For It Is Man's Number: niisan takahashi

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Wednesday, 9 October 2024

Prime Time: Gamera: Super Monster (1980)

I didn't expect much from this at all, a Gamera movie that seemed to be nothing more than a cheap "megamix" of past encounters, apparently made just to help a studio get out of some financial trouble. I am sure that many others will dismiss this, and perhaps it barely counts as a Gamera movie when considered alongside other, more original, instalments in the series (but really . . . how original is any Gamera movie after the first one?), but I ended up really enjoying it.

An alien enemy is threatening Earth, and they also hope to reveal the identity of some superheroes living here, the Spacewomen (played by Mach Fumiake, Yaeko Kojima, and Yoko Komatsu). Unable to work as effectively as they would like, especially while trying to keep themselves hidden away from the searching alien presence, the Spacewomen end up enlisting the help of a young boy, Keiichi (Koichi Maeda), who can himself enlist the help of Gamera.

Although every main kaiju battle here is lifted from previous movies, that doesn't matter so much when the film is so much fun. Gamera ends up battling Gyaos, Zigra, Viras, Jiger, Guiron, and Barugon, all familiar creatures to those who have watched the previous movies, and the end result of each fight isn't made any less enjoyable by being a foregone conclusion. The developing relationship between Keiichi and the Spacewomen is done well, and entertaining enough to keep things well-paced in between the giant battles.

Surprisingly, the main cast members work really well in what some may view as nothing more than "filler" scenes. Young Maeda is as lively and optimistic as the young children in these movies usually are, and even a bit more likeable than usual, and Fumiake is very good as Kilara, the leader of the Spacewomen.

Director Noriaki Yuasa is working again with writer Niisan Takahashi, and working again with stock footage (of course), and he does well to make this seem even occasionally like a film that has been put together with some thought and care. I'm not saying that Yuasa and Takahashi didn't bother at all about what they were doing, but they certainly had limitations on what they could stitch together. The fact that the final product is as coherent and entertaining as this is quite extraordinary.

I could see myself watching this again, ahead of some other weak Gamera movies. It has a selection of highlights, a fun sub-plot with the humanoid characters, and none of the plodding pacing issues that some of the other Gamera movies suffer from. And maybe my poor memory helps me to enjoy sequences that still feel exciting and fun, despite the fact that I've already watched them, in a slightly different context, over the past few months.

8/10

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Wednesday, 2 October 2024

Prime Time: Gamera vs. Zigra (1971)

Many people who review/critique movies for a living (or even, like myself, because of a need to keep myself mentally stable and happy with my own OCD approach to my own viewing selection) don't like to give immediate reactions. Some believe that it can take at least two viewings to fully form an opinion. Some believe that you need to let things sit with you a while before you put pen to paper (metaphorically-speaking). I don't think that way. I think that it can be good to dive into your own thoughts about a movie as soon as the credits have stopped rolling. That isn't to say that your opinion then will remain your opinion forever, but it's as good a time as any to take a snapshot of your feelings.

In saying that, however, I have to note that I ended up watching Gamera vs. Zigra twice. My first viewing wasn't great. Life threw a number of interruptions my way, and I was pretty unhappy by the time I got through to the end. I then waited too long to get my review written, which made me find time in my schedule for a second watch. I'm glad that happened, because the second watch was much more enjoyable. Maybe it was due to a lack of interruptions. Maybe I was just in a better mood.

The IMDb summary for this movie says this: "Space aliens arrive on Earth with their giant shark and intend to take over the planet but they must first destroy Gamera". I guess that's correct, but it actually doesn't do justice to the fun you can have with this one. Gamera once again pops up to remind us all that they are a friend to all children, which is handy when young Kenichi (Yasushi Sakagami) and his father, Dr. Yosuke Ishikawa (Isamu Saeki), encounter a female alien (Reiko Kasahara) who plans the aforementioned takeover of our planet. The alien has a handy spaceship that can transform into a giant monster, more like a swordfish than a shark, and the second half of the movie features a number of battles between Gamera and this dangerous creature.

Once again in the hands of director Noriaki Yuasa and writer Niisan Takahashi (credited here as Fumi Takahashi), this is a fun time for fans of Gamera. As long as you aren't a newcomer, and you know that these always tend to be more child-friendly adventures, this delivers what is expected. Gamera may seem to be offscreen for most of the first half, but they are given enough to do to ensure that presence is still felt keenly enough until it's time for the fighting to properly start.

Sakagami is fine in his role, as is Saeki, but Kasahara is a highlight, whether explaining the plans for planet domination or wandering around Japan in very little clothing as she searches for the two humans that escaped her clutches. As ever, it's all about the creatures though. While Zigra may not be the best of the opponents that Gamera has had to battle, they're well-designed and threatening enough to feel like a worthwhile creation. Zigra makes things very difficult for Gamera, as expected, and the ongoing fight leads to a final moment that is kind of hilarious and brilliant.

If you saw this film some time ago and didn't like it then I would recommend giving it another go. You may still feel the same way about it, but you may end up finding it a bit more enjoyable than you remembered. I'm glad that I ended up giving this a second chance, and it also served as a nice reminder that people should bear in mind the fluidity of personal opinions whenever browsing through the many movie reviews available here, there, and everywhere.

7/10

Wednesday, 18 September 2024

Prime Time: Gamera vs. Jiger (1970)

After enjoying a number of my recent kaiju watches I have to say that this week hasn't been great. I watched this film, as well as one other that I am preparing to review for next week's schedule, and spent almost the entire runtime wishing that I was watching a better instalment in this series.

With a number of early scenes that are more reminiscent of Lassie than anything else, a bunch of people are trying to move a large statue when they are given some aggressive fly-by action from Gamera. Puzzled by Gamera's behaviour, they nevertheless keep going. Once moved, the statue is found to make a constant sound, and that sound ends up bringing Jiger, a large creature with an array of built-in weaponry, such as projectile quills and a stinger in her tail. Oh, and this is all happening as Japan prepares for the Expo '70 about to be held in Osaka.

With Niisan Takahashi back on the writing duties and Noriaki Yuasa back in the director's chair, there's no reason for this to be as bad as it is. Maybe others love it, and there are one or two memorable moments (including a sequence that has some children going inside Gamera to help revive it), but the whole thing just felt a bit lazy and dull for me.

While human characters are usually the least important element of most kaiju movies, the entire cast here feels quite redundant. I could tell you about Tsutomu Takakuwa, Kelly Varis, Katherine Murphy, Kon Ohmura, and Junko Yashiro, but I'd be in trouble if you asked me about their main contributions to the film (aside from Takakuwa, who plays young Hiroshi). That would be fine if that kaiju acton was up to scratch, but it isn't. It all feels as if people are going through the motions while being restricted by that Expo '70 setting, which is basically what happened. Board members had forbidden any destruction of the Expo '70 buildings, and having monsters fight amongst buildings that can't be destroyed is a bit like having Rambo looking at a bunch of deadly weapons he cannot equip himself with in a tooling-up montage.

Maybe I'll revisit this one, and maybe I will enjoy it more if it catches me in a better mood. I don't know. I certainly wasn't in a bad mood when I pressed play on it, which makes me suspect that the film itself just soured me throughout most of the 83-minute runtime. It feels overlong, and is the wrong amount of silly without being the right amount of fun, but I'm happy to hear from anyone trying to convince me that I am not giving it enough credit. There's still just enough here for me to find individual moments I liked, but they're stuck in a feature that I really didn't care for.

4/10

Wednesday, 21 August 2024

Prime Time: Gamera vs. Guiron (1969)

It’s time to go on another adventure with everyone’s second-favourite giant turtle beastie (because The Great A’Tuin should be number one on anyone’s ranked shortlist of giant turtles), and Gamera is once again on a mission to battle other strange life-forms and keep some children safe.

Two young boys, Akio (Nobuhira Kajima) and Tom (Miyuki Akiyama), end up spying a flying saucer landing that they then proceed to board. The vehicle then takes off with the boys on board, taking them eventually to a different planet, where Gamera fights a new foe, and also encounters an old enemy.

With everything once again in the hands of writer Niisan Takahasi and director Noriaki Yuasa, this is solid entertainment for those who are happy enough when the kaiju movies skew towards a younger demographic (as so many of them do). There is a sense of adventure and playfulness throughout, but no real danger, and the slight plot pauses for a few good smackdowns (and Guiron is a worthy opponent, in terms of both strength and design).

There’s no point in spending too much time discussing the cast (something I say during almost every kaiju movie review . . . seriously, just check out a sample of them and get back to me), but both Kajima and Akiyama are decent child actors, maintaining the right expressions of awe and nervousness as they watch everything happening around them.

Considering my past worries as I started to work through the Gamera movies, I am very happy to report my positive response to this one, and any Gamera features still in my future. Either the movies have moved on from the low point that had me worried or I have recalibrated my mindset as I become more used to the tone and presentation of these movies. Gamera fans will have some fun with this. Everyone else will just have to accept that they don’t like joy.

6/10

Wednesday, 17 July 2024

Prime Time: Gamera vs. Viras (1968)

I had some trepidation when I picked this film for my latest "kaiju-watch", having not been a big fan of one or two of the films preceding it, but I'll be damned if I allow myself to be beaten before I've even managed to get about halfway through this journey through the world of giant Japanese monster movies. Thankfully, Gamera vs. Viras is a lot of fun.

A couple of boy scouts, Masao (Tôru Takatsuka) and Jim (Carl Craig), get themselves aborad a small submarine and spend some time getting up to mischief underwater. Gamera appears, spending some time racing them and generally playing around, which is only a precursor to a potential alien plan to cause havoc on Earth. The aliens find out about Gamera's weakness, how he will always try to protect children, and they end up capturing Masao and Jim until they can get Gamera in their clutched, placing a controlling device on the back of his head, and then using him to start destroying cities. This eventually leads to a battle between Gamera and the aliens, who merge together to form the giant Viras.

It's hard to sound intelligent and critical when discussing this film, as it can be with a lot of the kaiju movies, but the main thing to convey to other people is just how goofy and endearing this film is. Director Noriaki Yuasa and writer Niisan Takahashi make great use of what makes Gamera stand out from other well-known kaiju figures, and it helps that there's a sense of real joy and playfulness throughout, even as things start to get a bit tricky for "our hero' as we move fully into the third act.

Takatsuka and Craig are enjoyable in their roles, the design of the aliens makes them an interesting onscreen presence, and Gamera is allowed to keep busy doing Gamera things, which is what you want to see in any Gamera movie.

This won't please anyone looking for scenes of mass destruction, those are just a very small part of the runtime, but it should please Gamera fans. It's in line with the films that have come before, it stays true to the character, and it's a highly enjoyable and brisk 75 minutes. Best described as knockabout fun, with the emphasis on the second word in that descriptor.

7/10

Wednesday, 26 June 2024

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

Friday, 26 April 2024

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

Thursday, 4 April 2024

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