Daikaijû kûchûsen: Gamera tai Gyaosu

The dubbing for this one is pretty decent, but for some reason everyone pronounces Gamera like Gomorrah. Anyways, it's 1967 and this year "Son of Godzilla" and "Gamera vs. Gyaos" go head to head. Like "Gamera vs. Barugon", the story's focus is on everyday characters in the wake of a crisis. A child does get involved, but not in the overly-campy-pain-in-the-ass way, unlike the next one "Gamera vs. Viras". Now "Son of Godzilla" isn't all bad and I actually enjoy that G-film, but it is one of the more child-friendly ones. This Gamera movie however is for the most part darker than most 60s or 70s Gamera. It's this one where Gamera really becomes the "friend to all children", but he has an awesome opponent: Gyaos. Probably inspired by Rodan, but with a different, sleeker design. Gyaos is a classic kaiju, the only one to reappear in more recent films the 90s and even in the latest movie, "Gamera the Brave".

Gyaos spends a lot of the movie eating innocent people, regenerating lost body parts and blowing up cities, awesome. There's even a scene where he drinks blood. The battles are bloody and quite fun, and the score is nicely done. This is definitely one of the better vintage kaiju movies and one I recommend to fans of classic sci-fi cinema.

GAMERA VS. GAOS (1967) **1/2 (D: Noriaki Yuasa) Gaos proves a tough opponent, a Rodan-like bird with a laser breath capable of cutting planes in half (and Gamera's leg!). A fun entry in the series, as Gaos is not easy to overcome and one wonders how Gamera will be able to defeat him.

The world of Gamera has seen this flying turtle battling many different types of creatures and Gaos is a very powerful enemy. Gaos flies and has a supersonic beam of sound that can slice any substance in the world. Gaos has one very bad habit, he likes to chew and feed on people. Gaos has one big weakness, he cannot stand being in the light of the sun. Gamera, our hero does his best to keep Gaos in the morning sun but sadly for us, fails. What can stop such a powerful enemy? Has Gamera finally met his match?

Of the two American releases of this film, the AIP print is far superior to the Sandy Frank chop job.

This is the best of the first Gamera series, and it is out-right fun if taken on its own terms, without high expectations.

Yet exactly for that reason, this film reveals the real problem with the original Gamera films - we all expect sloppy SFX from the old Gamera, but that would be excusable if the writing were any better.

It's in the plotting that this film, like all the old Gamera films, really lets us down. The Gamera production team never did figure out how to develop a plot that wove the monsters and the humans together in any interesting way - or any way at all. The back-story - a small village trying to work out a deal with a highway development company - is related to the Gamera-Gaos conflict by pure coincidence; that the road company supervisor would then become a central player in the Japanese Self-Defense Force effort to combat Gaos is ridiculous.

Besides being annoyingly smug, the leading scientist is equally ridiculous - his plans for trapping Gaos include hiring a small army of chemists to come up with a vat of synthetic human blood as bait - even though Gaos has already demonstrated that he us perfectly happy with horse and cow blood; the Japanese government would rather pay chemists hundreds of thousands when they could hire a few decent butchers on daily wage? The chemists lobby works wonders with the Japanese government.

Actually, once the monsters show up, the plot falls apart completely, and by the end of the film we've lost interest in even the little boy who befriends Gamera.

Oh well; at least it's watchable, and, in a dumb way, even entertaining. But if this is the best the early Gamera had to offer, it's hard to see what made it popular in the first place.

See the first "Gammera the Invincible", then see this film, then skip a couple decades to the trilogy starting with "Gamera, Guardian of the Universe" - you'll be doing yourself a favor.

I really wish people would stop comparing Gamera & Gojira.I would like to see a movie with Gamera,Giant Robot,The original Ultraman & Gojira team up as the Kaiju version of the fantastic 4.All of these took some serious hits to save mankind from danger.A true Kaiju fan would not put down all films.In this film Gamera gave fans what happens when Monsters really go at it.They were literally trying to kill each other.I thought this was an awesome film.The special effects in this film were very good.The details in this film were good even in the scene where the reporters were trying to get Gyao's picture and he cut the car in half with his sonic beam.The mid air battle over the baseball stadium.Those earthquakes at the beginning of the film.Let's face it for a film made in the 60's this was probably the best Kaiju films in that era.