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Gamera: The Guardian of The Universe

Gamera: The Guardian of The Universe

List Price: $24.98
Your Price: $22.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better Than The Films Of The 1960s!
Review: True the earlier Gamera movies were enjoyable to some extent, but were goofy in the fact that they aimed more at the kids.
But the series has taken a new turn! The story is more adult oriented with some gruesome shots of people and animals getting slaughtered! Gamera has a much more exciting background story and the the story itself is excellent!
A must-have for any giant monster movie fans!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Better than expected!
Review: I have seen Gamera 2 and 3, and I have to say that Gamera guardian of the universe is actually a more structured and serious movie than the others. The FX are good (for a japanese monster movie) but still behind american standars. Overall I like this film the most.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Giant Monster Fans - Enjoy!
Review: This is a qick paced Japanese giant monster movie that fans of the genre will really enjoy. The story is good, though fairly silly fun that fans of the old Godzilla movies will welcome with open arms. The movie is the first in a trilogy of great Gamera movies.

The DVD features very good picture quality and offers the option to view the film in the original Japanese language with English subtitles or with and English dubbed soundtrack. The picture quality is very good as is the audio. Bonus features include an informative 31 minute interview with the director of special effects, footage from the Gamera announcement press conference & the Japanese opening of the movie, behind-the-scenes footage, 3 theatrical trailers, 6 TV spots & more!

All in all a great disk to own.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Gamera's Best Movie Ever!
Review: The turtle is back in a whole new adventure! This time, it's not towards the kids. He's facing off with his greatest enemy ever: Gaos. As he faces this creature, he also teams up with a girl able to read his mind due to a mystic rock found in his shell by archaeologists. The effects were great. The stakes were high. And there was a load of action. If you're a Gamera fan, this will be your favorite.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wow!!!
Review: I must say I'm quite impressed with the movie!!! It's a major improvment over some of the cheesy monster movies the U.S.A have made. You think that Gamera is the same monster from the 60's, I don't think so! (if you believe so, then I suggest you need to be slapped in the face) Note: I'm extremly biased with Japanese monsters).

Gamera: Guardian Of The Universe (1995) is a monster movie, with actual plot, characters, acting, and great SPFX. Yeah, yeah, people are complaining that they look fake, but that's because the movie was produced around '95, so of course your going to notice flaws. But, then you have people moaning about the movie having not plot. It may seem confusing at first, but watch it again, and you will able to understand it (...). Though, I can undestand why so many people don't like it, it was sort of based on anime movie, from what I hear. The movie also improves over the human drama and military, two things Godzilla REALLY lacked.

Also, this is a Gamera film, you CANNOT expect Godzilla from him. If so, this just proves how biased people are these days. (But isn't it funny how a majority of people who don't like Gammy are always Godzilla fans?). And notice the title says ''Gamera'' not Godzilla. Many people who put down the giant turtle, obivously cannot except the fact that his movies are ten times better then the heisei Goji flicks, ... better then any monster movie the U.S. comes with. Also for the people who say that the plot and story were dumb ideas, let's see you create a GODLY, breathtaking film, rather then whine to death that it is horrible (double for the Godzilla fans)

Overall, I enjoyed G1, I give it a 10/10

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: kaneko = bad plot parsimony
Review: What is it about this movie? That it stars Steven Seagal's daughter? Is it in the title that Gamera is a gaurdian of a universe that consists of only one planet? Is it the convoluted Atlantis plot angle which does little except spout mythic gibberish? Is it the monsters who are conveniently locked behind the horizon with people running in the foreground among city destruction? Or the buildings which explode on contact? Is Tokyo a storage house for Nitro Glycerin? Why do skeletal girders on a contruction site explode when touched? Is it made of C-4? Why are the FX work in this movie praised? The original kept it simple and had to explain less. This movie explains outlandish creatures with even more outlandish and convoluted explanations. All of which in turn need even more outlandish explanations than the original idea, none of which are actually followed through.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Specifications are misleading
Review: While this is a great movie, it is not in widescreen anamorphic. It is widescreen letterboxed. Not enhanced for widescreen TV's.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nearly Perfect Kaiju!!!
Review: I say "nearly perfect" because I've seen all three of the new Gamera movies. I know what's coming. The special effects, editing, and photography are superior to the Godzilla movies of the period. This movie came out the same year as Godzilla vs. Destroyer (or ...vs. Destroyah depending on which fan you talk to). In Japan, both movies came out in 1995. Until I saw the movies that followed, this first new Gamera movie blew me away. It is nothing like Gamera vs. Zigra (1972) which was the last of the original Gamera movies before Daiei went bankrupt.

With this movie, Daiei totally resets the storyline and ignores all previous movies. Gamera is given a history here. He doesn't simply appear to protect children. There is a legend for him and Gyaos.

The extras include subtitled Japanese material including original Japanese trailers, TV ads, press conference, promotional events, and behind the scenes stuff. There is also the first part of an interview with the man in charge of the special effects, Shinji Higuchi. The interview includes clips from the later movies which show why I like the later films so much. The beginning of the interview seems a little weird, but it's not bad once it starts. The way the interview is presented is a bit unusual with video monitors sometimes being the focus of many shots.

The DVD includes both English and Japanese audio and English subtitles. However, ADV has reduced the number of quotes from reviews on the DVD package from what was on the tape box. The DVD has no quotes from Roger Ebert (yes, he gave it a "Thumbs Up"), New York Times, or New York Daily News. Since ADV didn't include their own trailers for this movie, the one with the quotes from TV Guide, Roger Ebert, and Cult Movies isn't here. Among the ADV previews, there is one for Gamera 2.

Trivia: Ayako Fujitani (Asagi) is Steven Seagal's daughter.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Movie in an Interesting Box
Review: I already reviewed Gamera - Guardian of the Universe for the regular DVD version; if you want to know details about this film, go there. This review is for the Collector's Edition Artwork DVD--basically, is it worth spending a little more to get the special box?

Gamera - Guardian of the Universe is a great film, one of the best of its kind. It's also the first film of a trilogy that arguably kept getting better as it went along. I bought this special Collector's Edition to keep all three great films together. If you buy this special edition, you will get the first DVD plus a black storage box. A very large, black, abstracted, glossy image of Gamera is imprinted on the matte-finish box. This juxtaposition of finishes is worthy of non-sport trading cards, but I'm afraid the initial impression is simply that it's a black box with "Gamera" imprinted in yellow-green. If you want to see the "cool" effect, you'll have to hold the box just right in the light for full effect.

Bottom line: If money is no object, then you can't go wrong buying this Collector's Edition, because you will get a great movie. I'm not sure the box is worth the extra money, but some folks will think it's cool.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: More [bad] effects, bad monster suit.
Review: Unlike the Godzilla films, The Gamera films were made on an even lower budget with with even cheaper looking effects and the Gamera suit looked terrible. Here they did not change very much. The suit still looks bad, the effects now look like they came from [an inexpensive] computer, and the acting. Well there is no acting. ...


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