Gamera contre Zigra

Possibly one of the earliest attempts at cinematic product placement.

Ahh, Gamera. Zigra. Giant Turtle. Giant Fish. Fire. Hypnosis beams. I guess the pleasure from these classic japanese monster films is watching a world, or mostly Japan, where giant mutant monsters exist, children know much much more than the adults, and cities are crushed as easily as cheesy models...oh wait, they are models. Anyway, UFO comes to Japan. The main brats Kenny and Helen (will someone get her a coke already!!) go on zany trying to prevent Zigra and his scantily clad henchwoman (VA-VOOM!) from trying to take over earth. The Zigra woman has the ability to hypnotize people with a simple snap and she must follow Zigra's orders to kill the children who mysteriously manage to survive again and again (duh). People yell AH!!, Gamera shows up, Zigra blows stuff up, a lot of paint...uh blood is spilled, I think there were dolphins, and lots of subplots to keep virtually anyone watching perplexed. Also, the diabolically catchy Gamera song is sung here. Add this all up for a huge laughs and best seen with Joel and da bots (HEY, THAT'S US!!).

Admittedly, the English-dubbed version I watched may not have done the film justice, but "Gamera vs. Zigra" is pretty awful, even by bargain-basement kaiju-eiga standards. Briefly, an alien spaceship attacks a moonbase, then plunges into the ocean near Japan, from where Zigra kidnaps two kids and their fathers. There is a lengthy expositional scene where an alien space-babe (with '"super-celestial powers"), who seems to be channeling some kind of giant space-shark, explains Zigra's backstory, informs us that resistance is futile, and demonstrates diverse abilities such as causing earthquakes and hypnotising subjects with a snap of her finger. Typical of the Showa-era Gamera series, grownups are ineffectual, but the children manage to rescue their stupefied fathers and escape. Gamera attacks the submerged spaceship, which inexplicably changes into a monster resembling a gigantic, robotic 'goblin shark'. Various adventures and battles follow, with the two children always in the thick of things. As usual, Earth's puny weapons are proven useless and only Gamera, the children's friend, can save us. At times, the film (or at least the dubbed dialogue) makes no sense: explaining Zigra's origins, the space-babe states "We on Zigra planet, we used to live in the sea but your Earth science polluted the water and we could no longer live there", this despite the fact that Zigra is 400 light-years from Earth. The special effects are low-budget and not very effective, with most of the monster action underwater or on a beach. The Gamera suit looks as unconvincing as ever and the silly Zigra costume is on par with most of Gamera's goofy kaiju foes (Gyaos being an exception). In keeping with the drift toward 'environmental values' in the genre ('Godzilla vs the Smog Monster' was released the same year), the film has lots of preachy moments about valuing the oceans, etc., yet opens with what is essentially a plug for "Sea World". There are also several references to Coke, the tiresome little girl's libation of choice. For a kaiju film, there is not a lot of 'action' and far too much time is spent on the space-babe's pursuit of the annoying children, descriptions of carnage and destruction that we don't get to see, and Zigra's continual gloating about his superiority, our dismal fate, etc. His comeuppance for this verbose posturing is to have his dorsal fins played like a xylophone by the triumphant turtle, who then breaks into dance (even sillier than Godzilla's infamous victory jig in 1964's 'Invasion of Astro-Monster'). Incongruously, after this lighthearted song-and-dance moment, Zigra is incinerated while still alive. The Gamera formula was getting pretty tired by 1971 and, perhaps fortunately, this was the last of the original Showa-era films. Other than 'starring' in 1980's dire "Gamera Super Monster" a compilation of fight scenes frame-worked by a ridiculous (and possibly imaginary) story involving 'space women', the giant, jet-powered, flying turtle hibernates until 1995's excellent "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe". One bonus: the score includes the 'Gamera Song', this time with lyrics and sung by a children's choir. If this memorably cheerful ditty doesn't lay an egg in your inner ear, nothing will.

The only Gamera films of the originals was the ones MST3K did not riff. The riffed five out of eight so I think that I got a good feel for the series. The three films I did not watch were Gamera vs Viras, Gamera vs Jiger and Gamera: Super Monster which should not even count as it was really just a patched together film with very few original scenes. People complain about how movies are done now, but they literally had more than a couple of films that were just pieced together films like this, they even did a Pink Panther film this way. Talk about something that would never be accepted today. This one is a bit of an improvement over Gamera vs Guiron, which was the last film I saw (Jiger was in between Guiron and this one), but only mildly so. I preferred the setting here and quite frankly that one space girl was hot, hot, HOT! There was just a bit more to it than the Guiron film too, as that film almost seemed like there was really no credible threat and the only people in danger were the two children. Let's face it, if those two space gals from the last film landed on Earth, I do not see them really being able to do much especially since they would be coming without their monster.

This film has another space alien threat as a spaceship that doubles as a candy dish comes to Earth. Zigra has come to take over the planet and his hot assistant will hypnotize anyone who stands in their way. Granted, she has the hardest time capturing the two annoying children of the piece. Soon she is sent to kill these children as they know their plan or something, but they could have better used the time simply concentrating on conquering the world as the kids really did not know anything useful as a dolphin trainer is the one that figures out the means to snap the paralysis that the hot space assistant can dish out. Of course, Gamera will be the one to battle the monster Zigra and, of course, Gamera is going to be incapacitated for a while to build tension or something. I need a coke after trying to summarize that story!

This made a nice end of the Mystery Science Theater doing Gamera films. I prefer Mike as host of the show, but Joel was very good on every one of the Gamera films. Kind of strange as sometimes when they do sequels the jokes get stale, it happened with Master Ninja and Space Fugitive and most certainly on the Hercules films, but the Gamera films never got stale. I guess because they are a bit different from each other, but not really as most that feature other monsters follows the same plot of people try to stop monster and fail, Gamera fights a bit and gets injured in some way and must rest, more failed plans and then final showdown. Still, it somehow worked well to make a great set of shows for them to riff.

So this one was not great by any means, but it was better than Guiron. My favorite of the Showa era Gamera films was Gaos and then Barugon as both of them featured other monsters and a dark tone. This one and Guiron are just incredibly goofy at times. Not sure how the tone in Viras was, but I am guessing the tone began to get more goofy in that one and I am pretty sure Jiger was like this one and Guiron too. Though I hear there is a rather nasty scene in that one featuring a film of some sort of parasite and an elephant's trunk. I do know that Gamera got incapacitated in that one too! This one moves pretty quickly though and has a good setting and one very fine space woman!

1971's "Gamera vs. Zigra" was the last (no 7), and by far least, of Daiei's original Gamera series, eventually making the television rounds in the US over 15 years after the company went bankrupt (the other six all showed up on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater). With yet another batch of annoying children, and adults who behave just as badly, it's up to series veteran Reiko Kasahara to maintain intrigue, even if she has to run around in a fetching bikini! She had previously appeared in "Gamera vs. Gaos" (no. 3) and "Gamera vs. Guiron" (no. 5), the latter as one of the two alien women desiring to devour the children's brains (not that that could make them any smarter). Zigra is revealed as a kind of shark usually found in the deeper waters off Japan, but Gamera is just laughable. The previous color sequels, apart from "Gamera vs. Viras," had some merit, but this one has absolutely none, dumb characters coupled with dumber monsters.

The space aliens are back but it's not as camp and silly as Gamera vs. Guiron (1969). Sadly this film is quite slow and boring although not the worst of the franchise but probably the second worst. The biggest problem was that they forgot to smash the city, maybe the models cost too much to smash them. The new kaiju is pretty cool, maybe my second favourite after Guiron. The human story is fairly routine. There is one really funny moment though where Gamera plays Zigra's spine plates like a xylophone. Worth watching for completionists only. And the xylophone think, that was memorable and funny.