Gamera - Triple Feature Collector's Edition - Bluray [Blu-ray]

It was only recently, to be honest, that I first learned who Gamera even was. Godzilla? Sure, I grew up on the guy... I've got the lunchbox, have taped the Godzilla's Rockin' New Year's Eve special many times and even saw the Andrew Lloyd Weber adaptation on Broadway during its woefully short run in 1994.

But now there's a NEW guardian of the universe? Why didn't anyone tell me?? Finally, someone did. Specifically, it was a co-worker from the main office of the Tokyo-based manufacturing company (it shall remain nameless) for which I have worked for the last 8 years. He was relocated to New York and has become a rather good friend.

Hunushi is a fantastic resource for all things Japanese. One of those is monster movies ("kaiju" as the genre is called in Japan), and I am also a big fan. Knowing this, Hunushi recommended to me the first Gamera film when it was released in English in 1997. Since then, I have been hooked and wanting more.

Why do I like this Gamera series so much? The special effects are AWESOME, and the dubbing is simply masterful. Forget everything that you thought you knew about dubbed dialogue, as that knowledge is now useless and outdated. The story lines are engaging, the characters are well developed. These are great movies, period.

When I heard that a box set of all three movies (Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Gamera 2: Attack of Legion and Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris) was available, I jumped on it.

I thought I knew why I was buying this box set, but I had no idea at the time that its most entertaining feature was an as-yet-unknown-to-me DVD extra. Within the extras of the second film, Gamera 2, the English-language director has created an entirely new and hilarious version of that film dubbed almost entirely with "red neck" character voices.

This is an absolute stitch, but in no way did it offend my delicate "kaiju" sensibilities. Gamera remains completely untouched in this tongue-in-cheek version of the film. Only the human contingent, scurrying below, is made to look anything less than admirable. The bottom line is this: I have never laughed harder in my life (by the way, there is also a fantastic DVD extra on the 3rd disc but I'll let you discover that one on your own).

I hope you enjoy these films as much as I have. Thankfully, it looks like Japan's best kept "kaiju" secret has just been let out of the box!

I'm amazed by the story lines and special effects in these newer come-back movies of Gamera. The box set was purchased with Christmas money, and I'm glad I did so. Gamera began as low-budget giant monster movies in competition with Godzilla in about 1965. Some of the early films are pretty cheezy, though fun to watch. Kids especially seem to relate to the big turtle. My daughter likes him as much as Godzilla.

The new Gamera pictures carry on the idea that Gamera is here to protect earth, but the story lines are very mature compared to the original films, and the special effects are, at times, amazing. Every bit on a parr with the newer, new millenium Godzilla films of the past five years. The first film in the pack, "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe", was release in 1995, and the others followed about every two years. The origin of Gamera is reinvented here, and explained in a way that is a nice marriage of fantasy and science-fiction. In the first film, Gamara's heroic mythology is backed up by an ancient tablet that predicts a giant creature will rise to combat an horrific darkness. All evidence points to some sort of flesh eating creatures that nearly ate man to extinction in the time when Atlantis was still above water.

The second film, "Attack of Legion", is even better, with an even creepier creature and It's swarming spawn called "Legion" (from the Bible, no less) threatening earth's extiction yet again. The special effects are better in this film, and that's saying a lot, since the first movie was very well done.

I haven't watched the third movie, "Revenge of Iris" yet, but even if it turns out to be disappointing compared to the first two, it was still money worth spending.

All three pictures are presented in anamorphic widescreen, with language options of the original Japanese with English subtitles, or in dubbed English. The soundtracks are in Dolby digital 5.1. I really enjoyed watching the second film in the original Japanese, thus getting to hear the true emotions of the actors. There are a lot of nice extras included on the disks, so take some time to explore.

Shusuke Kaneko's GAMERA Trilogy is the high mark of "kaiju eiga", or Japanese monster movies. While lacking even the budget of Toho's rival Godzilla, they compensate with inventive special effects and smart scripts by frequent Mamoru Oshii collaborator Kazunori Ito (Ghost in the Shell, Avalon, Patlabor). In an added twist, the films stand apart from the rest of their genre by subverting various cliches and showing a strong feminist bent--the main characters of all three films are smart, capable women, a trait that is magnified to a surprising degree in the apocalyptic final film. This progressive streak is typical of Kaneko's work, making him one of the most humanist of Japanese mainstream directors.

The first film, GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE, is a fun, knowing throwback to the giant monster movies of the sixties--all bright primary colors, environmental messages and mystical backstories. It's good, silly entertainment, with some impressive anime-inspired visuals during the monster sequences, a memorable score by Ko Otani and plucky, likeable characters. The sequel, GAMERA 2, eschews the light-hearted tone of its predecessor and proves itself to be a well-crafted, occasionally violent action film. Gamera's opponent this time around is an alien insect with a refreshingly well-developed and plausible modus operandi. GAMERA 3 is the real achievement of the trilogy, though: the dark, complex script by Ito (by this point, the films have amassed a quite involved little mythology), the strong female cast, superb special effects (no, really) and Ôtani's excellent score make this probably the best Japanese special effects film ever made. Fans of H.P. Lovecraft should also enjoy Iris itself--after collaborating on the anthology film NECRONOMICON, Kaneko and Ito here conjure up their answer to Cthulhu, complete with it's own cult followers and doomsday prophecies.

After a long year of waiting, Mill Creek has finally completed the trilogy by releasing Gamera 3 on blu-ray--and surprise, surprise, they screwed up, big time. (The trilogy pack consists of a nice slipcover and the two discs--the first disc being the same solid double feature disc released last year. As such, the rest of this review will focus on the new GAMERA 3 disc.)

First, the good: the transfer is excellent. Crisp, sharp and with a beautiful 'pop' in many of the climactic scenes of destruction. Grain is intact and looks nice, and while there is some noise and occasional banding, this is overall the best this film will probably ever look. The audio is likewise excellent, a nice DTS-HD Master Audio mix. As for extras, there are nearly three hours worth, representing the whole trilogy--though almost half of the extras are comprised of fly-on-the-wall on set featurettes for Gamera 2. All of these are ported over from the Japanese laserdisc releases, and while not as substantive as the extras that were on ADV's DVD releases, they are still an interesting look at how the trilogy was made.

Now the bad, and it is very bad indeed: the subtitles are atrocious, and that's putting it mildly. We are talking cheap, Hong Kong bootleg DVD bad. I kid you not--literally every other line is either mis-subtitled or not even subtitled at all. Roughly 35% of the dialogue is missing. Mill Creek had a *whole year* and they pull this crap? Unbelievable. Even the extras are badly subtitled--there is a seven second delay on all of them.

Due to the subtitle fiasco, I wouldn't recommend this release to people who haven't seen the film before, as they won't even be able to follow the plot as so much dialogue is missing. Pick up the double feature on its own, and for GAMERA 3 stick with the original ADV DVD--the picture on it wasn't great, but it was at least watchable AND had excellent English subtitles.

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