Godzilla - Der Drache aus dem Dschungel

If you're a fan of Gamera from '90s trilogy, Gamera vs. Barugon may be the original Gamera movie for you.

The movie begins with Gamera's being freed from the rocket he was trapped in at the end of Gamera, the Gigantic Monster and returning to Earth to wreak havoc on a dam. He then disappears for a good 45 minutes while the movie follows a trio of treasure hunters to a tropical island on their quest to retrieve an opal the brother of one of the hunters hid in a cave during the Second World War. Not to give away too much, but the procurement of this opal leads to the emergence of Barugon, in the middle of Japan, who Gamera (eventually) fights in typical Gamera fashion.

Three things immediately stand out about the second entry in the Gamera series:

• There are no kids in this movie. As in its predecessor, Gamera is apparently motivated purely by a quest for energy sources.

• Gamera is barely in the movie. He opens the movie, returns to fight Barugon, then comes back after another long absence to fight Barugon again. The bulk of the movie deals with the birth of Barugon and the Japanese's attempts to defeat him. (Maybe this was the genesis of the military's conflict in Gamera: The Revenge of Iris over which monster to attack first.)

• Finally, the movie is in color, and Daiei seems eager to exploit that fact. The opening titles are played out over shapeless colors, and one of Barugon's weapons is a rainbow beam emanating from his back.

The movie contains some silly moments (most notably the theft of the diamond), but the human conflicts and relationships are played surprisingly straight and adult, at least in comparison to those in a typical Godzilla movie; everyone doesn't necessarily agree on strategy, and it's probably safe to say the two leads don't view each other as siblings. The biggest problem with the movie is its odd pacing, but without a delusional kid and several characters who do virtually nothing running around, Gamera vs. Barugon is a decided improvement over the original.

This was the first color sequel to the original black and white GAMERA, and it's pretty good though you have to be patient in waiting to see much of our favorite fire-breathing, flying turtle. A new monster named Barugon (not to be confused with the similarly-named creature from the Toho series of Japanese giant monster movies) is born and has the ability to freeze people and cities. The monster suits in this series were never quite up to the ones in the Godzilla films, but the effects in general are not too bad. The real fun in this one is savoring the villainous exploits of one of the main human characters... a sneaky creep named Onodera. He steals the show as one of a group of men on an expedition to New Guinea to retrieve a glowing opal believed to be worth millions. There's a fight sequence between this guy and another man who can barely walk late in the movie that's better (and much funnier) than the monsters' battle! **1/2 out of ****

Sequel to 'Gamera" finds that giant turtle returning to Japan after being freed from it's outer space imprisonment after a fortuitous collision with a meteor. Turns out this was serendipitous as well, since a giant monster called Barugon has emerged from a hatched egg brought back to Japan by a treacherous expedition member, who will come to a memorable end... Barugon can freeze things with its extended tongue, and Gamera has his hands full trying to defeat this menace. Not bad sequel made in color has lots of good action and an imaginative story, though plenty of elements to appeal to children as well. Gamera becomes an Earth defender here.

I have to agree with the first comment and say that this is the best of pre-1995 the Gamera's. I've seen five of them, Guiron and Zigra both being indescribably bad (even when I watched them as a 13 year old I thought so). This one is honestly pretty good, a step-up from the stone age-looking Gamera, which was made in 1965 but looked like it was made in 1954! First off, there isn't too much flashback footage and when it is used, it's actually well-edited and has some pretty cool narration and atmospheric music. There's a random dam attack scene which I still cant figure out why it's there, and then the real story starts with the protagonists finding a jewel that eventually turns into the secondary monster.

Gamera plays a pretty minor second-fiddle this time around, with Barugon, an admittedly more interesting monster, hogging most of the screentime destroying things. I really liked the plotting with the greedy guy accidentally waking the monster with his heat-lamp, and then getting eaten when he ruins the army's plan by trying to steal a giant diamond.

This has the best music and best scenes of destruction of any of the Gamera movies and most of Jun Fukuda's Godzilla films. While it's still Daiei, which most of the time is sub-Toho in every respect, this film shows that around 1966 Daiei actually managed to surpass Toho every now and then effects-wise. Good directing too: the tone is surprisingly mature this time around and it's got a really dark and humorless undercurrent to the whole thing.

My favorite Gamera movie, followed by the... so unintentionally hilarious, it makes me crack up thinking about it... Gamera vs. Gaos.

Shigeo Tanaka directed "Gamera vs. Barugon" in 1966, the second film to feature the giant fire-breathing turtle Gamera. I'll be the first to give "Gamera vs. Barugon" a fair review. This second entry into the original seven-film series is probably my favorite, simply because it doesn't feature any annoying Gamera friends; you know what I mean, kids. "Gamera vs. Barugon" is the only movie in the series to not feature annoying adolescents who can communicate with the monster. In this second feature, greedy fortune hunters head to New Guinea where they believe a priceless opal was hidden during the Second World War. Alas, they find it, but one of them is greedier than the other two and kills them both off (well, one of them is stung by a poisonous scorpion, and the other, the hero of the story, survives the attempted assassination). What the greedy man doesn't know, is that what he has in his possession is not a jewel at all, but a monster's egg, Barugon's egg. The infant monster, once exposed to infra-red heat rays, grows to its mature size and begins attacking Japan. Gamera interferes but is defeated quite easily by Barugon's freezing vapor. Meanwhile, the hero and a village girl travel back to Japan, using the ancient legends (combined with modern scientific technology) to try to defeat Barugon once and for all. When these plans fail miserably, it appears that only Gamera stands a chance of bringing Barugon's reign of terror upon Japan to an end. I'll understand this film's low rating, but believe me, as a Gamera fan (and Godzilla too), this is probably the best film in the series. Gamera is off-screen for the most part, and the new monster Barugon takes center stage laying waste to Japan. Forget the bad dubbing for once, too. The musical score is pretty exotic and atmospheric, almost comparable to anything featured in the "Godzilla" series of films. Still, for a movie that was made in '66, the effects hold up surprisingly well, even if it is easy to find the many faults with them. Believe it or not, I actually like the older kaiju films much rather than their special-effects/CGI-laden, modern-day counterparts. For these reasons, "Gamera vs. Barugon" gets a five out of 10 from me.

5/10