Gamera vs. Barugon (1966) Review

 

 

The second Gamera film, sees the giant turtle take on his first monster, Barugon. A giant lizard who can spit freeze gas from his tongue and rainbows from his back. An odd but certainly fun set of powers.

With a higher budget and production standards, the film is a marginal improvement over the first one and definitely has less of its clunkiness.
The monster action is some good stuff, and includes a nice bit of destruction and a little ounce of blood. 

The human element isn't bad either, they chuck a bit of adventure in there with the character going off to an island to get ahold of a giant opal. This of course leads to characters getting greedy and we even get a couple of human scraps, which they put a bit effort into. It all gave me a bit of a Godzilla vs. Mothra vibe, except not as engaging.
The rest of the human stuff though is the usual thing of them working out how to get rid of Barugon, and this is where the movie really starts to drag and running at 100 minutes (which is kinda long for these kinds of movies) the film has some really severe pacing issues which really bring it down.

Despite its issues though, the film certainly put Gamera on the right track, leaving us with a competent kaiju film that has some fun monster action.

Gamera, The Giant Monster (1965) Review

 

 

 

As the 1960s saw a boom in the Kaiju film genre, there was one giant turtle in particular looking to be a true rival to the King of the Kaiju himself, Godzilla.
His name was Gamera, and in 1965 came his first movie Gamera, The Giant Monster.
And while it was success and spawned a franchise inlcuding at present, 12 movies, this first film isn't exactly Gojira, in fact, when compared to the majority Godzilla's other movies,
at this early stage, Gamera seems less like a rival and more like a bargain bin cousin.

Now to be fair, it didn't have the biggest budget and that smooth of a production, and I certainly don't think the movie isn't enjoyable becuase I do like it.
But it is incredible clunky, and can get a little tedious in its third act and just lacks the overall polish that the Godzilla film has.

The actual monster action is quite fun, you get a nice little bit of destruction in there and I like Gamera's look, though it is the typical type of action you usually see in a solo kaiju movie.

The human stuff on the other end isn't so good. The acting is definitely mixed particularly early on when you've got these American Navy seals who are so bad they're literally just reading from the script at a couple of points, though it does admittedly provide a few laughs.
The majority of these human scenes however, are made of them trying to figure out what Gamera is and how to stop them, so again, the typical kind of thing you get in these movies, and that's what provides tedium, especially with it not being paced very well, it can tend to drag.
They also have the addition of some delusional kid who is obsessed with Gamera and thinks he's good, being competely clueless to the death and destruction he causes, which is a funny thing to witness.

The film is also shot in a black and white, which isn't really an issue, and it does certainly looking pretty good in places, but quite often the film is incredibly dark looking and almost indistuingishable on occasion, and that's even with Arrow Video's lastest HD remaster, which is probably the best that it could look in this present day.

Overall, the first Gamera film is a very generic schlocky solo giant monster film, that doesn't really do anything new to make it stick out, with most of its enjoyment stemming from its monster action and its clunkiness. It's pretty fun, but definitely one that I would only recommend to the hardcore Kaiju crowd. ***

The Adventures of Kosuke Kindaichi (1979) Review

This is a comedy by Nobuhiko Obayashi that is based on the fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi created by Seishi Yokomizo. I have no familiarity with the character at all but there have been numerous TV and film adaptations done on him, and in fact, the main actor who plays Kindaichi, Ikko Furuya, had played him previously in a TV show and would go on to play as him in subsequent movies.
The film itself is pretty oddball, it jumps around quite a bit and at first, I was a little confused about what was going on, and throughout there's bits of nonsense and randomness scattered about, which do at times provide some good laughs. And it even at times gets a little meta, including Yokimozo playing himself in a cameo, where he gets royalties and says he didn't want to be in the movie.

The story itself is, of course, a detective mystery where Kindaichi has been urged to solve a case that was left unsolved in a book about his cases. It is fun to watch unfold and has some interesting little twists, though as the film does like to jump about and gets a bit jumbly, you could get a little lost, but it all wraps up well towards the end.

What makes this film really stand out though, is the aftermath of the case being solved.
The last 10 minutes of this film blew me away, I can't really reveal anything but it definitely takes and turn and I love it.

Overall, the film's rather unhinged approach may prove to be off-putting for some. But I found it to be a very fun detective comedy, and that ending really brings it up a level. ***1/2

Take Me Away! (1978) Review

Take Me Away! is a film by Nobuhiko Obayashi starring the Golden Combi 70s Idol film stars
Momoe Yamaguchi and Tomokazu Miura. It's pretty much a romantic fluff piece with the basic story of girl meets boy abroad, she has to leave him behind, and then there's some conflict and a happy resolution. It's a very shallow film that follows all the usual general tropes without adding anything new, but it's still rather cute in places, even if the character motivations could be rather questionable.

The film is quite well shot, and Obayashi incorporates a couple offbeat elements here and there, though it's very sparingly. It does, however, a recurring song and theme throughout that is linked to the characters, a trope that Obayashi has a used a few of his films before.
Although the opening bars to the song are exactly the same as Fly Me to the Moon.

Overall, I found the film somewhat enjoyable, it rushes about it at times and is a very basic run-of-the-mill romantic film, but it has some charm and I particularly liked the first 30 minutes or so.
Not sure how much I'd necessarily recommend it,  maybe if you really like your smulchzy romance films, other than that , this one's that's more for the Obayashi completionists. **1/2