DVD Review: GAMERA VS. ZIGRA / GAMERA: THE SUPER MONSTER
One of the great niche video labels that has really made a mark on the scene in the last few years is Shout! Factory. They released a definitive edition of Takashi Miike's Audition on Blu-ray and they've been re-releasing Roger Corman's films on Blu-ray and DVD at an astonishing rate. However, not as much press has been given to their acquisition and revisting of Daiei Motion Picture Company's original Gamera series. I'm sure that many people have the same experience as I do with Gamera. I was first exposed to the enormous turtle beast via Mystery Science Theater 3000, who made Gamera films a favorite of their fans. They showed really bad dubs of decent little kaiju films and mocked them as was customary. Watching these same films again without the droids is a completely different experience. Over the last year, Shout! Factory have released all 8, concluding with these two, of the original films and they can now be enjoyed by a new audience better than ever before on English friendly DVD.
Gamera Vs. Zigra probably could have been the final Showa era Gamera film. The plot is pretty ludicrous, even for a kaiju film, and the action is a bit lacking when compared to the previous features. Zigra is a strange alien creature who attacks a moon base and then proceeds to earth to wreak havoc. Humans are taken hostage, the military gets involved, Gamera comes to save the day, destructive kaiju battles commence. There is really very little memorable about the film itself, apart from the fight sequences, which mostly take place underwater, as Zigra appears to be some kind of space shark creatures with razor sharp fins for attacking and slicing. These underwater sequences are somewhat forgettable, it is the final battle with Zigra having been lured onto land to fight Gamera that the running time starts to pay off. Gamera handles Zigra deftly, and, in a bit of lunacy, uses a boulder to play his own theme song on Zigra's xylophone-esque fins before burning him to a crisp. Done and done. This one is really only for the diehards I would think.
Gamera: The Super Monster, on the other hand, packs enough WTF moments that despite its ineptitude, it stays entertaining. This is the Royal Rumble of Gamera films, cobbled together using the battle sequences of all of the previous Gamera movies with a truly bizarre framing device that, in itself, is absolutely bonkers. The Spacewomen, badly dressed spandex queens including Japanese women's wrestling champ, Mach Fumiake as Kilara, the leader, are powerless to save earth from the evil alien Zanon, who aims to enslave earth. The only real savior is Gamera, who must face all of his previous nemeses from the earlier films in order to save Earth from this terrible fate. Oh yeah, there is a cute kid who is obsessed with Gamera, who ultimately gets caught up in this mess because of his psychic connection with Gamera. This is the All Monsters Attack! of Gamera films, in that, like that previous Godzilla mash-up, it was created primarily for children and it relies heavily on stock footage.
Gamera: The Super Monster defies criticism. I can only rely on the intended audience to tell me if it is a success, luckily I have a six year old in my house who tells me that Gamera: The Super Monster is "the best movie ever". From his perspective I really can't disagree. It really is mostly killer with very little filler, and what filler there is is at least riotously funny to adults and insane for children. You may think that since you've seen all of the other Gamera films, that there is no sense in seeing all of the best bits rolled into one movie, but you'd be missing out. Zanon's spaceship is a very thinly veiled copy of Star Wars' Star Destroyer, there is a Godzilla billboard that gets destroyed in the film, the Spacewomen's outfits and teleporting cars are hilarious, and Keiichi, the little boy, is just to cute for words as he sings the Gamera March to any grown up who'll listen. I really enjoyed it, but most of all, I am psyched that it gave my little boy the kaiju bug. He's wanted to watch nothing but Gamera and Godzilla movies since we watched this one together, I'd say that's a success story.
The Disc:
Shout! Factory has put both Gamera films on one dual-layered disc. Both features are relatively short, so the image quality isn't terrible, but I don't know exactly how much restoration was done on these films for release. The promo stuff says they are newly remastered, but these are 30 and 40 year old films, so moderate your expectations. Both are presented in anamorphic widescreen, though, with the original Japanese and dubbed English soundtracks. I watched the Japanese versions first and they actually sound pretty good, the English, on the other hand doesn't fare quite as well. My son and I have now watched The Super Monster about 4 times in English and the soundtrack is really muffled, I have to crank the volume really high to hear anything clearly. Also included on the disc are some photo galleries, but no other extras.
A few random notes about this set: There is no way to select your audio option before starting the film, the films start in Japanese by default, and you must use the remote to change the audio after the film starts if you want English. The inner cover of the case has the awesomely awesome Gamera anatomical illustration from Shogo Endo's 1967 An Anatomical Guide to Monsters, which makes me giggle furiously. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this DVD. Gamera: The Super Monster has never been available in the US legally, so it is nice to finally have an edition that is complete, clean, and in the original Japanese language.
If you are a Gamera fan, you know you're going to buy this anyway. If you aren't, I think it isn't a bad way to start, though I'd probably go back to the beginning and check out Gamera: The Giant Monster first and see if it is your speed.
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