Gamera vs Buragon (1966)

Daiei Studios – aka: War of the Monsters (1966)

In Gamera’ s second film we get a recap from the original up to when the scientists had sent the big angry turtle into space in a rocket. The space capsule is immediately hit by a meteor and Gamera returns to earth in color, attacking Korobi hydro-electric dam. Then Gamera heads to a distant volcano and isn’t seen for another 40 minutes…really? Wtf?

We get a story about a band of reckless treasure hunters in the So. Pacific that invade a sacred cave, steal a sacred opal and bring a curse upon mankind. That curse is the dreadful monster Buragon. The evil leader of these hunters will not listen to reason, he wants riches only. Only he can save the world from its terrible, awful fate and rigged system…(oops! sorry got carried away there). Oh, and that opal, it wasn’t a rock, it was a rock lobster! I mean it was the egg from which Barugon hatches. The little guy is a cute son-na-bitch.

The big drawback in suitmation FX is usually four-legged Kaiju, but they do a fairly good job here at this lizardry wizardry, even providing the creature with a long battering ram tongue. The monster’s huge phallic tongue spews white frost on everything. Then the beast’s backbone horns light up and shoot an electric rainbow decimating all of Japan’s military missiles. They explode in premature evacuation, never leaving the launch pad. I know weird, right? Luckily Gamera sees the backside rainbow and rushes to the scene to defend mankind’s missiles.

We have a nice long tug-o-war battle between the monsters and the military’s scientific weapons until Barugon’s Rainbow is shot back up his own ass by a giant mirror, and he’s then killed by water…we must not be in Kansas anymore…Gamera wins the day by unfreezing, beating Buragon and dragging him into the bay. It’s a nice action-packed, old fashioned Kaiju battle at the end, the kind of scene I relished as a young lad.