GAMERA VS. GUIRON!!!

Gamera Vs. Guiron – 1969, Noriaka Yuasa, Japan

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By its very nature, the Gamera franchise seems to invite a comparison to the work of his most noteworthy big, green rival, Godzilla. Gamera only exists as an attempt by Daiei to siphon off some of that big lizard money in the first place, and it would be nearly impossible not to at least think of the single most important, influential, and popular giant monster franchise of all time when evaluating a competing super beast, but then, Gamera continues to mirror Godzilla periodically throughout his adventures, as well. Or perhaps they’re both just responding to other ongoing cultural phenomena. Hard to say. In any case, this is Gamera’s fifth film… released in 1969, the same year All Monsters Attack came out, which sucked like crazy. So, damn,,, I guess in terms of 1969 kaiju films, Gamera is the reigning champ. At last!

THE PLOT~ Two mischievous boys (heard that one before) steal away on a mysterious UFO, which then flies them, autopilot style, to it’s mysterious and far away planet. Gamera spots the kids on the way out, and follows them, because little boys are apparently his number one priority. I hope no kids on Earth need Gamera’s help for the next day or two, because he’s way out of his jurisdiction this time, like when Joe Don Baker went to Malta in Final Justice. (Joe Don Baker reference- I can now die happy.)

Anyway, the planet they wind up on is all tubes and nonsense, it sort of looks like what you’d get if Chucky Cheese designed an alien planet. I would, in no way, be surprised if every hour on the hour Guiron wiggled out to play a pizza themed cover version of ‘Dancin’ in the Streets’, but I digress. This Dr. Suess land of moon craters and goof tubes is basically deserted due to an ecological disaster the aliens caused, which, in turn, created a race of Gyaos monsters, who annihilated all life and who still continue to tear shit up hard. Two (TWO) alien women somehow survived the subsequent mass extinction of their species, and they now control a giant monster called Guiron, which they use to protect their dome and tube style future city from the friggin’ Gyaoses. At first they act super cool to our wayward Earth boys, but we soon learn they plan to fucking eat their brains and then conquer Earth, for more delicious brains. Yep!

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So, anyhow, Gamera shows up, him and Guiron throw down, and the day is saved. Our alien chicks are killed, our humans boys are returned to Earth, and the sun sets on yet another monster filled day in 1960’s Japan.

It’s actually a lot better than the preceding Gamera film, but it’s not going to rival Gamera Vs Barugon, or Gamera Vs Gyaos, at this point the reining Gamera champs. Like Gamera Vs Viras, this film is without question very, very youth oriented, “friend to all children” being a title Gamera eagerly accepted years before Godzilla sort of reluctantly gave up his days of menacing and killing people to follow suit with categorically kid-friendly adventures exclusively. Gamera does rip of Big Bad GZ, but there are times when this imitation looks a little more mutual than people would like to admit.

We should also talk about Guiron. I like him… But… Well, there’s just no nice way to say this, his face is a damn sword. Straight up. That’s really the first and last page of the Book of Guiron, his damn face is a sword.

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Ol’ Sword Face, I call him.

Which is kind of cool. Gamera, being a turtle, is, essentially, a shield with limbs and a head, so just as he is inherently defense oriented, Guiron is a weapon with feet, making him outwardly offensive in nature. He also can fire shurikens out of the side of his head, and remains, without question, easily the least weird monster in the entire Daiei Gamera franchise. Also, when he kills things, he will often decapitate his enemies through the power of headbanging, which is extremely metal.

It’s actually quite likely that Guiron is the single most formidable foe Gamera has faced yet. Before this, it would be, without question, Gyaos, but as I mentioned earlier, Guiron kills like, four Gyaoses everyday, that’s like, his afternoon routine. He slices of their wings, crawls up to their imobilized, shgrieking bodies, and then headbangs his sword face into them, first decapitating, and then slicing the rest of the Gyaos into rounded sections like a giant sausage. In the end, Gamera DOES make sure Guiron is super, super dead, but he’s not able to do it on his own, he requires the aid of powerful, explosive rockets to really get the job done. In fact, in this entry, Gamera isn’t much of an able combatant at all, he’s much more adept at turtle gymnastics that the art of ferocious, monster combat. Perhaps this is a symptom of his evolution towards giant, smiling, tusk faced Happy-Meal Toy and away from nightmarish terror of Japan? Seems plausible.

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Pictured: Turtle Gymnastics.

This shits goofy, no question, but Gamera has never managed to avoid being goofy, not in the Showa era, at least. If you like Gamera, you know this, and that shouldn’t slow you down. It’s also commendable (I guess) that Daiei has began to use extra terrestrials for it’s villains, just like Toho did with it’s Godzilla franchise, but has managed to come up with two different stories in order to accommodate them, a feat which Toho was never able to achieve after decades of just copying and pasting the same Alien Invasion script over and over and over.

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The Gamera franchise appears to have peaked with Gamera Vs Gyaos, and what we see with this film is a pretty shallow, straightforward, children’s science fiction movie, with a few giant monsters. These movies are fun enough, if that’s what you’re into, but our big, frumpy turtle guardian is straight up phoning it in about now.

C

 

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YOKAI MONSTERS: ALONG WITH GHOSTS!

Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts (AKA Journey With Ghost Along Yokaido Road) ~ 1969, Yoshiyuki Kuroda, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Japan

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The third entry in Daiei’s fantastically groovy Yokai trilogy rests on the far end of the spectrum from Spook Warfare; this time around we are given practically no insight into the yokai as individual personalities at all, and our narrative remains grounded solidly in the human realm, with our monsters popping in far less frequently than in the previous two films. Oddly enough, that means that we have the best story and the most engrossing characters of the entire trilogy, yet somehow, the movie still hits the finish line dead last insofar as entertainment value is concerned, because, really, Yokai is all about monsters per capita. Seems hardly fair, but thems the breaks, baby.

THE PLOT~ When some shady, gangster samurai intercept the delivery of some incriminating evidence, murder style, they also manage to inadvertently choose sacred ground as their primo ambush spot, thereby agitating the local yokai. The hoary old shrine keeper pleads with them to take the bloodshed elsewhere, but, predictably, he is ignored/murdered. Everything looks good for our samurai douchebags, until, that is, the yokai intervene, and place the evidence in the hands of the shrine keepers adorable grand-daughter. With Granddad dead and gangsters on her tail, our little heroine departs on a life and death quest to reach a nearby town where her deadbeat dad has been hiding out since her friggin’ birth, all the while deftly evading her murderous pursuers. But she is not alone; early in her quest, she meets a kindly young samurai who takes it upon himself to defend her, but of course , that’s easier said than done. Before the shows over, we have a few remarkably spooky altercations with the titular Yokai, as they deliver their traditional apparition-administered vigilante justice all up in the bad guy’s grills. It’s freaking rad, is what I’m saying.

Like all the Yokai films (100 Ghosts especially,) as well as Daiei’s also rad Daimajin, Along With Ghosts is, in fact, a samurai film with a strong paranormal element, but in this particular entry, the dial is cranked much further in the samurai direction than ever before. The spooky bits spice up the picture significantly, but they’re almost an afterthought, with minimal rewrites the movie could be told as a straight samurai flick without any ghost business at all. It also does a lot less filming on sound stages, instead many of our exterior shots have been moved to actual villages, open, sweeping fields, and other natural landscapes. There’s lot more moving camera now, due to our newfound wide-open space, and the end result is a more visually dynamic film. Additionally, the ghosts are no longer the least bit wacky, we don’t see a trace of our jive talkin’ Kappa or goofy Umbrella Ghost, and their replacements are pretty friggin’ terrifying. These hideous spooks are designed and implemented for horror, and horror alone. I do think the film could have benefitted from more time with them, but they’re sure effective as fuck when the picture does roll them out.

As I said before, despite the fact that from an academic perspective this film is actually much better than it’s predecessors, it’s still the least likable entry in the Yokai series, because the strength of these films lie almost exclusively in it’s many diverse monsters. In the case of Yokai, sacrificing a well executed narrative for a couple more ghosts is actually the way to go, as counter-intuitive as that may look on paper. Still, it’s no crisis, being the worst entry in the yokai trilogy remains nothing to sneeze at. All of these movies are rock solid. Along With Ghosts just happens to be the weakest in the bunch.

Or, at least, it was… Until 2005…

A-

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ALL MONSTERS ATTACK!

All Monsters Attack A.K.A. Godzilla’s Revenge~ 1969, Ishiro Honda -Japan

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I watched this movie probably 135 times as a child. That makes it hard for me to declare outright that All Monsters Attack is a total piece of crap, even if part of me does want to say that… But that would be dishonest, after all, the film is intentionally geared for a young audience, and I seemed to like it just fine when I was a kid. I can say this, though; for adults, it’s rough. Especially the English dub. Brutal.

The movie focuses on Ichiro, a little kid who nobody likes, least of all the you, the viewer. Ichiro bumbles around sucking at all things, and periodically falls asleep, launching his numerous dream sequences, all of which take place on Monster Island, eternal battleground of giant friggin’ beasts, and therefore the least safe place in the world- but it is here that Ichiro pals around with Minilla, Godzilla’s doofy and equally unworthy son, and slowly learns to stand up for himself and be less of a little bitch. Most of the movie is either Ichiro in the real world, which is super, super depressing, Ichiro on Monster Island, which is goofy, or scenes of Godzilla kicking thing’s asses, which is awesome.

And really, that’s about it for All Monsters Attack, plot wise. The English dub is excruciating, Ichiro sounds like a screeching, annoying little nerd, and that’s really what he is. He had to learn to not suck via dream sequence life lessons, but I would think the same effect could have been achieved if someone had just shaken him and screamed “NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOUR SHIT, KID, QUIT SUCKING!” right into his face.

I also feel the theme song at the beginning is worth mentioning. Even as a child I thought it was weird, it’s this strange hot jazz/angry funk acid nightmare, listen to it here.

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The movie is too uneven, even as a kid’s film. The “real world” sequences are bleak and depressing, which I can remember is how I generally felt about them as a child, even if I could not yet articulate that. Meanwhile, the frequently fast-fowarded to Monster Island sequences delivered the goods, because they packed in like, so many damn monsters. That was probably what made this movie a regular in my childhood VHS rotation, high monster count.

One of the lesser Toho Godzilla films, and possibly the worst Showa outting for Big G..

C-

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