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| Tuesday, June 24, 2008 06:18 PM |
| (Last updated on Friday, September 26, 2008 03:00 PM) | | On the Viewer - More Kaiju Movies |
 by Fëanor |
As I mentioned in an earlier post, poppy and I have discovered that during this stressful time, one of the things that calms and cheers us the most is watching giant monster movies, so here are my thoughts on three more of those that we've rented and watched lately.
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris
We really enjoyed the first of the modern Gamera films, but when poppy went to add the next one to our Netflix queue, it was strangely unavailable, so we had to settle for the third one. Thankfully, it's practically a direct sequel to the first film, featuring the return of that film's villain (Gyaos) and most of its main cast of characters, and requires no knowledge of the events of the second film. It was made in 1999, and is actually the last of the modern Gamera films.
I wasn't sure what to expect from a film that promises revenge from something with the unassuming name of Iris in its title, but like the first of the modern Gamera films, Gamera 3 is of surprisingly high quality, with interesting characters, an engaging story, and imaginative ideas. The ending drags on a bit too long and is a bit overdone, but other than that it's a pitch perfect monster movie.
It's some years since the events of Gamera, but our animal expert is still active, and is called in to examine a strange bird, only to discover that it's a Gyaos. Reports of sightings of the creature begin to increase all across the world, and just as before, Gamera shows up again to take care of things. But this Gamera seems different - less interested in protecting people and more interested in simply slaughtering every Gyaos he can find. A shocking sequence around the middle of the film sees our favorite giant turtle causing enormous amounts of destruction and death in an effort to cold-bloodedly finish off a Gyaos that just seems to want to get away from him. The scene makes you reconsider Gamera, as does the backstory of a new character: Ayana. Ayana's parents, along with her pat cat, Iris, were killed during the Gamera/Gyaos fight in the first film, so she hates Gamera with all her heart. Now she's living in a small village with some of her other family, and is bullied by the local girls into sneaking into a cave and removing the stone there which is said to be locking in an ancient demon. As you might expect, nothing good comes of this; an egg that had lain dormant in the cave hatches into a hideous little monster. Ayana names the thing Iris and decides to secretly raise the creature as her own pet. She knows it's dangerous, but that's okay with her; she wants it to kill Gamera for her.
Meanwhile, the boy whose family is meant to guard the cave finds out what's going on, but has a difficult time deciding what to do, as he has just fallen in love with Ayana. Mixed up in all this is the interesting story of what happened to the cop who helped the bird expert in the first movie, and a couple of weird new characters: a mystic and a pretentious video game designer.
Like I said, it's a surprisingly good movie, with a climax that's actually pretty emotionally effective. There's some weird bits about "mana" that don't really go anywhere, and as I said it does drag a bit near the end, but otherwise it's great stuff.
An odd note: whoever put the DVD for this film together clearly felt that the audience for it would be watching the film ironically, and thus the special features include a "blooper reel," which is actually just scenes from the movie with goofy new dialogue dubbed in (there was an old TV show I used to love that did this; I think it was called Mad Movies?); and "commentary by Gamera." The concept behind this latter feature is that there's actually been a real giant turtle actor who's been playing Gamera in all the movies through all the years, and he has agreed to provide commentary - in an outrageously posh British accent, no less. Also on the commentary track with him is the actress who played Iris (a tentacled feminine creature with a Russian accent who's always going on about the rights of tentacled actors), a regular guy who's kind of moderating the talk by asking questions of everybody, and a third wheel kind of guy who claims he's been in every Gamera movie, usually playing a character along the lines of "Solider #6." It's very silly, and occasionally quite funny, but not interesting enough to make me want to sit through the entire thing.
Gamera: Return of the Giant Monsters
Oddly enough, the next monster movie DVD we rented happened to include the third of the original Gamera films (this one made in 1967), and it also features Gyaos as the villain. The particular copy of the film included on the DVD is an American International TV movie version, of not-quite-perfect video and audio quality, with no Japanese language track or subtitles available; the English dub is all you get. This did not detract from our enjoyment one bit, as it's another ridiculously entertaining film. It's set in a remote village where workers are trying to build a road, but they're having a hard time doing so because the villagers are giving them trouble. It turns out they're making a fuss less because they're really upset about the road going through their land and more because they want the company to buy their land at a high price. Another thing slowing down the road construction is a suddenly active volcano nearby. Somehow the bat-like monster Gyaos is awakened by the volcano erupting, and all hell breaks loose. A little boy is nearby when this happens, but luckily he's saved when Gamera swoops in. The usual group of scientists and soldiers show up to try to fix things, and also as usual find themselves taking strategy and policy advice from the little boy. One of the ideas they come up with is trying to immobilize Gyaos by luring him in with synthetic human blood and then causing the platform he's on to spin around and around, in the hopes that this will make him dizzy and unable to get inside before dawn breaks, when he'll be drained and ultimately killed by the sunlight. Brilliant!
It's a silly, super-fun movie with lots of great sequences of men in monster suits fighting each other. That's pure entertainment, people.
The Magic Serpent
We were surprised to find, when we put the Return of the Giant Monsters DVD in our machine, that it also included a whole other movie called The Magic Serpent, which we quickly discovered had nothing to do with Gamera at all. The only similarities are that they're both American International TV movie presentations of Japanese films that feature giant monsters fighting each other, and they're both from around the same time period (the Gamera movie was made in 1967, and this one was made in 1966). My best guess is that they had some extra space on the DVD and chucked this one in to fill it up. But far from being just space-filler, this is not only the best movie of the three reviewed here, it's one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen.
We open in ancient Japan, and see a treacherous noble assassinating his King and Queen, with the help of an evil wizard. A loyal servant saves the Prince and ferries him away on a boat, but the boat is subsequently attacked by a gigantic water serpent (whose roar just happens to sound exactly like Godzilla's). We learn later that the serpent is actually just the evil wizard in another form. He dispatches all the men who have banded together to save the Prince and is about to finish the boy off, as well, when a giant eagle flies in, cuts a deep gash in the serpent's forehead, and makes off with the kid. We jump forward in time some years to see that the Prince has grown into an amazing young man who has learned magic and kung fu at the feet of an old, good wizard (he's the one who sent the eagle in the beginning). The Prince is walking in the woods one day when he's set upon by ninjas sent by the evil wizard (who's actually an old student of the good wizard; sort of the Darth Vader to his Obi-Wan). The Prince gets his head cut off, but it doesn't faze him. He kills all of the ninjas, puts the head right back on his shoulders, and, finding he's put it on backwards, spins it back in the correct direction.
After this rather stunning display, he finds a woman hiding behind a tree and chases after her, thinking she's in league with the ninjas. But it turns out she's just an innocent bystander. She tells him her mother has just died and she's looking for the father she never knew; all she knows about him is that he once lived in this area. The Prince takes the woman back to his master with the idea that he might know her father, only to find his master has been mortally wounded by the evil wizard, who crept in and tricked the old fellow while his ninjas were keeping the Prince occupied. As the good wizard is dying, he reveals to his student his true identity and what happened to his parents, and the Prince resolves to kill the treacherous usurper king and the evil wizard. (The good wizard also gives the Prince a ninja invisibility scroll which... he never uses and which is never mentioned again. That's one of the few disappointing things about the film.)
But what about that girl? She and the Prince are already kind of falling for each other, but she's stuck again in terms of where to find her mysterious Dad until her grandmother shows up and tells her where to check next - it happens to be the same place the Prince is going. To keep her safe, the grandmother gives her a magic spider which can be called to life to do her bidding, but only one time; if used twice, it will turn upon her and destroy her (which is a really, really cool idea, but, in one of the only other disappointing things about the movie, never comes to anything; after she's used it once - in a scene which is admittedly really, really awesome - there's never a moment where she needs to use it again). So off she and the Prince go. But who is her father? And will the Prince succeed?
Of course he will! But it does take him a while, as that evil wizard is tricky, and he has to keep saving kids and women who end up in harm's way. Along the way, he throws fireballs and ninja stars, gets into awesome sword fights, is attacked by a bunch of swirling doors, flies around on a cloud, and calls a giant toad to help him destroy the usurper's palace and fight the magic serpent. And did I mention the part where he takes his head off and puts it back on? This movie has magic, sword fighting, ninjas, samurai, revenge, kung fu fighting, romance, a giant toad that spits fire, a giant serpent that spits water, and a giant spider that spits... well, it looks like foam, but I guess it's supposed to be webbing. The point is, there's nothing awesome that is not in this movie. It's freaking fantastic. Definitely track it down if you can. |
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