Gamera the Brave: Returning to his roots is the flying, fire-breathing turtle in his newest feature film.

The story centers around a boy named Toro. He finds a glowing red stone with an egg in it. The egg hatches into a turtle which he names Toto. Of course this is no ordinary turtle as he can fly and breath fire and grows at an alarming rate. Around this same time a giant monster, named Zedus, appears and starts to eat people. It becomes clear that Toto is in fact Gamera (or at least a spawn of Gamera) and that his destiny is to fight Zedus.

In contrast to the Heisei films, this Gamera film is much less violent in terms of human casualties. No longer do we see bodies flying in the air blown up by fireballs. What we do see is quite a bit of monster fighting, which is definitely a lot of fun. The other departure from the Heisei films is the fact that Gamera is once again motivated by, and in some ways gets his power from, the children. This is certainly bringing Gamera back to the old Showa films and is certainly a welcome change.

One last thing, Zedus reminded me a bit of Barugon due to the tongue. Too bad they didn't bring him back as he was my favorite monster.

Labels: Gamera, Horror, Kaiju, sci-fi