Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965) directed by Noriaki Yuasa

 

Oddly this is personal film for me. I used to watched Creature Double Feature on UHF TV with my mother and this was her favourite monster.. it wears ridiculous and Gamera was "the friend of the children".As my mother died recently, it seem a homage to her to cover this here. 

Gamera was a direct response to Godzilla. Made by a rival studio it was pretty much a ripoff of the king of the monsters. No one wanted to direct it so they gave it to a failed director who was just happy to get hired again and to everyone's surprise it was a big hit! It led to a long series of films with Gamera some more serious than others but all of them fairly bizarre. Many of the films are pretty violent for children's films and many don't seem to make the slightest attempt to make sense. 

Regardless of your memory of Gamera, the Giant monster, this movie is a lot more random and ridiculous than you remember. The fact that there is a giant turtle the shoots fire from its leg holes when they are retreated into it's body and flies around is just the start of it. Why is he the friend of children? He save a kid in this movie. The kid love turtles but how Gamera would know that is never explained. Gamera must of killed 100s of kids on one of many rampages in the movie as well. The scientists come up with a a plan to get rid of Gamera, a "Z" plan... I guess because it's the last chance and last letter of the alphabet? They lure him in to a trap which consists of using fire to get him to stand on a platform which closes a huge container over him and sends him to Mars... I guess he will be Mars's problem from then on. How this thing was built and implements in what must have been a couple days at best is also not explained. In the end, it doesn't really work as the next movie starts with an asteroid hitting the spaceship, freeing the giant monster and he head immediately back to earth! 

Gamera was along running joke between my mom and I and as dumb as it is it will always have a place in my heart. My spouse watched it with me, he had never seen it and oddly enough found it fun! 

I made my own poster for the film not long ago. If I can get some money together I want to make a t-shirt from it. Miss you mom. 

Gamera the Brave (2006) directed by Ryuta Tasaki

 I admit I have soft spot for Gamera, the giant flying turtle, as it is my mom's favourite kanji. Why my mom has a favourite kanji is another story. Gamera has always been a softer, maybe more kid friendly than some of the Godzilla films and with even smaller budgets. 

This film has some interesting elements. A man who was saved by Gamera as a boy and has a young son with psychological problems after his mother died. He finds a weird egg that hatches into  turtle that exhibits all sorts of intelligence and powers... much like Gamera, who had sacrificed himself when he saved the man. The son and the turtle grow a bond as the animal grows to gigantic size just in time fight the newly emerged monster Zedus. With the help of the young boy and his friends, the new Gamera is given extra power by a magic stone that was found at the same time the boy found the egg.  An epic battlic ensues and the new Gamera wins the day while the children cheer him on. 

This film is fairly fun though pretty dumb in many respects.  It has the problem most Gamera films do, one or more annoying child actors that really get on your nerves. It does have a really cool monster in Zedus, maybe one of the best giant monster designed out there. The effects are better than you might expect but Gamera has the look of kid's plush toy with giant eyes and baby like features that just do not work. It's hard to recommend this as children's film - Zedus is blown to pieces at the end which is gross but before that we see him eating hapless like chicken nuggets people multiple times throughout the film! 

Following the current trend for Japanese monster films to have better effects and more complicated storylines that may or may not work, this movie hits enough marks to be an enjoyable watch as long as you remember that it's a film about a giant flying turtle who is "the friend of the children".