When it comes to giant monsters that have caused havoc throughout various Japanese movies, Godzilla will always be at the very top of the charts. There are a number of strong contenders for the number two spot though. I love Mothra, for example, and one or two others have sizeable fanbases, but Gamera is surely the one that comes closest to dethroning Big G as the monster king. It is another great creation, a giant turtle, and has, in my limited experience, been served well by a number of consistently great movies through the years.
This first film featuring the giant flying turtle (because that is what Gamera is, and I like to think of it as a distant cousin of The Great A’Tuin) sees the giant beast being rudely awakened by a burst of atomic energy and subsequently watched with awe and trepidation as scientists hatch a plan to get rid of them. That’s about it, in the simplest terms, although it is worth noting that the plan will make use of more energy resources, and there’s also a young boy who just loves turtles.
Directed by Noriaki Yuasa, and it is worth noting that this is not a Toho Studio production (Gamera came to us courtesy of Daiei Film), this is absolutely on par with any other kaiju film you can think of. The practical work is very enjoyable, the small handful of human characters are pretty insignificant in comparison to the titular creature, and the finale is a wonderful use of movie science that stretches plausibility while feeling absolutely viable in this onscreen world. Writer Niisan Takahashi has the kind of extensive filmography that many Japanese writers have, but Gamera is the creation that provides him with a proper legacy, and this is an excellent first outing for the monster.
As for the cast, Eiji Funakoshi is perfectly fine as the main scientist of the film, but it’s young Yoshiro Uchida who almost steals the film, his character feeling a connection to Gamera that allows him to remain unafraid while everyone else panics and evacuates any potential target areas. That’s all I need to say, especially when we all know who the real star is.
I have already seen a couple of the later Gamera movies, films from a different era with even more impressive tricks and effects onscreen, so maybe that has given me a slight bias, but this is a very enjoyable debut for what I would say is the second-best kaiju in Japanese cinema.
8/10
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I've seen two dubbed versions of this. "Gamera" was on Mystery Science Theater 3000 along with some of the corny, kid-friendly sequels. I got the whole collection about 11 years ago on DVD. In that version they called the kid "Kenny" for some reason.
ReplyDeleteThen about 6 years ago Rifftrax had a slightly different version called "Gammera the Invincible" that like the Americanized "Godzilla" with Raymond Burr adds some English-speaking characters in the form of military personnel and diplomats. And this time the kid was named Toshi.
A story from one of the extras on the MST3K DVD says that originally the studio was going to do a movie with rats. Real, live sewer rats so they'd look scary. They offered people a reward to bring in big, mean rats. Then to control the things they had electrified plates on the miniature sets. When people were rightly horrified the project was scrapped and they basically just threw together something with a guy in a turtle suit. Gam(m)era was born! It's a little strange that other than a reboot trilogy in Japan in the 90s they haven't really done much with the character since the original movies. Maybe it's something with the rights that keeps them from getting a reboot together.
Anyway, I'd have to agree with Scott Mendelson that it'd be cool to add Gamera to the "Monsterverse."
Yep, adding Gamera to the monsterverse would be great.
DeleteI've got the box-set somewhere - the early black-and-white ones were a little more kid-friendly than the Gojira ones IIRC (which is fine by me). I've seen some of the 90s ones, and they were pretty good, too!
ReplyDeleteThe box-set is wonderful. Glad I picked it up before it sold out like hot cakes.
DeleteGamera really peaked with the 90s trilogy and hasn't quite achieved that level of quality before or since, but many of the earlier films (before they start using massive amounts of stock footage from earlier productions to pad the run times) are still a fun watch. If nothing else they gave us some of the best MST3K episodes, and that by itself is laudable.
ReplyDeleteYes, I watched one or two of the '90s movies for the podcast I am part of, and really enjoyed them.
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