Watch Gamera vs. Jiger For Free

The Age of Commercialism

Just what I expected

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I am a big fan of Japanese monster movies and grew up watching Godzilla, but also took on a handful of Gamera films. Overall, these movies are treasures from my childhood and even to this day. However, as with all movie trilogies, there are a few that stick out in a negative way including this one.Some of those flicks are so cheesy and bad, it's good. This Gamera flick, about the flying turtle trying to save Japan from Triceratrops-like monster Giger awoken at the Expo '70, doesn't reach that scale. The plot and story are very plain and suffers from a lack of excitement, tension and thrills - nothing to captivate the audience. The cast of characters (adult) are not memorable and didn't really contribute a whole lot to the story - they were just thrown in to be bystanders, letting the main three kid characters take center stage, this time trying to save Gamera (shown in a very campy scene where they board a submarine and enter Gamera's body to detect the source of his illness in the movie). Every Gamera movie except Gamera vs. Barugon in the first series featured at least one kid as the main character and a good handful of them were pretty annoying. Lastly, the cheap-looking monster suits continued in this film; the monsters didn't show any emotions or characteristics like the creatures you would see in Godzilla films. They just look like stiff, moving museum models.Again, most of the Gamera films are mostly for children and they would be good to use to introduce them to the world of Japanese kaiju. Other than that, most, including this one, were very campy and cheesy with bad acting, bad special effects and non-captivating stories. If you enjoyed these films as a kid, you would probably grow out of them - the enjoyment factor is not as everlasting as the Godzilla movies or the later Gamera films in my opinion.Grade D--

Vicious behemoth beast Jiger attacks Japan during an annual science fair. It's up to Gamera to stop the foul fiend. However, Jiger has injected the heroic flying prehistoric turtle with its parasitic offspring. Can two little boys save Gamera in time? Director Noriaki Yuasa, working from a fairly dark and twisted script by Fumi Takahashi, relates the entertaining story at a constant brisk pace, maintains a generally serious tone throughout, and stages the fierce and lengthy monster fight set pieces with a reasonable amount of skill and flair. Moreover, there are also pleasing moments of large scale mass destruction with Jiger demolishing a major city and surprisingly harsh bits of violence (Jiger cripples Gamera by shooting needles into all of his limbs and turns people into skeletons). The Expo Center in Osaka makes for a neat, novel, and interesting setting. The shoddy (far from) special effects possess a certain endearingly shoddy charm. Tsutomu Takatuma and Kelly Varis are solid and likable as the two little boys who help Gamera. Akira Kitazaki's vibrant widescreen cinematography and Shunsuke Kikuchi's bouncy score are both up to speed. Plus you gotta love Gamera's incredibly cute'n'catchy theme song. A fun creature feature.

I said in my "Gamera vs Zigra" review that that was the worst of the Gamera films. I was mistaken, "Gamera vs Jiger" is the worst of the Gamera Films.Basically in this film Gamera must save mankind from Jiger. Jiger is a monster who came back because some construction workers take away a statue that supposedly keeps JIger from escaping. Jiger manages to stab Gamera in the neck and put some eggs into him that later hatch into little Jigers.First of all this film has the worst looking of any of Gamera's foes. Jiger looks pretty cheaply built and does not look all that interesting. Jiger is a female due to the fact that it lays eggs. Se had potential and looks kind of like a prehistoric amphibian with a fin on his back. Jiger can shoot spears out of her head and kind of hover over water by shooting gas out of her body???? Mainly Jiger's face just looks lame. Just a bad looking cheap monster.Gamera also is looking bad in this film. I do not know how many different Gamera suits were made but this one looks really bad.There are a lot of parts that I just thought were bad. Like how the two kids take a submarine into Gamera's body. I am not a big fan of traveling into the body of other creatures even in films, it just looks odd.The monster fighting is nothing new. Just same old stuff. The only really interesting aspect of this film is how Jiger infects Gamera with eggs of hers that later hatch inside of Gamera. But for the most part the monster action is not exciting and just the same old stuff.The dubbing is pretty bad as usual. Why would the one guy make a gun noise and gesture when telling everybody the two children should have taken the undersea gun with them. And did they really have to show the people cutting open the elephant trunk and pulling out all the larvae that were inside? Disgusting.A pretty bad monster film. The worst Gamera film I have ever seen. Not recommended.

This film is pretty much a formula Gamera film that follows the same plot as every other film. A giant monster threatens to destroy a Japanese city and just when things look bleak, in comes Gamera to save the day. However, Gamera usually loses at least one or two battles with his adversary before he finally defeats him. However, the one thing that makes this film different is the fact that usually in a Gamera film, Gamera is the one who saves any children that are in trouble, but in this film it is up to two young boys (one Japanese and one Caucasian) to save him from a parasite that was injected into his body. Even with this plot twist, this is still the typical Gamera film. But as I have said in my other commentaries about films in the Gamera series, these films are pretty much a way to introduce children to the world of kaiju eiga.