Click here for Gamera vs. Guiron

1970’s Gamera vs. Jiger continues Gamera vs. Guiron’s trend towards fantastic children’s entertainment and throws in a hefty dollop of utter insanity for good measure. The film would be the last great hurrah for the Gamera series, and Noriaki Yuasa was granted a few extra bucks to beef up the special effects production. Though followed by what is arguably the absolute worst of the series, Gamera vs. Jiger remains a fine example of large-scale anti-Toho monster mayhem.

Set around Expo ‘70, a World’s Fair held in Osaka, the film concerns a mysterious artifact – the Devil’s Whistle – which is discovered on an isolated Pacific island and brought back to the Expo for scientific examination. The removal of the artifact unleashes the prehistoric monster Jiger, a jet-propelled ceratopsian that shoots lethal quills from its tusks and emits a destructive sonic heat ray. Gamera quickly intervenes, but is taken down for the count when Jiger, a mother, implants him with her parasitic young. It’s up to Hiroshi (Tsutomu Takakuwa) and Tommy (Kelly Varis) and their aptitude for handling miniature submarines to save the despondent titan from his seemingly imminent death.

Jiger makes for a memorable opponent in best tradition of the series, recalling Barugon in her physical form but Gyaos in her dispicable attitude. The monster descends on Osaka unexpectedly, using her head-mounted jets (!) to fly into the air and drop right into the heart of the city. There she takes to leveling whole city blocks and skeletonizing unfortunate passers-by with her sonic heat ray. Though some incidental shots are culled from Gamera vs. Barugon and Gamera vs. Gyaos, all of Jiger’s destructive assault on Osaka is 100% fresh material, not to be seen again until its repurposing for Gamera: Super Monster a decade later. While the miniature construction isn’t on the same level as other contemporary big studio work, the Gamera team’s ability to make something out of nothing is unrivaled. Even the process photography is improved here, with its nighttime application proving especially successful.

The monster battles themselves are the most exciting seen outside of 1967’s Gamera vs. Gyaos, and feature Gamera at his most bumblingly clever. It isn’t until the final confrontation that our hero first encounters Jiger’s deadly sonic ray. His response? To uproot a pair of telephone poles and shove them into his ears, of course! It’s the kind of bizarre plot development that could only make sense in the Gamera universe. Other oddities in this outing include Gamera’s painful quadruple-limb-impalement and an educational film about worms infesting an elephant’s trunk that’s just too frank for comfort (it earns a collective ‘Blech!’ from the actors viewing it).

Screenwriter Nisan Takahashi is back at the top of his game here, and offers what is perhaps the most ironic development of the entire Gamera franchise. When the friend to all children is implanted with the parasitic Jiger young, the task falls on those same children to defend their defendor! It’s a low-rent fantastic voyage as Tommy and Hiroshi steal an Expo ‘70 submarine and explore uncharted waters, plumbing the depths of Gamera’s innards to find and destroy Jiger’s goo-spitting blood-sucking young.

It’s a shame to spoil Gamera vs. Jiger’s success with thoughts of what was to come for the Gamera series, but it seems inevitable. Daiei would find itself in dire straights in 1971 after years of mismanagement, and that year’s Gamera vs. Zigra would show every sorry thread of its poverty-row production values. It would be a full decade before the next entry in the series, 1980’s no-budget failure Gamera: Super Monster, would arrive. Gamera vs. Jiger remains the best of Gamera’s brief post-’60s adventures, only to be upstaged by Shusuke Kaneko’s mid-’90s resurrection of the franchise.

Shout! Factory’s double feature DVD of Gamera vs. Guiron / Gamera vs. Jiger (single sided, dual layer, 7.5 gigabytes) is another exceptional value – two classic Gamera films in their original language and subtitled for less than half the price of a single Japanese import. These two films have suffered particularly badly in the dubious ‘public domain’ market, and while Gamera vs. Guiron was released earlier in both subtitled and dubbed versions through the now defunct Neptune Media, Gamera vs. Jiger has only previously been available in its pan-and-scanned Gamera vs. Monster X A.I.P. TV version.

As with all of Shout!’s previous Gamera collection titles, the transfers here are sourced from same high definition masters that recently made their way to Japanese DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of Kadokawa and both films look exceptional. The contrast boosting and edge enhancement that marred the 2002 Daiei / Toshiba DVDs is nowhere in evidence, and the more natural color and detail of the new transfers up-converts exceptionally for high definition viewing. Both films are framed at their correct theatrical aspect ratios (2.34:1 for Guiron and a slightly wider 2.36:1 for Jiger), and the ostensibly single-layer encodes are solid.

As with the companion release Gamera vs. Gyaos / Gamera vs. Viras, the available audio selections here are extensive. The original Japanese 2.0 tracks are included, of course, both of which sound excellent. Gamera vs. Guiron is also given two English dub options, the first being the more or less respectable A.I.P. TV Attack of the Monsters dub and the second being the utterly unforgivable Sandy Frank version. The latter seems particularly pathetic anymore, especially when accompanied by a pristine widescreen image. Gamera vs. Jiger was only released once in the states, and its A.I.P. TV Gamera vs. Monster X dub is included. The editing of this track leaves a bit to be desired (its obvious that snippets of footage here and there are missing from the English source), but its presence is welcomed.

The subtitles that accompany the original Japanese audio are, thankfully, more consistent in quality this go around. The translations for both appear to, largely, follow those previously included on the 2002 Daiei / Toshiba DVDs, occasionally goofy syntax and all. The few updates are relatively minor. Luckily for us, the original translations are far better handled than that for Gamera vs. Gyaos, with the infrequent updates being more intelligible than in that sad case.

Supplements are minimal, as expected, totaling a publicity image gallery each for the two films. Again – would it have really been that much extra hassle to include the theatrical trailers for these? The packaging is in line with prior Shout! Factory Gamera releases with the exception of the booklet, here just a single page two-sided insert that doubles as a chapter listing and an advertisement for other Shout! Factory releases. The insert artwork is attractive, based upon the color mini lobby images that were produced for each film’s domestic release, with the same Gamera anatomical drawing that has accompanied every prior release visible on the flip-side.

I have fewer complaints here than with the Gamera vs. Gyaos / Gamera vs. Viras double feature, if only because of the superior subtitle translations. The package is still skimpy in terms of supplemental content (those ordering through Shout! Factory directly will receive a Gamera postcard pack at least), but at a SRP of just $19.93 this release still offers considerable bang for the buck. Those who have only seen these two in their awful ‘public domain’ versions will be in for a treat, and fans are definitely encouraged to indulge.

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