The big Easter egg of the monster king explained



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Mothra flies into battle.
Image: Warner Bros./Legendary

Godzilla: the king of monsters did a lot of things – the vast majority of them deliciously ridiculous – in order to quickly turn his silly heroes of Monster Fight A to Monster Fight B. But at one point, the movie was spinning so fast, he gave up a comeback in very sneaky back and very cool, I was almost not sure of having run right in front of me.

During King of the monsterThe frantic pursuit of the globe to prevent Alan Jonah (Charles Dance), eco-terrorist, from using the Orca – a science fiction MacGuffin developed by doctors Emma and Mark Russell (Vera Farmiga and Kyle Chandler), likely to Influencing gigantic titans of Godzilla As its name suggests – to wreak havoc on the planet, we have met a host of new scientists who were part of the monster research organization, which is not the only one in the world. is more super-secret, Monarch. There are familiar faces like Drs. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Graham (Sally Hawkins) from 2014 Godzillabut it's mostly new characters, including Zhang Ziyi in the role of Ilene Chen, who, for a very brief moment, lets out some major allusions to a piece of the Toho monster tradition.

Zhang Ziyi in the role of Dr. Ilene Chen.
Image: Warner Bros./Legendary

Mothra comes in and out of the photo in Michael Dougherty King of monsters Early on – having started in the first scenes before Emma and her daughter Madison were falsely captured, the beast quickly headed for a waterfall near Monarch's base in China to pull herself together. Later in the film, after Godzilla is apparently overthrown by a combination of the frantic Ghidorah assault and the new US Army Oxygen Destroyer bomb – itself a reminder of the weapon used to kill Godzilla in the original of 1954 – Mothra is glimpsed emerging in final form, beautiful and winged by … Zhang Ziyi, despite the fact that we have just seen her thousands of miles away, witness of Godzilla's apparent death aboard Monarch's flying battleship, the Argo.

Because it's not Ilene Chen that Ziyi is playing at the moment, the character we've seen so far in the rest of the film. His a Dr. Chen: her twin sister, named in King of the monsterCredits of Ling Chen.

She is in the rain and quietly watching over the rebirth of Mothra. An ethereal version of Toho's iconic theme, kaiju, blends into the soundtrack. That's all there is to do in her appearance – the movie, strangely, refers to her as Dr. Chen and never says she's Ilene's sister, so you suddenly think that she suddenly learned to teleport from one place to another.

The film goes over as fast as he says, but he does not confirm anything until afterwards, at some point in the pursuit of the Orc, Ilene reveals to Mark that she is the last in A long period. line of Chens who worked for Monarch. His grandmother and mother, as well as their siblings, had previously worked for the organization, devoting themselves to research on the myth and sleep story of Mothra on Earth. Back on board Argo Ilene shows Mark some old family photos, pictures marked as taken on Infant Island – and you see a strange similarity between previous generations of Chens, beyond the mere fact of being sisters or mothers and girls.

Although it's never explicitly Acknowledging in the film that having a group of binoculars so intimately linked to Mothra's story and his evolution in the film is in itself a subtle recognition of more than half a century ago. story of Toho's creation.

The Shobijin in 2003 Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.
Image: Toho

Back in Mothra's eponymous film debut in 1961, the gigantic creature resides on the lonely island of Infant Island – but when a Japanese expedition lands on its shores, they discover miniature twin priestesses who act at the times as tutors and translators for the legendary beast: Shobijin. . The Shobijin have been part of Mothra's film heritage since the beginning and have appeared in almost all Mothra films. Sometimes they have different names: in Godzilla against Mothra, they are called the Cosmos, the only survivors of an ancient civilization destroyed during the Battle of Mothra and its dark enemy, Battra. in the Mothra's Renaissance movies, it's Elias, and there's actually a trio of sisters rather than a set of twins. In the most recent CG animated series, Godzilla: the planet of monsters, they are represented by human-sized characters named Maina and Miana, who are part of a human subspecies called Houtua and who have been biologically altered by the presence of Mothra.

In all their appearances, the fairies have similar roles: they are agents of Mothra, who are not only his guardian, but his ambassador to the human world. Able to communicate psychically with the creature (often by singing – the first Shobijin were played by Emi and Yumi Itō, a twin pop band known as The Peanuts), they could both play the role of translators when Mothra met with humanity, but when the threat of various kaiju became known to the world, the Shobijin often ventured beyond Mothra's hiding place on Infant Island and communicated his will, or were able to to get out of its larval states over very great distances.

From 1961 to 2017, in one form or another, psychic twins are part of Mothra's legacy.
Image: Toho / Polygon Pictures

As far as we come to see in King of monsters, the Chens are simply human twins rather than secret psychic fairies. Even in a world of futuristic stealth battleships, sound manipulations of sonic monsters, and even titanic monsters with atomic power, such an idea could be a little as well over there. Ling Chen only appears on a very small stage, and although she and her sister share a connection with Mothra, everything is left in a series of quick shots for the most dedicated fans, instead of being visibly clear, to let an unsuspecting public pass as quickly as it has brought it.

But among the monster carnage King of the monster happily engages – and all the other classic Toho Easter eggs he weaves – this is a moment that promises to be one of the strangest and weirdest returns to the history of monster cinema that has inspired King of monsters in the first place.


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