Friday, August 6, 2010

Wendy's Films of 2010 #92: Gamera, Guardian of the Universe (1995)

Every time I walked past the Sci-Fi: KE section at work (that is, Science-Fiction: Kaiju Eiga) I never really paid much attention to it. It was another section like Sports or Actors Attempting to Direct that I hadn't really delved into. In fact, I didn't know until just now that Kaiju Eiga means Monster Movie in Japanese. So when it was suggested to me that we watch Gamera, I was open to the idea, but given that I hadn't really shown any interest in the past I wasn't really that gung-ho. Now, I shan't lie and say it was the most exciting or awesome movie watching experience of my life, but I can certainly see why the genre has been so loved by dedicated followers of Asian monster films. It's cheesy, and though the effects aren't terrible, it doesn't seem real, but it's fun and there a few interesting storylines. I liked that Gamera was tied to a young girl, who wears a piece of the turtle's shell around her neck.

I liked the commentary about the environment at the beginning of the film, when a civilization created Gyaos (bird-dinosaur like creatures) to repair the world of the pollution they had spread. Unfortunately the Gyaos began to eat the people, and scientists created the Gamera (giant flying turtles) to fight them. The pollution wound up overrunning the civilization and before dying off they preserved one Gamera in case the Gyaos returned to rein chaos in the future. To me, this shows that the filmmakers weren't only concerned with created a kooky remake of the former Gamera movies, but also with sending a message to viewers about the importance of our world today.

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