Prime Time: Gamera 3: Revenge Of Iris (1999)

It's near the end of the road for Gamera, in terms of cinematic outings (one more main feature after this one, is it time for a revival?), and this particular outing brings together a couple of familiar characters to root for Gamera as it ends up fighting a giant creature named Iris that really isn't like a version of Mothra at all, honest.

There are more Gyaos around, dealt with by Gamera in a way that leads to major collateral damage (aka thousands dead). This leads to some once again viewing Gamera as an enemy of the people. Meanwhile, a young girl, Ayana (Ai Maeda), finds a stone egg that she looks after until hatching time, leading to the birth of Iris. Ayana and Iris have a bond with one another, and the girl is manipulated into directing her resentment and anger (her parents died during a previous kaiju incident) towards Gamera. Mayumi Ngamine (Shinobu Nakayama) knows the truth though, how things need to play out for the benefit of the human race, and she hopes that Asagi Kusanaga (Ayako Fukitani) can help Gamera to win what may be their toughest battle yet.

It's Shûsuke Kaneko in the director's chair again, and Kazunori Itô back as a co-writer, which guarantees a consistency of approach and style that helps to make this feel like a fitting third part of a trilogy. It never feels like a full ending though, with those involved perhaps hoping to make another movie that would serve as an immediate continuation of this particular cinematic chapter of Gamera (the next film, Gamera The Brave, would end up being released in 2006, with a different writer and director on the job). The special effects are very good, with Iris a particularly eye-catching creation, the pacing works well enough, and anyone who enjoyed the previous two movies in the series will enjoy this, even if it is a slight step down from the last film.

With both Nakayama and Fukitani reprising their main roles, the latter having been in all three of these movies, there's a solid through line for their character development, and it's nice to have that extra sense of familiarity, a comforting core of Gamera support while so many others view the creature as an enemy to be destroyed. Maeda is very good as the person inadvertently helping to destroy our hero, and Senri Yamasaki and Tôru Tezuka are good fun as the real villains of the piece.

Although not as memorable as I suspect it wants to be, this is another solid Gamera feature, and it does well in balancing the human element with the big fight scenes. It delivers what you would want, but doesn't quite do enough to exceed expectations. All in all, it's a good time.

7/10

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Prime Time: Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967)

It’s been a while since I watched a Gamera movie. Not that long in the grand scheme of things, but long enough for me to already forget whether or not I was truly enjoying this era of the giant turtle beast. This film soon reminded me that I found these films to be middling entertainment, at best, and I usually rate them generously because of my innate love for most films of this kind.

The plot is summed up by the title. Gamera is awakened once more, just in time to battle a creature named Gyaos. Gamera is also befriended by a young boy named Eichi (Naoyuki Abe). Meanwhile, there’s some dull b-plot about the building of an expressway.

It’s tough to muster any enthusiasm for this, a kaiju film that has even less human characters worth caring about than usual, and fights that lack any real spectacle. Everything between Gamera and Gyaos is far less exciting than it should be, and there’s never a real sense of proper large-scale destruction.

Director Noriaki Yuasa returns to the series, as does writer Niisan Takahashi, but you wouldn’t know that they had any experience with this kind of material from the end result here. The opening scenes are some of the best, especially when Gamera befriend Eichi, but it’s quite a consistent slide downhill after those moments.

As for the cast, I will continue to single out Abe as the only highlight. His young character is singularly optimistic and cheerful throughout, and his relationship with Gamera works well, even as he spends most of the movie just looking on and being supportive from the sidelines.

Gamera still has one or two good moments of getting to do Gamera things, but the crude design and unimpressive characteristics of Gyaos leave a lot to be desired. It isn’t a memorable creature, and it never feels convincing when it gets the better of Gamera. 

I have said all I need to say here. In fact, I have said plenty when I had the option to sum this up in one word: Poor.

3/10

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Gamera vs. Barugon (1966)

You would think that sending Gamera into space would have been enough to keep Earth safe, but Gamera vs. Barugon quickly shows that not to be the case. First of all, there are always new creatures that can suddenly come along and cause panic. Secondly, a travelling rocket being hit by a meteorite is enough to send Gamera back down to our planet. And that's really all you need to know.

There's a bit more to the plot, of course, and Barugon is a creature hatched from an egg that people mistakenly think is a large opal, but things only ever liven up when people are trying to figure out how to deal with a new monster menace. Barugon looks a bit goofy, Gamera still looks great, and the humans feel even less significant than ever.

Directed by Shigeo Tanaka, and written by Niisan Takahashi, this follows on from the first Gamera film in a way that is simple enough, and also a bit disappointing. The contrivance to get Gamera back on our planet feels a bit lazy, Barugon is far from the best big beastie we've ever seen onscreen, and there's a major void in the cast that isn't filled by anyone we can empathise or sympathise with.

Kôjirô Hongô, Kyôko Enami, Yûzô Hayakawa, Takuya Fujioka, and Kôji Fujiyama are the cast members I will mention here, but they're just there to look on in awe as the creatures do their thing, when people aren't squabbling over the "opal" that leads to the appearance of Barugon. They do what they're asked to do, but they're just not asked to do anything that helps them to feel worth spending time with.

Gamera is still great, and the reason this is worth your time, which makes the fact that the rest of the movie is so weak seem even more disappointing. It needed either a better foe for our "hero" to battle or just some more scenes showing Gamera doing what Gamera does best. All the rainbow rays and mirror traps in the world aren't enough to make up for the disappointing sidelining of Gamera in one of their own movies.

Knowing how much better the later Gamera movies are (the 1990s films, referred to as the Heisei era) is enough to keep me powering through these, but I am worried that I'll end up slogging through a lot of lesser fare until I get back to those more enjoyable features. I've watched a lot worse though, and every film has the inherent plus of the second-best kaiju in cinema (a point I am sure could be argued over by fans for a long, long time). There's also something about kaiju movies that somehow makes it impossible to rate even the lesser films as a complete waste of your time. There may be less moments of absolute brilliance, but there are always some small treats here and there.

5/10

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Gamera, The Giant Monster (1965)

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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