This is part of an ongoing series called Godzilla & Friends: Reviews from the Godzillaverse and Beyond!. Feel free to look around.
Hello and welcome to the review of 1966′s Daikaijū kessen: Gamera tai Barugon, Giant Monster Duel: Gamera vs. Barugon, Deiai Motion Picture’s answer to the many, many monster vs. another monster movies!
Unlike the first Gamera movie (Daikaijū Gamera or, simply, Gamera), this one is in color, features no kids and there’s a monster opponent, Barugon.
Don’t be fooled by the monster Barugon. This isn’t Baragon from Frankenstein vs. Baragon. This is a whole other monster that is sort of just as goofy, but in different ways. I’m sure that Daiei in no way wanted the audience to think that this was Baragon. They’re totally different: バラゴン or バルゴン … see? ラ is a totally different sound than ル. Totally.
Anyway, since the first Gamera picture did so well, they thought they’d up the budget a bit and make it a rainbow full of colors! There’s natives in floral-print bikinis and a monster that’s… well let’s just say he’s got a colorful side to him.
Gather. Listen. It’s storytime.
If you’ll remember from the last movie, Gamera was shot into space in a giant rocket. Well that rocket didn’t make it to Mars like it was supposed to. No, it was hit by an asteroid and Gamera was set free. And though it’s a well known scientific fact that turtles can survive in space, he immediately returns to earth.
In Osaka, three part-time crooks, Keisuki, Kawajiri and Onodera take a boat to New Guinea to steal an opal hidden in a cave.
On the tropical island they meet a bunch of natives who tell them not to go to the cave. They also meet Karen, the beautiful island native who explains that no one who goes to the cave lives to tell the tail!
So Keisuki (who wants to start his own sight-seeing business), lovable Kawajiri (who wants to provide for his family) and prickish Onodera (who just wants the cash) set off for the most well-lit cave in existence. Hell, Onodera doesn’t even have to take off his bad gut sunglasses!
Kawajiri finds the opal and there is much celebration. Onodera sees a scorpion on Kawajiri’s leg, but neglects to tell him because, well, more money for him, right?
Totally. And so as Kawa is jumping around all happy that he’ll finally be able to provide for his family, he’s stung by the scorpion and dies in about twenty seconds.
Now all Onodera has to do is kill Keisuki! So he lights a bunch of grenades and blows up the cave, trapping Keisuki inside. This whole thing is working perfectly! What could possibly go wrong?
With opal in hand, Onodera heads back to the ship. He’s got some icky jungle foot disease, so a doctor tells him to put it under infrared light. That activates the opal and it hatches… Barugon! He bursts through the hull of the ship docked at Kobe port, sinking and exploding it.
Luckily, Onodera, get off the boat just in time. And Barugon, now full size, attacks Kobe and then moves onto Osaka.
With his sheer size and his tongue that can not only hit stuff, but can freeze everything it touches, Barugon kicks much ass.
The military plans to fire missiles at Barugon. Sensing this, Barugon shoots a giant rainbow out of his back, destroying the missiles and disintegrating everything around them! Seriously. A giant freaking rainbow! This is awesome!
“Gamera loves heat energy, so it’s after Barugon’s rainbow!” Gamera and Barugon stare each other down until finally Barugon leaps at Gamera! Gamera rears up, shooting fire at the chilly Barugon, but is beaten back by the cold icy tongue!
Gamera is on his shell, and like much of Osaka, is frozen.
The native girl, Karen (yeah, that pretty much never gets old) and Keisuki (who’s not dead after all) arrive in Japan. Karen recognizes Barugon and thinks she knows how to kill it.
While Barugon rampages through Osaka, Keisuki finds Onodera in one of the movie’s best “oh crap!” moments. After a few spazz-chops from Keisuki, Onodera is bested and tied up.
Keisuki and Karen somehow find their way to the military and tell them that Barugon dies in water. Karen brought along a huge diamond that her tribe uses to lure Barugons to their death. They hop in a helicopter and hope to lure Barugon to Lake Biwa for a good killing.
Onodera, freed by some woman, hears of the huge diamond and wants to steal it.
For some reason or another, Barugon isn’t the least bit interested in the diamond. What the crap? Well, a doctor explains that Barugon grew faster because of the infrared rays, so the answer is obvious: “Raise the voltage of the diamond!”
Yes! It was so simple! How could they not see this?!
So they load the diamond into a giant ray gun, drive up to Barugon and shine the light at him. The diamond with a higher voltage works! With it, they lure the monster to Lake Biwa.
But once on the lake, with Barugon just about the enter the water and sink to his death, Onodera cruises up, shoots a military guy (while several other guys with machine guns cower and run away) and then steals the diamond.
He hops back on his boat, but Barugon’s tongue catches him, wraps him up and the monster swallows man and diamond all at once.
Here is another great “oh crap” moment. This is all very clearly not going well.
The military keeps Barugon at bay while Keisuki and Karen inexplicably head to the old missile site and find that the rear view mirrors of the trucks survived Barugon’s deadly rainbow of death!
Operation: Reflection is born! They and the military head to Mt. Kajika and retrofit a satellite dish with mirrors. They also line up a bunch of tanks to draw Barugon’s deathbow.
And it works! They fire upon Barugon, he fires his rainbow, the satellite dish fires back and badly hurts Barugon!
Learning his lesson, he won’t try that rainbow thing again. So now they have an incredibly pissed off Barugon on their hands. It’s hopeless!
But just then, the star of the movie, Gamera, thaws out, regains consciousness and flies over Osaka to Mt. Kajika! All the people are like, “Two monsters? Man, we are SO screwed!” But Gamera is there to fight Barugon!
Can Gamera now defeat the wounded and bloodied monster? If so, will Gamera next turn on Japan? Or is he really just lonely and in need of friends like Toshio from the first Gamera movie said? Watch Gamera vs. Barugon and find out!
OK. This movie is weird. Help me out here…
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I don’t find these boring plots all that boring. Sure, Gamera is for children and should have children in it, but even though this one is devoid of ankle-biters, I liked it. It wasn’t amazing or anything, but it was alright.
Unlike Godzilla, the Gamera movies have blood. And lots of it. Barugon bleeds quite a bit. Sure, it’s bright purple blood, but it’s still gory. Godzilla films have no blood at all at this point. Special Effects director Tsubaraya refused saying that children watch these movies and it wouldn’t be appropriate. The folks who made Gamera clearly had a different idea.
Speaking of blood, there’s a ridiculously creepy scene in the movie that’s not at all explained. After Keisuki and Onodera fight and Onodera is tied up, Karen sucks the blood out of Keisuki’s wound. Why? Why does Karen do that? It’s not explained. Keisuki doesn’t even seem a little surprised! In fact, after she’s finished, he lovingly wipes the blood away from her mouth! Was there some subplot about Karen being a vampire that was cut out? What the CRAP?!
But the star of the movie is, of course, Barugon’s rainbow of death. I’m not sure who thought this would be a good idea, but I want to shake their hand. It’s a gutsy move, making a rainbow killing machine. There aren’t many movies bold enough to try it.
Gamera vs. Barugon was released to US television in the late 60′s. About 30 minutes were shaved off (mostly plot and planning stuff). You can easily find this (it’s called War of the Monsters). There was also an unedited version redubbed in the 80′s by Sandy Frank. This is the one MST3K uses (though they edit it down for time).
Thankfully, I’ve got the original Daikaijū kessen: Gamera tai Barugon. But no matter which version you pick, you’re sure to have killer rainbows, a boring jewel heist story, a weird blood-sucking native girl and, of course, Gamera, the giant flying turtle! Should you see it? Sure!
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Videos
I couldn’t find a trailer online, so try this on for size…
Maybe you remember Commander USA? Watch his intro to Gamera vs. Barugon!
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Monsters: Gamera, Barugon
Locations: Osaka, New Guinea, Kobe
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Producer: Hidemasa Nagata | Director: Shigeo Tanaka | Screenplay: Nissan Takahashi
Special Effects: Noriaki Yuasa | Score: Chuji Kinoshita
Released: April 17, 1966 | 106 mins | Color | 2.35: 1 Aspect Ratio
