Gamera: The Giant Monster (1965)

I will tell anyone that listens that Godzilla '54 is one of the best films ever made and is a Top 10 film. It literally invented the monster movie genre or at the least, put it on the map, but aside from that just in terms of production and cinematic delivery it's just a really top quality film. Accounting for the year it was made. Owing to how much I love that movie and, to a much lesser degree... some of the more modern remakes / entries, I am vaguely aware of the Gamera series of movies. I'd initially mostly just written these off as a poor attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Kaiju monster movies of the time, and mostly as a poor knock off of the original but I was browsing through Arrow Distro DVD's in HMV the other day and surprised to learn there is actually a whole bunch of these Gamera movies now! And that it sort of took off as a Japanese film favourite in it's own right, complete with modern reboots and everything. It still feels a bit like a Gojira knock off to me to be honest... but you know what, I've decided I'm going to give it a chance. With the first entry into the franchise: Gamera: The Giant Monster. I've already covered the British knock off; Gorgo, which actually predates this movie by 4 odd years, and I enjoyed that, so who knows, maybe I've been down on Gamera this whole time and I've been missing out?

After US forces shoot down an unknown nuclear armed fighter plane inside the arctic circle, the resulting atomic blast awakens an ancient giant fire breathing turtle like creature known to the local eskimos as Gamera. Whilst carrying out a scientific expedition in the arctic, Dr. Hidaka (Eiji Funakoshi) and his assistant Kyoko (Harumi Kiritachi) are visiting a nearby eskimo camp and are given a stone tablet by the eskimo chief, which depicts giant turtles being held by the ancient race of Atlantis that were given the name Gamera. Back in New York, after escaping the monster but losing his ship and the crew in the process, Dr. Hidaka explains the arrival of Gamera on national television but assumes the creature perished from the enormous radiation dose it would have received... Whilst across the world there is a sudden increase in flying saucer sightings... At a lighthouse in Cape Erimo, a schoolboy; Toshio (Yoshiro Uchida) who is really into turtles is ordered by his foster parents to let his pet turtle go as his school are concerned that his interests are bordering on obsessions and preventing him from making friends at school. He releases the turtle into the ocean and mopes about it, but during the night the bay is attacked by Gamera and Toshio is almost killed when Gamera destroys the lighthouse and he is tossed over the side of the balcony during the attack. Rather than kill and presumably eat Toshio though, Gamera actually rescues the boy and lowers him to the ground... Surviving the ordeal, Toshio assumes his pet turtle has actually transformed into Gamera and that it is friendly. Hearing news of Gamera's appearance, Dr. Hidaka, Kyoko and a journalist travelling with him; Aoyagi (Junichiro Yamashita) travel to meet the military at the Higasi-Shitose air base where they learn that Gamera has reappeared close by at a geothermal power plant. They hatch a plan to try and kill the creature by electrocuting it with the full output of the station: 350,000kw. But when that fails, the military instead is ordered to open fire with everything they have. However that attack too is fruitless and Gamera destroys the entire station and seemingly eats the flames from the fire before wandering off. With Gamera heading further inland, Dr. Hidaka and the military hatch a plan to use an experimental 'freezing bomb' that will freeze Gamera in place for roughly 10 minutes, whilst they detonate TNT around the area in order to try and trap and contain it. They succeed in flipping Gamera over onto it's back but undeterred, Gamera tucks it's head and limbs into it's shell and, shooting fire from the openings, proceeds to hover and take off like a flying saucer! After witnessing the flight, Dr. Hidaka and Kyoko take a look again at the stone given to them by the eskimo chief and determine that what they thought were waves on the stone are actually clouds! The media quickly make the link between the flying saucer sightings and Gamera vanishing into the sky as more sightings of saucers are logged around the world. But sightings of Gamera eventually go quiet for a little while, but flooding and disaster begins to strike at Tokyo Bay, with radio communications seemingly failing around the bay. A phenomena also observed during Gamera's attacks at the lighthouse and the power plant. During a press conference Dr. Hidaka opines that Gamera is likely hiding at the bottom of Tokyo Bay, and during an international meeting of scientists convened within Tokyo, the committee decides to utilize the "Z Plan" against Gamera, a top secret but collaborative plan in order to eliminate Gamera. Meanwhile the giant flying turtle decides he's had enough of lying at the bottom of the Bay and shows up at Haneda Airport in downtown Tokyo, wrecking havoc on the metropolitan area and obliterating everything in it's path. With the Z Plan not ready for at least another 24 hours, Dr. Hidaka and the others decide to keep Gamera occupied and contained at the wreck of an oil refinery, by keeping the fires burning for Gamera to consume. Meanwhile, whilst staying in Tokyo with relatives, Toshio goes missing after the attack and somehow manages to hitch himself a ride on the petrol tanks being fed to Gamera, wanting to get closer to it for for some reason! He almost succeeds until he is rescued by a plant worker and told to get out of danger... Presumably 24 hours later, the International Committee announce that the mysterious Z Plan is now ready but in order to execute it, Gamera needs to be lead to Oshima island... Dr. Hidaka begins to outline his plan but we, the audience, are not privy to it... yet... Toshio sneaks on board one of the crates being transported to Oshima but when he gets found out, he is presented to Dr. Hidaka and Kyoko who agree to let him stay with them. They commence the Z Plan by first using a column of burning oil across the ocean to lure Gamera to the island before starting a bonfire in order to lure it inland. Their plan is almost foiled when a rogue typhoon strike hits the island, but a convenient volcanic eruption is enough to lure Gamera further inland. With Gamera now on the island, the Z Plan moves to the second step, and again using fire, Gamera is lured into a hole in the ground and encased inside a folding trap that becomes the nosecone of a rocket, jetting off and blasting him into outer space to Mars!

That was it? That was their plan... well I mean, it worked I guess so who am I to judge, but was a bit of an anti-climax! But I guess if you tried burning it, electrocuting it and freezing it and none of those worked I guess the next best idea is to just jet the thing into outer space so I guess there is some logic in that plan! It genuinely required the minds of an international community in order to put that together though? Well if you say so movie... This was alright though really. An entertaining enough little movie that maybe borrowed a bit of some of the plot points of Godzilla but adapted them and adjusted them enough to put something more original together.

Gamera looked pretty decent, especially for the time, and wasn't just a carbon copy of the original kaiju. It still had that high pitched kind of a roar like Godzilla and the whole fire breathing stuff as well, but otherwise it wasn't a complete knock off. It did look a little bit goofy to be honest and is lurched from leg to leg when it lumbered across the ground, but the whole flying saucer form was a cool innovation and it at least resembled a giant prehistoric turtle which was supposed to be it's origin source. So yeah, decent for the time and a cool enough looking monster that it didn't look silly and corny.

In terms of story, despite taking some cues from Godzilla, there was mostly an original feel to things. A giant prehistoric creature makes it's way to Japan where scientists try to stop it... Actually... when you put it like that it sounds like exactly the same kind of movie to be honest... but enough was done here to give some flavour of originality. I started to find Toshio a little bit irritating by the end of the movie to be honest but his inclusion and his belief that the creature was actually good and only causing damage because it was misunderstood was at least a nice sub plot to weave in with the main feature, and having the movie based around Dr. Hidaka and his team reacting and responding to Gamera's invasion gave it a bit more dimension than it just being about a huge turtle destroying Tokyo. It at least felt original enough that it was enjoyable and not just a vague swipe at trying to copy exactly what Godzilla did best.

And in terms of production it was well put together and made use of some pretty decent cinematography in order to make the movie interesting and enjoyable to watch. There was a good few moments where, in retrospect, you could see the little model villages and the little model boats and stuff but to be honest that just gave it a bit more of a vintage charm, and even if they were just models, they were very convincing models! It's obvious that enough effort was put in to make it as realistic as possible and although there was a couple of sequences that were blatantly shot in such a fashion so as to avoid really costly and elaborate special and practical effects, otherwise there was enough crammed in to showcase Gamera being destructive and blowing shit up, smashing shit to bits, to paint the picture of how destructive and unstoppable a creature it was.

I was watching the Japanese original here with subtitles, so it's a little bit difficult for me to accurately comment on the acting with the language barrier issue but from what I can tell, everyone did mostly a pretty decent job. I did find it quite amusing that the Americans in the movie spoke with quite simplistic and stunted dialogue! And came across as very wooden and vanilla but I'm willing to give it a pass when they are the foreign dialogue in this movie and otherwise I thought Eiji Funakoshi as Dr. Hidaka and (for the most part...) Yoshiro Uchida as Toshio did a pretty good job of carrying the movie. The latter even more so considering he's a child actor. They both did well to portray their individual character's emotions although their roles in the movie are kind of diminished and the focus really is more on Gamera appearing and destroying everything.

If I have any criticisms it's that it is a very one dimensional movie really. As aforementioned the whole crux of the movie is that Gamera is revived, and proceeds to go on a destructive rampage throughout Japan until he is finally stopped. And that really is about the long and short of it. There is some sub-plot drama with Toshio and his developing of the relationship with Gamera but there is very little else and most of the other human characters just exist as observers and as a means to an end when it comes to the execution of the plan to remove the creature and bring the film to an end. I guess it's an overriding issue with the formula of monster movies to be honest... but the main attraction here was: Gamera and look at how awesome he is, look at how he's destroying everything! That was it. There wasn't any kind of intelligent plot development or dramatic character development baked in around that.

But if you came here for your classic monster movie fix, you are likely to come away from this feeling satisfied. It had most of tropes that you like to see in these movies. It was 60's so old and and had all the hallmarks and the milestones from movies of that time. And it was enjoyable and immersive enough that you didn't get bored half way through or get a 10 minute fix from Gamera fucking everything up and then lose interest. I can't say this one really grabbed me in the same way Godzilla '54 did, or does, it just didn't quite have the same magic to it like that one. But I don't feel like I just wasted my time on a garbage movie. It was decent enough and I could watch it again, but if I'm being real with myself I don't really feel like there is a massively compelling reason for me to come back to it in the future... strong 2 out of 5.