Gamera

[Crenners]

I've not read the rest of the thread yet as I didn't want to risk seeing spoilers, so I hope I'm not just repeating what has already been said.

Glad you enjoyed it! You've definitely started at the right place with the Heisei trilogy. I'm watching and reviewing the Showa Era from the start but looking forward to getting back to the Heisei again. I won't make any comment til you've seen the trilogy but I'll look forward to your thoughts.

[Crenners]

Gamera vs Viras

This is essentially unwatchable to me. I've seen bits of it but this is very much the stuff which gives Gamera a bad name: Precocious, annoying, smart arse kids; stock and reused footage; human-looking aliens and cheapo sets; slow and lifeless monster fights. This is not worth watching.

This is almost all correct but rewatched it today as distraction from the treadmill and enjoyed it a bit more. Much of it feels like a cheap 60s TV show with no atmosphere. It has something like 40 minutes of reused fights from all of the previous Gamera films, ostensibly because the aliens are researching his history to identify his weakness (kids).

It's an amusingly half-arsed justification for such padding but it also means the film kind of works as a 'best of'. The kaiju action is the only reason to watch these pictures so it manages to be both artistically bereft and one of the most consistently entertaining. All of the stuff with the kids and the aliens is very poor but the final fight with Viras is actually up there as one of the most violent and daft of the series.

As it contains so many of the best moments so far (of a series which steadily declines), if I were to recommend one Showa-era Gamera film to a newcomer, this might even be the one. Although I cannot stress enough that it is also crap.

[The F Bomb]

If you want to watch the Heisei Gamera Trilogy in 4K, with Dolby Vision and Atmos, pretty fantastic transfers of a guy in a giant fire-breathing turtle suit, they're 50% off at Amazon Japan. Including postage, you can get the trilogy for about a hundred quid. That's obviously a lot but they'll never be released over here and everywhere else, you're looking at sixty quid each, at best.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E4%BC%8A%E5%8E%9F%E5%89%9B%E5%BF%97/dp/B08LRHN1RV/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=34F37DR7WVT80&keywords=%E3%82%AC%E3%83%A1%E3%83%A9+4k&qid=1706979318&sprefix=Gamera+%2Caps%2C423&sr=8-3

No English subs or English anything so you'll have to have a player that does external subs but this is the best these brilliant, daft films are ever going to look.

[idunnosomename]

casual gamera

Just has a ps with FIFA and wipeout

[The F Bomb]

Gamera: Guardian Of The Universe (1995) - Giant flying turtle Gamera tries to save the world from some enormously weird birds, but the Japanese army don't realise he's a force for good, the bloody idiots. This follows the template most monster movies do, but I'm fond of the odd old bastard that Gamera is, while the Gyaos made for a decent villain, though I hope the next film in the series is a little crazier and outlandish. 7.3/10

I've not read the rest of the thread yet as I didn't want to risk seeing spoilers, so I hope I'm not just repeating what has already been said.

Sorry I missed this at the time, I'm curious if you ever watched any more of the trilogy, always enjoy your thoughts. The second and third definitely ramp it up a bit further, quite a bit darker and more perilous.

I've just rewatched this first one. I largely forget which bits are from which films but I think there's a lot to enjoy here. As you said, very standard kaiju tropes throughout and few surprises, but it's still one of my favourites. The human drama is very mild but not as boring or full of militaristic/political nonsense so it zips by. The characters are barely formed but nevertheless quite likeable, especially the girl and the young woman, plus the dad and the dumb looking sincere young fella.

Best parts by a mile though are the physical effects and cinematography. I think this is what I love about Heisei era kaiju films. They're fundamentally still made using the same suitmation and miniature techniques from Godzilla 1954 but with forty more years of craft and learning on top. There are some really brilliant shots with Gyaos on Tokyo tower as the sun sets behind, and then the fight through the city. There's some excellent use of rear projection and framing and depth of field to soften foreground detail and give a great sense of scale and physicality. I love that stuff. The green screen bits generally look crap but I can appreciate it as part of the overall mix of effects. There's even some rudimentary CGI in there which looks quite decent, albeit rather lacking in charm. These might be the best directed kaiju films in terms of visual flair, that's probably their major strength.

Looking forward to checking out the second film again soon, I recall it being my favourite.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Sorry I missed this at the time, I'm curious if you ever watched any more of the trilogy, always enjoy your thoughts. The second and third definitely ramp it up a bit further, quite a bit darker and more perilous.

Thank you for the kind words, to be honest I had completely forgotten it was part of a trilogy but I was out until about 6pm yesterday, fancied watching something fun and (relatively) short when I got home and saw this thread, so watched the second one then. I really liked it too, and wrote the following earlier:

Gamera 2 - Attack Of The Legion (1996) - A sort of giant half insect slightly squid like monster attacks Japan and Gamera attempts to save the day, though the pesky army idiots aren't convinced he's on there side even after everything he did in the last film. This looks like it had a much bigger budget and though some of the model shots are a bit dodgy there's quite a lot which looks really great, the monster is well designed and there's a lot of cool shots of it going mental and blowing things up, plus there's a nicely weird sequence in a red lit power station towards the end which made me wish we'd seen a lot more of the swarm in such circumstances. The city destroying explosion made me gasp out loud as well, and the only frustrating element about the film is that Gamera

Spoiler alert

spends a quite big chunk having a nap (or knocked unconscious, if you insist

[close]

), otherwise this is a really fun monster movie. 7.7/10

Edit: I forgot to mention, I really like how early on when Gamera's heading towards the pod he doesn't give a fuck if he smashes his way through a building to get there, sure, he causes millions of dollars of damage and he could have stuck to the roads, but the important thing is that he saved a couple of seconds by crashing his way through the city.

Also: The

Spoiler alert

nuclear-esque explosion really took my breath away, given Japan's unique relationship with such devastation I didn't see that level of destruction

[close]

coming in the slightest.

[bgmnts]

I'd quite like to go for a pint with Gamera.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I'd quite like to go for a pint with Gamera.

Likewise, I kind of feel like I'm starting to have the same feelings towards him that you do with Blob.