When Gamera disappeared after the stock-footage nightmare that was Super Monster Gamera in 1980, one could easily have been forgiven for thinking that the world had seen the last of Daei Studio's Godzilla rip-off giant turtle. The old Gamera movies were never really very...good. Sure most of them were entertaining, but it was more down to the light-hearted nature of them, I don't think they were ever designed to be scrutinised, but then, the same could be said for a lot of Toho's Godzilla movies of the time.

When the King of the Monsters returned in Godzilla 1985, which also lead to 1989's Godzilla Vs. Biollante,1991's Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah,1992's Godzilla Vs. Mothra and 1993's Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, Daei were spurred into action. Japan was going for giant monsters, or 'Kaiju' as they are known over there, and they felt it was time to bring back the 'friend of all children', but instead of going back to his roots like Godzilla did, they decided to completely rewrite the history of Japan's other 'Big G', keeping only his design, and the rough design of his enemy in the movie, the Gyaos, which was originally one monster 'inspired' by Godzilla's buddy Rodan, but in what would be known as Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, instead of dealing with one large beast, Gamera has to deal with a smaller and less powerful flock of them, before handling a bigger one.

The movie was released at the same time as Toho's Godzilla Vs. Spacegodzilla, and while I'm unsure as to how it fared money wise, critically it absolutely demolished Toho's effort, and was declared by many to be the best Kaiju movie made since Godzilla's original appearance. In a, naturally, bizarre way, the movie eventually made it's way to the UK, where I paid £15 for a VHS copy on the day of release. It's biggest marketing weapon was the fact that one of the leading ladies is the daughter of Steven Seagal. As you can imagine, it didn't exactly prove a best seller, yet it did recieve glowing reviews from a variety of sources, including the holier than thou prats at Empire and the 'lads' at Loaded. You may wonder what I meant by 'bizarre' though. The strange part about the UK release is that it has, for reasons that utterly escape me, had a second soundtrack dubbed in, playing really cheesy and dumb techno music. When the actual Japanese score kicks in, the guff fades down, but it's a really quite bizarre and off-putting experience having to listen to characters talking with what sounds like an under 18s rave going on upstairs.
To add further weird to the tale of British versions of the movie, instead of giving it a decent DVD release, the movie was never made available in stores, and a bare bones copy given away free with an early PlayStation 2 magazine is the only way you could attain it, a fact made all the more comical by the fact both sequels, which rely on the introductions made in this picture, are available easily on discs packed with features.

The movie opens aboard a ship carrying a deposit of plutonium accross the Pacific Ocean. On board one of the ships in the fleet is a young sailor named Yonemori(Tsuyoshi Ihara - Hanochi), who is immensely shaken when the ships run aground a mysterious atoll in the middle of the sea, only for it to seem to move away.

An investigation is launched into the mysterious atoll, lead by Mr. Naoya Kusanagi(Akira Onodera - Free And Easy 8), whom Yonemori begs to allow him to come along to find out what it is. After allowing him to come along, they find the atoll, and while on it discover a number of strange, comma shaped metal beads, as well as a plaque made of the same material with an inscription about Gamera being the Earth's last hope, and Gyaos being the shadow of evil. Strangley, when Yonemori touches the plaque, it explodes, and the atoll starts to break apart, throwing all the Sailors into the Sea, where Yonemori swears he sees a giant eye opening...

Meanwhile, a respected Ornithologist, Dr.Mayumi Nagamine(Shinobu Nakayama - Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla) is called out to a remote Japanese Island, where her good friend has went missing while searching for some mysterious bird that had been sighted nearby. When she arrives, she discovers that everyone on the island is dead, and discovers her friend's remains in what looks like a large pile of excrement. Not too long after, she comes face to face with the flying creature, which her crew in a helicopter manages to divert away from mainland Japan.

Nagamine is summoned before a group of Officials, who inform her that they want the creatures captured, and after much deliberation, she decides trapping them in the baseball stadium with closing roof is the best plan, so after luring them in, imagine her despair when a young sailor named Yonemori bursts in screaming about a colossal monster heading towards the city. After having his pleas shooed off, it isn't long before Yonemori's giant monster emerges from the sea to swat one of the bird creatures that escaped out of the sky. While stomping towards the stadium to catch the other two, it causes immense destruction, and to no avail as the remaining two creatures escape, hotly pursued by the giant, which displays flight capabilities by tucking it's limbs into it's turtle-like shell and taking off UFO style.

The goverment declares the giant monster to be their main enemy, and despatches all it's military might towards killing it. However, things take a turn for the more complicated among the group, as Yonemori gave one of the amulet's found on the atoll to Kusanagi's daughter Asagi(Ayako Fujitani - The Patriot), who now seems to have developed a mysterious bond with the turtle creature. After much deliberation, the group settles that the inscription on the sign was referring to the giant monster, who is Gamera, and the bird creatures, who are the Gyaos, in time for Gamera to save them from one of the flying critters.
After several unsuccessful attempts top convince the Government the Gyaos are the threat, things take a turn for the worse as the military severely wounds Gamera, forcing him into a hiatus, which allows the Gyaos to feed more and more, growing larger by the meal. Soon it is the same size as Gamera, and proceeds to Tokyo where it makes a nest upon Tokyo Tower. You see the group theorises that the Gyaos were made as weapons by an advanced race from the Lost Continent of Mu(the Atlantis of the Pacific), who built Gamera to try and stop them when they got out of control. They made the Gyaos aesexual, which means that this one remaining creature has laid eggs that could lead to the extermination of the human race at the hands of the Gyaos, which is now impervious to missile attack.

However, all is not lost, as with the help of her father, Asagi awakens from the sleep she has fallen into since Gamera's injury, and it isn't long before he is on his way to Tokyo for one last showdown with the Gyaos...

So the plot may not seem too much from my description, but the fact is that this movie has a far better plot than any giant monster picture since the original Godzilla. It's human characters are just that...characters, not just throwaway little additions thrown in at random just to have human characters, you actually grow to care about what happens to them. It also does what few Kaiju Eiga since the 50s have, and it actually treats the human side of things seriously. We see Tokyo being evacuated, the fishing industry being hit and the Japanese stock market crashing...all little nuances that really escalate it above standard fare. And what makes it better is that while the human side is actually geared towards a serious and good movie, the action sequences involving the monsters are just plain entertaining, never silly, but some of them do have a certain 'WOW' factor that most Hollywood movies can only dream about, with particular attention being drawn to the two monsters' aerial battle.

One thing, as I mentioned, I've actually seen both the US dub, the US sub and the UK dub, and all actually have subtle differences of plot, nothing major, just some dialog here and there. Actually that's wrong, Mr.Kusanagi is a bit of a dick in the US dub, which can't be said about his appearance in the UK version. It's hard to tell how he is meant to be portrayed in the subtitled one, so I've no idea which to follow. What makes the issues with the multiple dubs all the more confusing is that all of them seem well done in at least some respect. While the US voices are handled very professionally, I just don't feel their voices fit the characters as well as the UK versions. Come to think of it, in general I preferred the UK version, which made the dumb techno score all the more infuriating.

Given what's been said there, judging acting in the picture is quite tough. However, all of the actors don't seem to be treating this lightly, and their facial emotions often do match what is being said. It's also my duty as a man to point out that Shinobu Nakayama would get passed for acting ability anyway, on the grounds that she is absolutely beautiful.

Music, when comprised of Ko Otani's score, is excellent, a proper sweeping and dramatic piece and theme tune that even Akira Ifukube would have been proud of. It captures and enhances the scenes wonderfully, and helping keep things in a serious tone. In the UK version, the ridiculous techno is as stupid as it sounds for the most part, but the thing is, when you watch it without, some scenes that don't use score actually miss it. Gamera turning into a UFO for the first time seemed to mix with the techno soundtrack in a rather surreal manner that worked quite well, although I'm glad it's gone during the scenes of human interaction.

On the subject of music, there is an awesome cheesy rock song about Gamera that plays in the extras menu of the US DVD, if anyone knows what this is, I emplore you to leave a comment telling me.

Special effects are mixed. The miniatures are awesome, that simple. Gamera himself is pretty positive, while in some scenes the rubber-suit is clear, even at it's worst it still looks like a good rubber suit, and at it's best, when in the right lighting or close up, he looks awesome, and his ability to spit fireballs is actually brilliantly realised, as you see his mouth lighting up before, and once he launches it all the whisps of flame coming off and stuff...it looks pretty awesome really.
Sadly the Gyaos lets down the side a bit, and it's far too obvious on too many occasions it's a puppet. Why they chose to go with the same perfectly flat head plate that the original monster design had I'll never understand, they could have done something cool there, but instead, the creature more often than not looks a bit silly. Thankfully the costume for the full size monster looks a lot better than the smaller ones, but it still kind of takes the shine off of what is otherwise a very good show considering this was probably made on a fraction of the budget that Toho's pictures got, and the pocket change that the American Godzilla got.

While this may come as a surprise, given I've spent most of this review highlighting negative points, the fact is that Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is actually awesome. Even with odd Dutch techno blasting in the background for no reason, it's impossible not to enjoy this movie. I must have seen it about 100 times by now in various incarnations, and I can honestly say it has never bored me. Not Once. It's action packed, well made and flows brilliantly, it's generally the type of film that rarely crops up, one that I can completely forgive for it's faults, mainly because of just how bloody entertaining it is. And the movie also achieves something that very few films made these days can, it works for both adults and kids. The film, while featuring destruction and monster violence, isn't exactly going to corrupt your kids. No swearing, nudity and little blood, if I had kids I wouldn't mind them watching this movie. Sure maybe some scenes of the Gyaos might scare little ones, but all in all it's a great ride, and the fact that it's made to a very high degree of quality, contains little plot errors and features some real adrenaline pumping action, it's also easily suitable for adults who just want a really entertaining picture.

I feel it's my duty to issue this movie full marks. Sure some effects have aged a bit, and a definitive English version would be nice, but no matter how you get it, there can be no doubting that this film is awesome. It easily blows away any prior Gamera movie, and even takes the majority of Toho's monster epics with them.

Other Gamera Movies
Gammera the Invincible
War of the Monsters

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4