Made in japan as "Gamera vs. Barugon" (Do not confuse the kaiju in this movie with the similarly named Baragon as kaiju are sensitive and it offends their feelings to be misidentified. Godzilla is still in a real huff over being confused with the giant iguana in a Matthew broderick movie long ago.) and released in america as "war of the monsters" this is a very unique movie. It's maybe the only gamera movie i'd watch again if it were on and I was laid up in bed with an injury or illness and nothing else was in worth watching. As to the other gamera movies, seriously i'd watch 'manos the hands of fate' first.
This movie is a direct sequel to the first gamera movie beginning with gamera still n his way to Mars thanks to the giant rocket he was lured into and launched into space at the end of the first movie. A meteor striker the rocket send destroys it but not gamera, so i'm thinking the meteor might have nbeen composed largely of plotatnium. Gamera can breath in air and underwater as was established in the first movie, which did well enough to get a big budget sequel, and now can apparently breath in vacuum as well, an ability also demonstrated in later gamera movies I shall not speak of.
Returning to earth gamera wrecks a dam in japan, that big loveavle rascal!
Cut to some real monsters. A man named kano is sending 2 mercenaries and his much younger brother to an island he was on as a soldier, and probably a war criminals i'd guess, during ww2 where he found a giant "opal" and hid it in a cave. Apparently it took him 21 years to get around to sending people to get it. He'd go himself but isn't physically up to it. Plus judging from his behavior i'd guess the natives wouild likely remember him and kill him on sight. He's not a nice guy.
He does send his kid brother to watch the mercs. Rather than deal with their Japanese names I will call the kid brother "good kid san", the mercs I shall refer to as "dies early in movie san" and "scumbag san."
The 3 stooges get to the island and head for the caverns despite warning from the villagers about a monster living in them called Barugon. Scumbag san claims they're on a mission to find the bones of his brother who died in the war and bring them home. Dies early in movie san lives up to his nickname, being killed by a scorpion sting. I think scumbag san could have prevented it but didn't. Good kid san wants to help try to save him but scumbag san urges them to go on as it's more pay for them. They find the giant opal and scumbag san betrays good kid san, firing a shot at him as I recall the causes a cave in apparently burying him.
Scumbag san picked up one wicked case of athlete's foot on the island. No, he actually gets a fungal foot infection that the doctor prescribes an ifra red light treatment for.
Well, good kid san survives and escapes the cavern to be rescued by an island girl with the exotic pacific island name of Karen.
Scumbag san hides the giant "opal" in a towel and unintentionally leaves it under the infra red light he was treating his foot fungus with. The "opal" begins to glow, then become a mass of animated light effects and finally softens and is forced open in a rather gooey fashion by a cute widdle lizard with glowing white spines on his back and eyes as I recall. Awww, he jus' soooo cute! He jus' an adorable l'il fella!
Scumbag san is unfortunately off the ship when it suddenly sinks. A good person on the ship when it started to sink brings him a box from his cabin which he claimed contained his brother's bones. He tells mr good guy they are the bones of a pig and throws them at him. Hey, from what I saw someone could be a pig and still be scumbag san's brother.
Well, not a scumbag to take defeat laying down scumbag san is discussing how to get dive gear to retrieve what he alone still thinks was an opal from the wreck when japan's newest kaiju, Barugon, emerges from the sea complete with weird sound effect roar.
Barugon looks something like a smooth skinned kind of greyish purple crocodile with a glowing white horn on it's snout and glowing spines on his back.
How Barugon grew from a cute l'il lizard fella you could just hold in your hand and pet all day to full blown kaiju in at most an hour or so is never explained, maybe infra red rays are very nourishing, or he was really good at deriving food from the harbor water he was in. Then again the movie "Alien" never explained how the titular creature went from at most cat sized to like 7' tall in apparently a few hours either.
Barugon goes on a rampage, hey he's just a newborn, he doesn't know any better! He has a peculiar weapon, a long, long tongue that sprays freezing mist out of it's swollen tip. Barugon's tongue is very long, has a big swelling at the front end and is covered in bumpy bits. I'm amazed there's never been a sex toy based on it and called 'the barugonator". I bet it'd sell pretty good.
Well, the JSDF quickly has enough of Barugon's infantile playfulness and prepares to spank him good. After the requisite tank models do nothing and get frozen by Barugon's tongue spray the military rolls out the model missile launchers.
Apparently Barugon's spider sense tingles when the missile launcher models are rolled into view, because he then deploys his longer ranged and much bigger "WTF?!" weapon.
A beautiful, swirling, rainbow comes arching out of the spines on Barugon's back. Yes, a giant beautiful sparkling rainbow.
When I was just a l'il snotling strange aeons ago at the dawn of time, from my point of view anyway, I saw this on tv and was utterly enraptured by this ray. It was the most beautiful and awe inspiring thing i'd ever seen. I could only stare at it in a state of total, transfixed fascination as it's stunning and incomprehensible beauty competely mesmerized my young mind.
Yeah, I remember that.
Well, Barugon's beautiful rainbow did two things. It destroyed everything it touched and attracted gamera because of it's powerful energy.
Gamera and Baragon fight, Barugon hoses gamera with it's sex toy like tongue freeze mist. Barugon closes in to look gamera in his frozen face, and slowly gamera's front foot (hand when he's standing erect) pulls back thru the thick snow under him, clenches into a fist and punches the up start kaiju in the side of his snout. Barugon. pulls back and lays even more thick white mist on gamera. I have to say given that Barugon's tongue looks like a sex toy having it spray white material from it's end is rather uncomfortably suggestive now that I look back on it.
Gamera is now a massive ice sculpture and Barugon goes off on a further youthful rampage. Hey he's not even a day old for hell's sake, can we have a little understanding?
Scumbag san goes to kano's house and plans to retrieve the opal, but ends up blurting out in frustration and anger that he killed dies early in the movie san and good kid san. Kano's grieving over his younger brother apparently got to him. Scumbag san beats the older and infirm man to death, then murders his wife , to leave no witness.
This was a dark and brutal bit, which made a potent impression on my early mind, I recall it as horrible and terrible, feeling bad for the victims. While wishing they'd have more scenes of Barugon firing that utterly beautiful rainbow again...
This movie was a very dark and somewhat mature one, not really aimed at kids, at least not american ones.
Good kid san and exotic island girl Karen reach japan as she knows what that "opal" was. They meet scumbag san at his house and end up getting it thru his thick scumbag skull that the "opal" was a monster egg already! He tries to kill them because that whole witness thing but good kid san is ready for him and beats him down. Karen and good kid san leave him tied up. (First a giant sex toy, then white stuff spraying out of it, now bondage. Damn this was a movie far more mature than my snotling self could ever grasp!)
Karen tells a story of how the original Barugon was vulnerable to the light of a huge diamond that hypnotized it and it was lead out to sea and drowned as it was weakened by water. But that Barugon was much smaller than this one. (Damn, those infra red rays must have affected it somehow!)
She does her exposition with scumbag san listening intently.
The natives give over their huge sacred diamond, but the new and improved by infra red radiation Barugon is too large to be affected by the little fist sized diamond. Someone theorized somehow that shining a bright light thru the diamond might make an image powerful enough to hypnotize the bigger better Barugon. A spotlight is acquired and the diamond is affixed to it creating a Barugon hypno ray that is being used to lure Barugon towards a massive lake and accompanying watery death.
All is going well. A car with the ray lamp lures Barugon slowly to the edge of the lake then the device is carried to a boat and Barugon follows it into the lake. It looks like we don't need another kaiju to stop this one!
Psych!
Scumbag san shows up on a speedboat having heard about the giant diamond and steals it at gunpoint. Good kid san can't stop him. As scumbag san is racing away on his speedboat the now dehypnotized Barugon shoots out his long, long, bumpy tongue and grabs him like a frog catching a fly.
Screaming and caught by the giant tongue scumbag san is pulled into a full sized mockup of Barugon's gang filled mouth.
Whoah, this guy was ascumbad par excellence, and certainly deserved a fitting end, but still.... Damn!
Barugon made my younger self happy with another display of his rainbow ray. (If they put Barugon in a modern kaiju movie would someone claim his use of a rainbow ray was symbolic of the "monstrous gay agenda" destroying civilization? I'm sure some far right homophobic idiot would.)
With the giant diamond, the only thing known to affect Barugon, safely in his belly, all hope seems lost. Good kid san feels guilty about all this and it looking over the destruction Barugon's stunningly beautiful rainbow ray caused when he, and he alone, notices bright shiny spots in the blackened devastation. They're mirrors from jeeps and trucks! Unlike my younger self's mind, Barugon's transcendent rainbow has no effect on mirrors!
Taking this information back to the usual elder scientist in the movie results in a big radar dish type mirror being built while Barugon is immobilized by artificial rain which weakens him but doesn't kill him. A set up is created to lure Barugon into firing his rainbow at some remote controlled vehicles firing at him in a line that leads to the mirror dish.
Another stunning rainbow transfixed my early mind, and ZAP! Barugon's own weapon is reflected back at him, scoring a direct hit amidships!
Barugon is sent reeling by the awesome blow, a massive wound in his side! He falls and rolls over! Is this the end of Ric... Barugon?
Psych 2.
Barugon was injured but survives, and the elderly scientist says he'll never make another rainbow after suffering so badly from his last one, all hope of stopping Barugon is lost.
Yeah, except wasn't there some sort of giant flying turtle.....?
Gamera thaws and using his kaiju sense tracks down Barugon. Having apparently watched the movie being filmed while off camera gamera knows Barugon can be drowned in water and proceeds to do just that. A partial rainbow emerges from the bubbling water tank with a lake set built over it signalling bawrugin's death. Good kid san decides that civilization sucks, Karen is good looking and sure knows how to tie a guy up and so sets off with her to return to her island and marry her.
All in all not a bad kaiju movie. No Kenny, not really as childish as a lot of kaiju movies were, some dark moments. The hidden sexual innuendo is only apparent to older or more modern audiences.
Again I can imagine some whacko right homophobic bigot making allusions to the movie from his paranoid, homophobic and insane views, how Barugon represented the "monstrous evil of the ho'muh'sek'shool agenda and how it wants to destroy civilization with the power of the rainbow as a weapon and gamera represented good people and we must drown the ho'muh'sek'shool agenda in a sea of republican votes to save the world.
The sad thing is I really think some people would see it that way in modern america... Eh, screw those people. If you like kaiju movies, war of the monsters isn't a bad one and maybe the only gamera movie anyone post pubescent can stand to watch.
Meanwhile I think i'll break out my 3d model long software and start designing the Barugonator, complete with variable intensity vibrational motors and special rotating action. If I can get it to where it makes women scream like the "real" Barugon tongue made that guy he ate scream I could be looking at a lot of money....
(http://www.qusoor.com/images/monsters/GVB07.jpg)
Bouncing baby Barugon. Ain't he must a cute little dickens?
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gamera/images/a/ac/Barugon_Rainbow_Beam.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110211171435)
Barugon firing his rainbow of doom. Yeah when I was a kid that just enraptured me.
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wI7okMZh5Qs/UCfV3OE4whI/AAAAAAABU0c/Rvtngd5ZiRg/s1600/Gamera%2BVs%2BBurgaron%2B300.jpg)
Barugon's tongue in action.
(http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/gamera-vs-barugon-rainbow-power-monster-kaiju.jpg)
Another snot of the rainbow ray.
(http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/godzilla/images/9/93/Gamera_-_2_-_vs_Barugon_-_24_-_The_military_makes_artificial_rain_fall_on_Barugon_preventing_him_from_using_his_freeze_breath.png/revision/latest?cb=20130824044541)
Another tongue shot.
(http://www.kaijubattle.net/uploads/2/9/5/7/29570123/879587981_orig.png)
Feel the rainbow!
http://66.media.tumblr.com/041924f989636e9de070345bd4b81cb3/tumblr_n4m9pfcDWS1qedb29o1_400.gif (http://66.media.tumblr.com/041924f989636e9de070345bd4b81cb3/tumblr_n4m9pfcDWS1qedb29o1_400.gif)
The tongue in action.
http://66.media.tumblr.com/7644673a7ad3ed7f6a2ea1e4e36c42ae/tumblr_n4m8twAOwo1qedb29o1_400.gif (http://66.media.tumblr.com/7644673a7ad3ed7f6a2ea1e4e36c42ae/tumblr_n4m8twAOwo1qedb29o1_400.gif)
A final shot on Barugon's tongue. Good ghawd, between what it looks like, the fact it moves in and out of a mouth and spray white stuff is bad enough, but then it has to hit gamera in the face? The Japanese sure have some dirty minds in their movie industry. I certainly hope Toho never sinks to this level of hardcore smut!
Regarding the rainbow attack, there's this anime series called Baccano (about immortal gangsters in Depression-era New York City which is as awesome as that makes it sound), and a scene in the first episode has led me to believe that they may have a more pessimistic view of rainbows in Japan. The scene in question involves a little girl admiring a rainbow, and her guardian chooses to puncture her innocence with the following statement:
"From the time we are but children, we see rainbows as beautiful things. Without a doubt in our heads, upon sight, they are harmonious to our spirit. I've always wondered why that was. Of course, people who do not understand science or the refraction of light might see this anomaly in the sky as the harbinger of a natural disaster, thinking that something unwelcome might be coming down from that rainbow. Perhaps vegetation might be ablaze at the foot of the rainbow, bringing destruction. At any rate, we still see these seven-colored pieces of information with a sense of faerie tale magic to them."
Really makes you think, don't it?
Quote from: Sitting Duck on August 12, 2019, 02:02:35 PM
Regarding the rainbow attack, there's this anime series called Baccano (about immortal gangsters in Depression-era New York City which is as awesome as that makes it sound), and a scene in the first episode has led me to believe that they may have a more pessimistic view of rainbows in Japan. The scene in question involves a little girl admiring a rainbow, and her guardian chooses to puncture her innocence with the following statement:
"From the time we are but children, we see rainbows as beautiful things. Without a doubt in our heads, upon sight, they are harmonious to our spirit. I've always wondered why that was. Of course, people who do not understand science or the refraction of light might see this anomaly in the sky as the harbinger of a natural disaster, thinking that something unwelcome might be coming down from that rainbow. Perhaps vegetation might be ablaze at the foot of the rainbow, bringing destruction. At any rate, we still see these seven-colored pieces of information with a sense of faerie tale magic to them."
Really makes you think, don't it?
Wow, that's a very good reply and i appreciated it. I can see a country like japan having a possibly negative view of rainbows given they created the term "Typhoon" to describe massive storms. It does make sense.
I suppose people living in areas where rain is less common and far more important, say, the middle east, would view rainbows as positive since they usually mean you got rain and your crops would likely be better for it.
In an area often hit by devastating storms seeing a rainbow afterwards might almost feel like adding insult to injury. You make a great point and I never saw that anime.
Still i honestly believe in modern 'murca some rabid bigot driven insane by his raging homophobia and need to hate would try to draw the comparison i cited.
EDIT. I binged how japanese see rainbows and in many ways they see them as symbols of death, as did the Norse who believed rainbows were bridges the dead souls crossed to reach the afterlife.
https://www.sunsigns.org/rainbow-symbolic-meanings/ (https://www.sunsigns.org/rainbow-symbolic-meanings/)
This fits as barugon's death was symbolized by his final rainbow.
So yeah, I meant my review to be both fairly accurate and humorous and it turned out to be a little educational as well. Your reply was useful and added to my post, thanks.