is worth an evening if you already like these films and want the odd one out, and worth a look even if you do not, for the first thirty minutes and the kitten. Watch it late, at home, with the sound a little lower than usual, which will spare you most of the trumpet. *Fi1m score 64, published 28 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Godzilla vs. Hedorah worth watching?** *Godzilla vs. Hedorah* is worth an evening if you already like these films and want the odd one out, and we scored it 64. The first half hour, with its brown bay, oiled kitten and a diver surfacing with half his face burned away, is serious and frightening; the middle sags into television reports and lectures, and Riichirō Manabe's jaunty score undercuts nearly every entrance Godzilla makes. **How long is Godzilla vs. Hedorah, and what is it rated?** *Godzilla vs. Hedorah* runs 1h 25m and is rated G by the MPA in the US. It is a science fiction and action film. **Where can I watch Godzilla vs. Hedorah in the US?** *Godzilla vs. Hedorah* is streaming on HBO Max, Apple TV, Hulu, The Roku Channel and Amazon Prime Video in the US, and it is also available to rent from Apple TV from $3.99. It leaves The Roku Channel on 30 September. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Godzilla vs. Hedorah, and is it suitable for children?** *Godzilla vs. Hedorah* carries a US G certificate and no UK certificate, but it is more frightening than that suggests. A scientist comes up from a dive with half his face burned off, a boy is scalded, and a man falls into sludge and comes out as bone, all in the first half hour. Older children raised on monster films should manage; small or squeamish ones may not. **How does Godzilla vs. Hedorah compare to Godzilla?** *Godzilla vs. Hedorah* is closer in spirit to Ishirō Honda's [*Godzilla*](https://film.one/film/godzilla) than anything made in the fifteen years between them, but the 1954 film is the better one. Honda's is about the bomb and does not shout it, and its destruction hurts; Banno's is about smog and shouts little else, stitched to a children's monster fight with cartoon interludes. Start with the original, and come to this one for its strangeness. **What should I watch after Godzilla vs. Hedorah?** After *Godzilla vs. Hedorah*, try [*Godzilla*](https://film.one/film/godzilla) (1954, Fi1m 88): The original, where the monster still means something and the city still burns. Then [*Silent Running*](https://film.one/film/silent-running) (1972, Fi1m 76): The other early-seventies ecology picture, quieter, sadder, with better robots; and [*Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind*](https://film.one/film/warriors-of-the-wind) (1984, Fi1m 85): Miyazaki’s poisoned world, drawn with the patience Banno never had. ### Reviews we read (1) - **Time Out**, PM (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a film review, but its review text is unavailable. The critic’s verdict and any specific praise or complaint cannot be determined. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/godzilla-vs-the-smog-monster) ## Details - **Director:** Yoshimitsu Banno - **Director:** Yoshimitsu Banno - **Screenplay:** Takeshi Kimura, Yoshimitsu Banno - **Cinematography:** Yôichi Manoda - **Editor:** Yoshitami Kuroiwa - **Music:** Riichirō Manabe - **Production design:** Yasuyuki Inoue - **Costume design:** Nobuyuki Yasumaru - **Cast:** Akira Yamanouchi as Dr. Toru Yano; Hiroyuki Kawase as Ken Yano; Toshie Kimura as Toshie Yano; Keiko Mari as Miki Fujiyama; Toshio Shiba as Yukio Keuchi; Yoshio Yoshida as Gohei - fisherman; Haruo Suzuki as JSDF Officer; Kentaro Watanabe as Announcer B - **Runtime:** 1h 25m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 1 February 1972 - **Genres:** Science Fiction, Action, Horror - **Budget:** $250,000 - **Box office:** $3 million ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Apple TV: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd, leaving 2026-09-30 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-28.* Also available in: CA, JP, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Godzilla* (1954), Fi1m 88: The original, where the monster still means something and the city still burns — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/godzilla.md) - *The Host* (2006): A chemical spill, a river monster and a family; Bong Joon Ho does it properly - *Silent Running* (1972), Fi1m 76: The other early-seventies ecology picture, quieter, sadder, with better robots — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/silent-running.md) - *Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind* (1984), Fi1m 85: Miyazaki’s poisoned world, drawn with the patience Banno never had — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/warriors-of-the-wind.md) - *Colossal* (2016): A monster film that is really about something else and knows it --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/godzilla-vs-hedorah