To think I once disliked this movie back in when I first saw it. I was expecting some kind of explosive monster-fest were the finale between Gamera and Iris would be bigger and badder than the finales of Guardian of the Universe and Attack of Legion.
Considering the movie is a lot more cerebral than most monster movies, and more than the previous Gamera movies, I was a bit disappointed the first time I saw it and wished Gamera got more action.
Then I watched it a second time and went 'okay I get what they were doing but it wouldn't have hurt if they gave Gamera another scene'.
Third times the charm I love the movie and finally realized it's one of the greatest kaiju movies of all time. It's very thoughtful and breaks apart a lot of monster cliches like having new powers at random or 'why don't you breathe fire sooner!' Also there's a lot of theories as to why Gamera was a lot more vicious this time and interestingly no one acknowledges that he looks different so it's something only the watcher can see.
And probably the biggest cliche broken: a monster, whether good, evil, or gray, battling a more antagonistic/territorial monster, is going to get a lot of people killed if it's in a city.
It's a drag that only a handful of giant monster moves try to do what the original Gojira did and the Gamera trilogy, or maybe just Gamera 3, is one of the top of the list. It's actually what I'm trying to do in a story I'm writing, eh, if it never sees the light of day whatever, practice is practice.
Will have to try this :bouncegiggle:.
Its definatly a movie that grows on you the more you watch it, Kinda like GMK.