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Gamera vs. Barugon (1966)

DVD Cover (Shout! Factory)
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Ranked #6,686
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Connections: Gamera

After a treacherous expedition to retrieve a giant opal, disaster strikes as the opal reveals itself to be an egg which spawns Barugon, demon dog from Hell! Armed with a deadly tongue and cold beams, Barugon wreaks havoc on Japan. Gamera comes to save the day. --IMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: December 28, 2011
Gamera had always been, and likely always will be, stuck in Godzilla's shadow. The stories were cheesier, the production value was exponentially lower, and the series was unabashedly aimed at a lower age group. Still, the giant turtle has always had a strong niche among Kaiju fans, and Gamera vs. Barugon has all the reasons why.

Pilot Keisuke Hirato has some major plans in life, and in order to get the finances to back those plans, he joins an expedition put together by his disabled brother to recover a huge opal worth millions hidden in a cave deep in a South Pacific jungle. The cave is in the territory of a peaceful village, and when there intentions become known, one of the villagers, Karen, adamantly dissuades the group from entering the cursed cave. Dollar signs prevail, however, as they often do, and the warnings go unheeded. Once the opal is discovered, one of the members, Onodera, betrays his fellow treasure hunters, leaving Keisuke trapped in a cave-in and presumed dead, but he's been saved by Karen and the rest of the villagers. True to her word, that cave was indeed cursed, and that opal was not an opal; it was the egg of the legendary monster Baragon. And we wouldn't have a movie if Onodera doesn't leave the opal under an infra-red lamp, incubating it and bringing it to life. It's a terrifying creature, with the ability to exhale a freezing mist and fire a devastating rainbow-beam from the crystals on his back. To make matters worse, the rocket that was bringing Gamera to Mars was hit by a meteor, and he quickly makes his way back to Earth. This may be a blessing in disguise, however, since Gamera immediately recognizes the threat that Baragon poses, and begins his attack.

My lord, was this a cheesy one, and quite convoluted as well; there's a lot of stall tactics used throughout. Gamera spends half the beginning just buzzing around the world doing nothing (although, his return to Earth and subsequent destruction of a dam did look quite nice), and it's revealed that you can keep Barugon contained merely by dumping water on him, which the military insists on calling "artificial rain". Later, one of our heroes comes up with the idea of attempting to reflect one of the monsters' beams back at him. Instead of just saying, "Let's reflect the monster's beam back at him!" he engages in a full laboratory explanation, showing how a blowtorch won't burn itself unless the flame is directed back at the nozzle. Yeah, we got it; no need to go through all of that mess. Still, none of it ruins the movie per se, but I would like to have seen them streamline the final product.

With all that said, people didn't pop Gamera vs. Barugon in their DVD player because they cared about any of that nonsense. No, they wanted to see these two monsters tear each other apart, and that's where it truly shines. They go at it twice in the running time, and both times are definitely something to see. That second bout actually brought me back to an excited child-status, and as blasphemous as it might be, it was a better fight than anything Godzilla had shown at this time. You see, while the Gamera series has always been aimed more at the younger crowd, the violence of the fights was unheard of in Toho's world. Several times Gamera tears holes in Barugon, releasing a torrent of purple blood. I will say though that I feel they could have made Barugon a lot more menacing by exploiting the nature of an ice monster fighting a creature that feeds on flames, but alas that was not to be.

Production wise, Gamera's original run never could step it to Godzilla, but in his first time up against an actual enemy, he sure doesn't slouch. 6.5/10.
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