Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995) Review

Updating a rather ridiculous giant monster series that featured a flying and fire breathing turtle does not sound like a recipe for success. But this surprisingly entertaining film almost convinces you that a turtle could fly. While a mixed bag, it shows the potential that the trilogy eventually grows into. Time for giant monster destruction as Tokyo gets hammered yet again! UPDATED for extras coverage.

The popular Gamera series of giant turtle kids movies from the 1960’s and 70’s did not get an auspicious start with Gamera the Invincible. It was an obvious attempt to cash in on Toho Studios successful Godzilla franchise on an even lower budget. It had none of the gravitas or coherency of the contemporary Godzilla films, much less that of Gojira which started the whole thing. The movies got weirder and more juvenile as the years went on.

So when a director named Shusuke Kaneko was given the green light to restart the defunct property, there was not a huge amount of excitement from what I remember. It did not help that his resume was filled with cheap exploitation flicks filled with the late night cable fare of sex and violence. The idea he could update a kiddie movie and make a hit out of it was far fetched. Even more far fetched would be for it to be critically acclaimed.

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe begins the trilogy with a serious music and a dark ocean in what appears to be a statement of intent by the director. A cargo ship laden with a ton of highly toxic plutonium is being escorted through the night sea by a Japanese destroyer and helicopter. On board the destroyer is one young and entirely too serious officer, Yoshinari Yonemori (Tsuyoshi Ihara), and his captain. The escort duty is weighing on them in typical Japanese monster movie environmentalism fashion. Start your checklist here for all the kaiju tropes!

Of course something has to go wrong and so it does. The freighter runs aground on an atoll that should not be there. More importantly, the atoll itself is moving with the current! Here in Minnesota, we hit deer with cars, but in Japan they hit giant mysterious objects with ships. It is an opportunity to show off something new to the genre, CGI. The computer generated effects are not bad for the mid-Nineties and give a sense of scale.

Instead of all this being kept secret, the events fill the headlines of the Japanese newspapers – or so I assume. For some inexplicable reason there is no subtitling of headlines, signs, or the cast credits, for that matter. It does help that the film cuts to two schoolgirls discussing the news and ancient historical myths. Yes, you read that right. Atlantis and Mu are both touched on. Here we are introduced to Asagi Kusanagi played by Ayako Fujitani, Steven Seagal’s daughter! Glad she got her mother’s looks.

More characters and plot are introduced rapidly. Pretty (and young) Doctor Mayumi Nagamine comes into the picture when a phone call from her mentor interrupts her avian studies. The phone goes dead before she can get to it and we are shown a storm on the outer island where Professor Hirata is on a field trip. There a pure horror film scene unfolds with an unseen assailant chasing locals to fearful ends.

Meanwhile, Yonemori begs his way into the civilian research expedition searching for the mysterious atoll. Naoya Kusangi (Akira Onodera) is in charge of it and reluctantly gives in to the younger man. Later on, Yonemori talks his way into the home of the Kusanagi’s after meeting Asagi in a local shop. When Kusanagi walks in to find the sailor cooking and alone with his underage daughter, his silent look fills volumes.  Good man, that is how a father should react!

One of the strengths of the movie is how every day life is portrayed. In some ways, it is a time capsule of 1990’s Japan. By showing so much normality, it makes the weird events and situations easier to accept (or forgive) since there is a foundation of reality underpinning it.

I cannot believe I just wrote that sentence about a movie starring a giant flying turtle.

Another thing to note about this film is that it jumps around a lot. That is not a knock against it, since all the balls are successfully juggled, but it does mean the movie is fast paced. If you do not pay attention, you will miss something. Attention to detail makes this an unusual kaiju movie and I find myself discovering little things with each viewing.

Nagamine is recruited by Inspector Oksako (Yukijiro Hotaru) to investigate the last mysterious radio message from Himegami Island where Hirata was. Something bad involving a “bird” was the message and she agrees to go with the nervous police officer. There they find wrecked homes and a disgusting mass of goo that she promptly identifies as a giant pellet, or undigested mass that birds vomit. Showing great fortitude, she eagerly plunges her gloved hand into the pellet and withdraws a horrifying discovery.

Soon, the “bird” is discovered and it is not normal at all. Having a fifteen meter wingspan, teeth, and a reptilian appearance, it is rapaciously hungry and fresh out of food on the island. Japan beckons with all those juicy humans to consume and the chase is on. Suddenly I have a craving for sushi. Disturbing.

The news gets worse, for there are three of the critters looking at Japan like it is one big happy meal. Time for the government to get involved and make everything better. Yeah, that is not going to work out so well. For one thing, the representative from the cabinet, Mr. Saito, wants to capture the animals rather than kill them. He isn’t above using intimidation to draft Nagamine into creating a plan and he is as annoying as the picture above indicates. With him, the main cast is now complete.

Oh wait, isn’t someone big missing?

While the good doctor and detective deal with the “birds,” Yonemori and Kusanagi are digging for clues on the atoll. A lot of little comma shaped ingots of metal are uncovered  along with a strange marker covered in European runes. In a 2001 like moment, Yonemori touches the monolith and things begin going wrong -- starting with an earthquake (atollquake?) that throws them into the water. There he glimpses something that would make most normal people doubt their sanity. Fortunately for him, Yonemori is too dorky to be normal.

The weak willed Inspector Osaka turns out not to be an idiot after all and a very clever trap for the “birds” is executed successfully using a baseball stadium. Well, mostly. Problem is a giant turtle has surfaced and is rampaging through the city on his way toward the birds. Yes, the last member of the cast has finally shown up and is chewing on the scenery. More accurately, Gamera is destroying it. Look for the tragic loss of ramen noodles in this scene.

No, I am not kidding. A sly and dark sense of humor pervades the movie, which is another thing to keep an eye open for. Some of it is inside jokes regarding the genre and some of it is derived from normal people dealing with extremely abnormal situations.

Speaking of abnormal, after the fiasco at the stadium, the turtle looks constipated and then emits a massive amount of smoke. Tokyo, we have lift off! In moments the giant reptile has turned into a flying saucer just like in the old movie series. The eyewitnesses are just as dumbfounded as they should be witnessing the bizarre spectacle.

After demonstrating a strange laser like beam from their vocal cries that can shear steal smoothly, the Gyaos are loose.  Gyaos? Yes, that is what their name is according to the ancient prophecy on the monolith found earlier on Gamera. Both creatures get their names and the government convenes an emergency session. The Japanese constitution will not allow them to take military action against Gamera, you see. It is a nice bit of real world politics and only since 9/11 has Japan amended their laws to take action overseas, for instance.

Politics now move to center stage as the government is still determined to protect the Gyaos because they are an endangered species. Hey, eating humans isn’t a big deal after all! It is nice to see the scientist involved not defending the dangerous critters as Nagamine makes her opinions forcefully felt. She is a very strong personality in contrast to her petite form and is a welcome departure from stereotype.

Heroics follow, with Nagamine attempting to rescue a boy, then being rescued by Yonemori, then the lot of them are rescued by Gamera in an exciting sequence. The budding, if very slight, romance between the two leads begins here. Nothing like helping save the girl to get her attention.

But the misunderstood giant turtle is now public enemy number one. Making things worse is the strange telepathic link developing between Gamera and Asagi through one of those metal trinkets she now wears on a necklace. When he is injured, the same wound appears on her…

With the military given the full go ahead, war is waged on Gamera. Whether it be the air, land, or sea it does not matter, the Japanese Self Defense Force has a way to take him down. It is a marked contrast to Godzilla, who is usually invulnerable to whatever is thrown at him. Between the JSDF and Gyaos, he gets his shell handed to him and that badly hurts Asagi too.

With the two out of commission, there is nothing to stop the remaining Gyaos from terrorizing Tokyo. Feasting upon a commuter train car full of baseball fans brings new meaning to “being packed like sardines” as the much larger creature looks for a place to nest. With reproduction on her mind, Gyaos is now a threat to the survival of all of humanity.

Will Tokyo be rescued? Will the military stop pounding on their only hope? Will the stock market recover from the events? Those questions and more will be answered in the end when the battle really begins! Well, maybe not all of them.

Thoughts

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is a mixed bag, being hokey at times but very clever at other times. Watching it I want to riff on it ala MST3K’s infamous showings of the original series. However, there are a lot of good scenes and smart dialogue, plus well developed characters. In that sense, it reminds me of really good kids movies that operate at several levels and can keep parents entertained as well. I suspect that was the goal of the movie in the first place.

There are so many little touches that add to the movie that I cannot begin to list them all. Earlier, I mentioned how it helped the realism by depicting so much of normal life throughout the film. It keeps the movie from going completely silly even though a lot of it really is ludicrous.

Little did I know it seeing it many years ago that this would be a break out movie for director Kaneko. After making this successful trilogy, he got his dream of directing a Godzilla movie and Godzilla: GMK is the best of the series after Gojira. Also in his resume were the smash hit adaptations of Death Note.

While being the first kaiju movie to use CGI a lot, the effects are like the movie, a mixed bag. Some are terrible, while others are stellar. In my opinion, they got better as the movie progressed. The suits vary in quality, with Gamera being a nice upgrade from the original look, while Gyaos was not that impressive until the final form. That suit was the best of the movie.

The fights were mixed quality too. When the combatants were fighting from a distance, it worked. When they tussled, it was something of a disappointment.

Some of the violence and blood will make this movie too intense for little kids and there is some gore of a monstrous nature.

I recommend Gamera: Guardian of the Universe to people who love watching giant monsters trample cities, kids, and kids at heart. Parents watching this with their children may be surprised to find more depth than is usual for the genre.

Technical

The copy I have is part of a Blu-ray set put out by Mill Creek that has the entire trilogy. This was a welcome release since the old ADV DVD release had gotten rare and pricey. From what I have read about the old release, this one is miles better in quality and benefits a great deal from being HD. It looks better than what I remember watching in the late 90’s on DirecTV pay per view and it definitely sounds much better with options for DTS-HD Japanese and Dolby 5.1 for both the Japanese and English tracks.

While not the highest quality HD, the video is better than DVD though it is grainy. Given how much of the film is shot at night this isn’t a surprise to me. I suspect my watching it on a computer monitor up close exposes flaws a great deal more than viewing it on a big screen TV in a living room. Ratio is 1.85:1. Colors are vibrant and well saturated.

The English dub is not terrific, but not horrible either. I do not think the portrayal of Osaka in English was good for it turned him into a clown. As ever, I suggest watching the original cast with subtitles. I mentioned before that only the dialogue is subtitled.

There are extras included on the one Blu-ray disc that contains the movie and its sequel. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how to access them using PowerDVD 11. Finding the audio setup requires starting one of the movies and the pop-up button on the software. I assume that a standalone player won’t have the same difficulties.

UPDATE:

I am officially an idiot first class with dimwit clusters. All the extras were put on the second Blu-ray disc along with the third movie. Here I had assumed that the discs were simply the individually issued ones in a new slipcase. Wrong!

When selected from the menu, all extras from the three movies play for nearly three hours. Once played, they sort of can be individually chosen, but the implementation of the menus is poorly done. They are in DVD quality so the picture quality leaves much to be desired. This is standard in a lot of BD releases, so no harm, no foul.

Roughly twenty minutes of content, the extras are an excellent look at how kaiju movies are made. I would have killed to have seen this kind of thing as a kid growing up in the 1970’s. Content includes slow motion screen tests of the Gamera costume, the usage of “snorkel” lenses on miniature sets, model making, and lots of pyrotechnics.

Interviews with the director and technicians give insights to the thinking behind staging the scenes along with the difficulties of the production. Also shown is an interview with the first woman to play a kaiju, Yuhmi Kaneyama. Watching her work on the fight choreography was interesting, since it needs to be precise due to the lack of vision in the monster suits.

It turns out that a lot more miniatures were used than I thought, which is a tribute to the model makers skills. The amount of pyrotechnics used is impressive and working on these films had to be a pyromaniacs dream.

 

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

 

 

 

 

 

The destruction of the Tokyo Tower happens in a lot of Godzilla films but this one takes the cake. While trying to shoot Gyaos down, the Japanese army accidentally destroys the tower! That leads to this reaction from those directly responsible for destroying a national landmark:

The line from the general is dead on following the screw up and you can see the minister thinking his political career just ended.

One of the better subplots is the relationship between Asagi and her father. Papa wants to keep her uninvolved in the crisis, even going into deep denial about her telepathic connection to Gamera. While the linked pair are unconscious and recovering from their wounds, Kusanagi looks in on his daughter in her bedroom. There he finds photos of the family including the missing mother. While that isn’t explained, there is a great moment when he discovers his daughter has a boyfriend.

The final chase sequence was a very fun bit. The sheer amount of damage the giant turtle does while trying to shoot down his opponent was amazing. It is one thing to be able to spit fireballs, but when you can’t hit what you aim at…

Still, the aerial fight is very well done and even takes the monsters to the edge of space. Hokey but fun!

The power of love, in this case between father and daughter, is what saves the day. Drawing upon her father’s strength, Asagi wills Gamera to survive. He does in what is a nod to Gamera the Invincible’s scenes of eating flames.

The final standoff is straight out of a cowboy western. That amused me no end. And being Gamera, he says good bye to the main characters at the end.