The Vengance of the 31 Days of Cheese Day 5 - Gamera vs. Zigra.

Well that didn't work out like I planned. Sorry about that but things got busy and ended having to put this on the back burner until - of course now that the Oscars are over, one wonders why continue but well nobody said I had to get it done in 31 days so this will continue as I have time to do them
and therefore I present

Vengeance of the 31 days of Cheese – day 5 – Gamera vs. Zigra 

              

This 1971 film was the last of the original Gamera films – there was  one in 1980 that cobbled together clips from the earlier films but this was the last original film – Daiei Studios was in the process of going bankrupt as this film was being made (the 70’s were not good years for the Japanese film industry) and it shows in the film where sets and suits and everything just look cheap as all get out.

We start out with a bit of narration then a flying saucer attacks the moon base – (the film is set in 1985 in what Crow T Robot called ‘our old future’) and then al la Independence Day proceeds on towards the earth.

We cut to kids. Annoying shrill voiced children. The Gamera series as it went along was aimed at younger and younger children  and really any younger they would be competing with the teletubbies for audience. Anyway, there is a little blonde girl and little Japanese boy (Helen and Ken) – both their fathers are marine biologist or some such at a sea world thing located in japan.  They end up stowing away on their fathers’ boat and right after Helen (in the English language version asks for a coke –she does this the whole film she’s either very thirsty or addicted to a sugar high) they are captured by Zirga – Zirga is apparently the flying saucer but to interact with humans it projects part of its consciousness into other human beings –or something that’s about as well as I can tell is what happens.

Anyway – the woman kind of hypnotizes the two fathers – But  the alien is out witted by the wiles of the little children and they escape. They do that a lot – I can only say that if you are an alien attempting to invade earth and you find yourself being outwitted by children on a regular basis you should rethink your plans.

The Saucer then commands that the woman find the children so she goes off – as part of her pursuit she ends up in a bikini which I guess was something for the dads to look at but  here in what is very much a young children’s film is well it’s a weird touch I have to say.

About this time, Gamera shows up and the saucer then turns into Zirga a kind of shark looking thing with spines.

There is a fight – and as per the Gamera formula, Gamera gets his head handed to him and ends up lying on his back at the bottom of the bay.

Meantime the children are in sea world and the lady is after her. There is some other silliness that is simply painful to even recall never mind write but it doesn’t have any real relevance to the plot.

What does have relevance is that they discover a way to break the hypnosis - it involves making an annoying sound into a walkie-talkie.

As some point and I don’t quite remember , this movie does bring with it its own blunt force trauma with resultant memory loss,  the two fathers are rescued and restored to consciousness by again having people making annoying sounds into walkie-talkies – it turns out by the way that the evil lady was someone Zigra kidnapped from the moon. She does not really react much to the news that everybody else on the moon was killed but we will let that go.

The two  scientists try to revive Gamera with sonar – no I don’t know why – but that doesn’t work  what does revive Gamera is the annoying sounds the children make – I remember reading that a baby’s cry has evolved to be as annoying as possible to an adult human being so they will do something to stop that awful noise. 

At any rate Gamera is revived – and kicks Zirga’s ass then plays his theme song using Zirga's Spines like a xylophone, Helen asks for a coke and the ear splitting Gamera song plays as Gamera flies away – he would not been again until the 90s and by there were many changes all to the good.

This however is, even for a kid’s film, a stupid film.

Enjoy with a seafood chowder.