Director: Noriaki Yuasa
Year: 1965
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Daikaijû Gamera, Gammera the Invincible
Genre: Kaiju, Tokusatsu
Plot:
After being awakened in the Arctic, a giant fire-breathing turtle appears off the coast of Japan and begins a dangerous quest for more fuel supplies forcing the authorities to conjure a method of containing the beast and stopping it's rampage across the country.
Story:
The story here isn't all that bad and gives us some worthwhile elements. Gamera is initially discovered buried under the Arctic snow when a mysterious fighter jet carrying nuclear weapons crashes and explodes. With a scientific crew exploring nearby see this, they head back to California and then Japan warning the world about the deadly creature. As Gamera finally lands in Japan, he saves the life of a young boy named Toshio who develops an affection for the massive chelonian and tries to save it when it goes on a rampage, but Gamera prevails and ravages Tokyo before finally forcing the military to attempt a radical containment process to defeat the creature.
On the whole, this isn't bad and certainly is a fine setup for a giant monster film. There's a motivation for Gamera's history and reappearance, the series of attacks are given weight throughout the film and it builds to a fine conclusion. The problem is that this is a somewhat simple and overly childish scenario, not really allowing much here except for a continuous amount of military action and monster attacks as either the film shows the military attacking it to stop Gamera or in meetings trying to stop it. Not that any of the plans aren't that enjoyable as they are in execution, but the one-note nature of the script here leaves this one with a frantic first-half and then a limp second-half with only an endless round of monster action to pull it off. In fact, the final half is so weak that it has to resort to a series of disasters to impede the 'Z-Plan' that it fully feels like ideas that were thrown into this in order to stretch out the running time as if the filming of the scenes took up less time than expected and the film is prolonged in order to get to a minimum theatrical length.
However, it's the human story that really suffers here in that they're given utterly bland and awful storylines throughout here. The presence of Aoyagi on the trail of the creature with Dr. Hidaka and Kyoko is a decent one-note presence here but again to make that a running theme makes him seem disposable and could've easily been made out to be another member of the research team as Hidaka is the lead and Kyoko is the assistant leaving him to be the grunt that does everything. That minor change wouldn't affect the story much and gives them a much more logical motivation to be together. That also compounds on the biggest factor against this one in the form of Toshio, who is one of the most irritating child characters in a franchise full of them. Obsessive about turtles to a degree that requires immediate hospitalization and professional care, how this character is allowed to sneak away and tag along on every single one of the military's plans without anyone doing anything is a major distraction as everyone tends to look the other way with him. He literally adds nothing, the antics aren't funny and he causes almost as much impedement in their plans as mother nature which makes him a real sore spot to get over.
Special Effects:
The special effects here are actually decent and do manage to have some virtue to them. Gamera is depicted here in several forms: a full suit, a puppet head, a small model for his four-legged stances and animated into his flying form. First off, the suit here is certainly serviceable, giving a bipedal turtle-like appearance with a massive shell on his back, a short tail that barely reaches the ground and those recognizable tusks on the side of his mouth. This is a workable look and the costume is passable on the level of being an Ultraman villain's costume, but the wide shell on it's back ends up causing a hilarious bow-legged look to appear and it has to rock from side to side in order to move forward. The puppet head basically is there to spit the flame-breath possibly for fear of not wanting the suit to catch fire and it manages to look enough like the full costume to not draw attention to itself even though the change is noticeable with the way the arms are almost always stuck in the same position only turning around to continue the stream of flames. The four-legged model is mostly used for long-distance shots of Gamera running along the mountaintop where it's wind-up motion looks rather obvious for the most part. The less said about the transparent animation for the flying form the better.
As for the rest of the effects, this is nothing special but serviceable which is the main theme of the film. The miniatures are confined to the small Arctic landscape where Gamera appears, the boat it sets on fire, a lighthouse, one small part of Tokyo and the island base at the end. With the opening Arctic landscape basically meaning it can throw a snow-covered surface down present it as a part of the wilderness, while the landscape around the stranded boat is nicely realized. As is the lighthouse which is wisely kept to a series of longshots for those scenes as the object of the shot is more about Gamera rescuing Toshio to save his character. The power plant is an utterly effective miniature set and looks great, with the high-tension towers being a solid wall around it and then Gamera stepping into bottling plants, control rooms and funnels which is nicely destroyed and blown up in a fantastic sequence that has a lot of solid action to it.
The few city-destruction scenes here aren't that bad as the airport sequence looks great with Gamera ripping off the control tower and then crashing into the miniature terminal in a massive explosion. While the long-distance camera used to capture it gives away the artificiality of the set, this still looks good overall. Likewise, the few bits of the rampage we get are handled well-enough here since the buildings break nicely and are obviously not hollow shells unlike other sets pf the time. Since it's basically a few apartment buildings and a freeway he crashes through, the building wrecking isn't as prominent here so the chance to really show it off doesn't have the same impact as other films but what we get is well-executed. The trainyard sequence is handled with obvious toy train-cars with the full-size Gamera suit standing in the water around it, but since it's intercut with the live-action footage of Toshio's rescue there's some excitement there. As well, the island base looks nice with the control up on the hilltops overlooking the valley below with the launchpad in the middle of it all.
Actors:
The cast here isn't too bad and certainly handles their roles well enough even without having much to do. Eiji Funakoshi does incredibly well here as the kindly Dr. Hidaka, not really standing out much but certainly offering the kind of authority usually found in scientist types in these films. He listens to reason and has enough common sense to look at items before him to draw conclusions reasonably enough and s lot to like about him. His assitant, Kyoko Yamamoto is played nicely if blandly by Harumi Kiritachi. She doesn't do much but shuffle off after the doctor, contributes nothing of interest but ably plays the object of lust which she is well-suited for. That individual, the photographer Aoyagi, is played by Junichirô Yamashiko as a typical love-struck puppy. He doesn't really do much here beyond lust after the girl when he's not photographing the expedition, and while he gets credit at the end for starting the fire to lure Gamera back that moment is all he's really good for here. Really, though, the assistant character really could've been able to be a photographer and he wouldn't be needed at all, so while the character isn't really needed he doesn't do that badly with what he does.
The main source of irritation in the film though is the young boy Toshio Sakurai, played by Yoshiro Uchida. The kids' obsession with turtles borders on the institutionalization where nothing is given as to why, he constantly manages to sneak into places to see Gamera that should've alerted the authorities to keep an eye on him when they're about to launch a plan against it and yet nothing is ever done about his behavior that suggests he's going to stop. The kid is quite annoying and really helps to showcase the even kiddier progression the series is going towards later so this serves as a starter pack for the rest of the series. His sister/guardian Nobuyo is played by Michiko Sugata. She basically plays the worrying older sister trying to look out for her sibling and doesn't do much overall here.
Other Factors:
There's a few other rather enjoyable elements to this one. The main theme here is quite enjoyable and definitely catchy with some rather deep instrumentations that creates a rather enjoyable monster march. It definitely serves as a worthy monster theme and carries on throughout the rest of the series. The rest of the music works rather nicely here and gives this a much grander scale than expected. Likewise, the film manages to utilize the mixture quite nicely here between the child-friendly heroics the series would eventually become known for as well as the more serious kaiju action that was prominent in the scene at the time, where we get to see Gamera actually saving Toshio from harm that he himself caused when he wrecks the lighthouse and then catches him as he's falling before laying him gently on the ground in front of his parents. The dichotomy of these actions plays well here with this one being capable of both and there's something to like with that throughout here.
Overview: *** 1/2/5
For the most part, this is a decent enough offering that has plenty of positive points going for it to make this one interesting. Nowhere near the upper echelon of genre titles but certainly capable of entertaining on it's own, this is definitely worth a watch for those looking to expand beyond the usual Japanese kaiju flicks or are interested in the genre in general.
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