- Directed by Ishiro Honda, Shue Matsubayashi
- Written by Shinichi Sekizawa, Shunro Oshikawa, Shigeru Komatsuzaki
- Stars Tadao Takashima, Yoko Fujiyama, Ken Uehara, Yu Fujiki
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzUZLme3GEs
Spoiler-free Judgment Zone
It’s a movie full of big ideas and bad science. There’s a lot going on with subs, sea monsters, freeze rays, and a lost civilization out for blood. It hasn’t held up well over time, but it was still a pretty fun watch.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man touches his cab driver who doesn’t stop; the contact burns him.
A photographer works with a model. It’s a bikini shoot on the beach– at night. Something scary comes up out of the water and scares the whole group. Susumu gets a picture of the thing before it goes back into the sea. Suddenly, the cab from before drives off the end of the pier. It all steams and bubbles as if the water was acid. Credits roll.
In the daytime, they pull the car out of the bay. The detectives and reporters ask Susumu for his story yet again, but the police don’t believe him. Still, there is a photo. There’s a woman getting off a ship and Susumu thinks she’s got the look hee’s wanted in a model. She drives off before he can talk to her, but he does get her license plate number.
An engineer was kidnapped this morning; the man last night was an engineer too. In both cases, the kidnapper was “steamy.”
A reporter comes to the owner of a shipping company and wants to talk. They talk about an uncompleted submarine project from the war. The commander of that final mission, Captain Jinguji, is still alive. Makoto, the shipping man’s secretary, is also Jinguji’s daughter.
Susumi comes to the same place, since Makoto is the girl he’s been trying to track down. Makoto tells her boss that a scary man has been following her, and she doesn’t like it. The car that is driving them has the same steamy drive from before– he wants the admiral. It’s another kidnapping, but this time Susumu and his friend get involved. They are taken as well. The man says they’re going to the Empress of the Mu Empire, a legendary country from 10,000 years ago.
The men fight back, and the kidnapper dives into the ocean to get away. There’s a big submarine way out in the ocean. But Susumu, the admiral, and everyone else gets away. As the detective questions them, Admiral Kusumi gets a package delivered from the Kingdom of Mu. It’s a reel of film.
The film contains evidence of the existence of Mu, a continent sunk beneath the Pacific. The A-403 submarine is in the film as well, and the tape says the Captain Jinguji is currently at work building an even more powerful submarine.
The military calls on the United Nations. They find the whole idea of Mu to be absurd and do nothing. Out at sea, a submarine uses a strange heat weapon to destroy a ship. Mu has declared war on the rest of the world. Venice and Hong Kong are completely wiped out. Now the U.N. believes it all.
Up on the space station, people push buttons.
The UN’s greatest submarine, the “Red Satan” pursues a Mu sub back to its undersea base. The Mu ship goes much deeper than the American sub can, so they have to give up and turn around– except the sub is crushed by the water pressure. The Japanese military is afraid to use an H-Bomb, but they have their “Terror Gun,” but they don’t know its limitations.
Does the Admiral know where Jinguji is? They need the captain’s new submarine. Admiral Kusumi says Captain Jinguji refused his orders and is dishonorable. They capture one of Jinguji’s agents, and the man says he’ll take them to the captain.
In the city of Mu, Agent 23 reports that everything is going according to plan. The admiral, Mokoto, Susumu, journalist Unno, and the rest are on a boat to go to see Jinguji. They disembark and soon, Makoto meets her father.
Jinguji says the first test run of the new super-sub will be tomorrow. They go to see the sub, and it’s huge. It also has a big drill on one end. Eventually, the sub launches. Then gthey all go outside and watch the sub come up out of the water– except it keeps going up. It flies as well. It’s a massive success! Captain Jinguji says tomorrow they’ll try the freeze gun.
The admiral tells Jinguji that Japan has formally abolished war, but the Captain takes offense to that. They argue about politics for a while, and it’s not clear that Jinguji is going to be a good guy. Makoto is disappointed in him, and that sways his opinion.
The reporter, Unno, turns out he’s an agent of Mu, and he kidnaps Makoto and Susumu. He’s planted explosives, and they go off before anyone even knows about them.
There’s a huge dance down in the throne room of Mu, and the Empress watches the show. Susumu and Makoto are in the center of it. They’re going to be sacrified to Munda, their god. They look out the window and see Munda, a huge snake creature. Susumu and the kidnapped engineers are put to work.
Back on JinGuji’s island, they try to dig out the buried submarine. In Japan, a bunch of Mu fighter planes attack, and the world’s capitals are threatened. The new submarine is buried, but it otherwise checks out as OK. Jinguji gives the order, and the ship drills right through the wreckage. They fly to the location of the Mu Empire and then submerge to find it.
The clock strikes twelve, and Mu attacks in force. Whole cities collapse into sinkholes. Munda rises from the depths and shoots its laser breath at the warships, destroying them easily. As the high priest of Mu gloats, the new super sub approaches.
The Empress comes to the cells and says the prisoners will be sacrificed to Munda, but Susumu threatens to blow them all up. He gets the empress as a hostage. They put on pressurized suits, but Munda is out there. As the submarine fires at the huge snake, the characters swim to the sub in the confusion.
Empress Mu and Captain Jinguji argue over who is going to surrender to whom. The captain gives the order to dive and destroy the capital of Mu. Munda tries to grab the ship, but they electrify the hull. Then they fire the freeze gun at Munda, and that does the trick; Munda is no longer a threat.
The sub starts to burrow through the earth toward Mu. The priest wonders how they managed to get into their power generator room. The men from the sub shoot the Mu people and freeze them all solid. The soldiers set their explosive devices and run back to the submarine. The sub then backs out through the tunnel it made and surfaces.
When the explosives go off, Mu is destroyed. The Empress jumps overboard and vanishes into the smoke.
Commentary
The miniatures in the film are really good for the time period. There’s a huge cast, especially in the Mu throne room scenes. It’s really ambitious, but it also drags a lot in the middle.
It’s an interesting film. It doesn’t hold up terribly well, but it’s fun to watch just because it has so much going on. Giant monster. Futuristic submarine. Freeze ray. Really, really bad science. It’s fun and awful at the same time!