Gamera vs. Gyaos

This third offering in the "Gamera, the Giant Flying Turtle" franchise is one of the better ones. However, by this point the filmmakers started imitating the tone of recent Godzilla films to make the series more kid-friendly, so from here Gamera starts becoming a nice monster who watches out for the welfare of children. There would usually be a little boy or two in the lead parts from now on, but GAMERA VS. GYAOS still emerges as an enjoyable outing, retaining some strong moments for a movie geared to a juvenile audience. Much of that is owed to the truly mean and overpowering nature of Gyaos himself: he's a giant bat who shoots laser beams from his jaws which can cut objects clear in half! Superhero Gamera truly appears to have met his match this time and it seems nearly impossible for him to overcome the threat of his formidable opponent. **1/2 out of ****

SPOILER: This silly but enjoyable film begins with an airplane being sliced in half by a ray. Then the ray is revealed belonging to a ray firing, flying, man-eating super vampire monster named Gyaos. But when Gyaos tries to eat a boy named Eiieechi, it's Gamera to the rescue. Gamera saves the boy, but almost gets his hand sliced of by Gyaos's ray. Gamera heals his wounds again and arrives when Gyaos attacks Tokyo. He manages to bite off Gyaos foot but is again hurt in the process. So the foot floats ashore and scares people. Then it is discovered that Gyaos can be hurt by sunlight and will die if exposed to the sun. So they decide to make a spinning fountain of drugged blood and Gyaos will get dissy and drugged and not be able to return to his cave and will die in the sun when it reaches dawn. However, a malfuntion in the mechanism causes the plan to fail. This is a good Gamera adventure with a zany plot and good effects.

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?

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.

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.