This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

recommended

Purely Joyful Movie!

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

From out of the arctic comes a gigantic flying, fire-breathing turtle that sets its sights on destroying Tokyo.This film was created to rival the success and popularity of Godzilla, and it shows. This is quite clearly inspired by the better-known monster. Unfortunately, Gamera is far less active and therefore will probably always remain second-tier.This film has the dubious distinction of being featured not once but twice on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". I have only watched the first one (from the pre-Comedy Central days), which relies heavily on the jokes connecting Kenny (Toshio) and Gamera as friends.

It helps to be a kaiju fan if you watch this as an adult. I was able to see the English subtitled version, and found it enjoyable for what it is. It's monster destruction along the vein of Gojira, albeit a cheaper budget, yet more updated special effects. The movie is short so its fairly easy to get through. I love the atmosphere of black and white, and the seriousness of Gamera as a threat to humanity. There is a child present, but he will not totally turn off adults. I'm not gonna pick the film to pieces and tell you what's wrong. It's just good kaiju fun! This movie is as important to the series as the original Godzilla was to his. I recommend it to all true fans of the genre.

This film features a giant turtle kaiju which is simply a knock off of Godzilla and that is that. Sure, the Gamera films in the 90's did feature good effects and darker stories, but I would still take a Godzilla film as it was the film that inspired the people at this studio to make their fire breathing turtle. This would be the first of several films that would, like the Showa era Godzilla films get more kid like and goofy as they went on. Godzilla would, however, at least close out the Showa era with a couple of good films, Gamera would not. Granted, the woman in the bikini in the Zigra film at least looked really good. This film is the origin film where we get to see Gamera emerge for the first time and would feature no other monsters other than the title monster. Godzilla would become more friendly as his movies progressed, but in his first film, he was clearly the villain as he stomped through Tokyo and created damage and mayhem. Here, Gamera does just about the same, only they try to make him sympathetic too as he saves a very deranged child named Kenny in the dubbed version I watched. It is almost laughable as at one point Gamera lets his fire breath loose on people trying to escape the terror this beast unleashed and then you have Kenny trying to persuade everyone that Gamera is good. This aspect of the film is a fatal flaw and one not present in Godzilla, he was bad and he was killed. The Godzilla in the later Showa era films would be a different Godzilla. However, the goofy lovable monster in the later Gamera films is still this same monster that killed a few thousand people.The story is a bit messed up at the beginning. There is an expedition in the arctic and something with some planes overhead and they interject some Americans in this, I am guessing the same way they put Raymond Burr in the original Godzilla. The original Japanese Godzilla film is immensely better than the Americanized version and I am guessing it is the case for this one too, but I have only seen the Sandy Frank version. Well, Gamera is released rather quickly, not too much build up here and soon there are reports of a UFO too! Well, Gamera reemerges at a lighthouse and saves Kenny, the dark child who loves turtles and will always stand by Gamera no matter how many he kills; however, the Z plan lurks on the horizon and may prove the only way to defeat the might Godzil...Um, I mean Gamera.I saw this film as an episode of MST3K. The show would do several of the Gamera films of the original era only skipping three of them, though it is a shame they didn't do the one with the giant squid monster. This one provided a lot of laughs as they riffed poor Kenny too and Joel was on top of his game here doing Kenny's voice. All the episodes featuring Gamera films are pretty good, the least funny being the next film in the series featuring Baragon, probably because the gang on the satellite of love did not have a child who loves Gamera to riff! So, no, I am not a huge Gamera fan as to me it is just a rip off of Godzilla. I did like the three Gamera films made in the 90's a bit, but at the same time, I found that they were overrated as well. That they were trying too hard to distance Gamera from the monster that is said to be friend to children. I also thought the third part of that particular trilogy was really anticlimactic. Here, we get what we normally get, huge monster stomps through city while nothing anyone does seems to hurt said beast. Heck, not only had Godzilla done this, but the British too, by this point with the film Gorgo. Which, coincidentally also features a child who delights in the deaths of many people as he pulls for the monster.

When we in the western world see these funky Japanese movies, (I'm NOT talking Kurosawa here), we can get confused. At least, I can. I'm in my 50's as of this writing, and when I was a kid, I liked these Japanese rubber monster flicks. The story meant nothing to me. I just liked seeing giant monsters fight. But as I've aged, I realize I have less and less in common with them.I don't know what the hell they are talking about anymore. I caught up with Gamera a few days ago and wondered how I loved this movie as a kid. So, I thought I'd try to move up to the 21st century and see what Japanese kids movies were doing today. Bad Idea! I found http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451829/ Naisu no mori: The First Contact. It came out in 2005, 40 years after Gamera. I went on to search for a video clip from this movie, and there certainly is one. It......it....Well, OK, I cannot even describe it here without risking arrest. Check it out.If you thought giant mutated turtles with tusks and rocket legs were strange, you've not seen the children's fare out of Japan lately.I gotta tell you, the aliens are different now.I should REALLY bump my vote for this movie, but I'm too frightened to. The new stuff scares me too much.