Gamera vs Barugon

Although it would be absurd to claim Gamera vs Barugon as some sort of unfairly maligned masterpiece, director Shigeo Tanaka's film does contain individual ideas and moments that range from conceptually sound all the way up to genuinely beautiful. Gamera's second big screen outing largely dispense with the rocket-powered turtle to mooch around with a gang of lawbreakers chasing a magnificent opal that is, in fact, a monster egg. Koji Fujiyama's Onodera is the most thrilling element in this human strata, a greedy thug who is allowed a tremendous lack of repercussion for his murderous actions, enabling him to hurry the plot forward whenever the boring do-gooders hit a brick wall.

Onodera's most incredible moment arrives deep into the third-act: the burly wrongdoer staging a heist in the middle of a calamitous, barely-holding-together, military operation. With the Japanese Self-Defence Force distracted - their attention captured by a mission that demands they dangle glimmering trinkets in front of title pest Barugon - Onodera blasts in out of the darkness, interrupting the painstaking attempt to lure this materialistic monster to his doom. Fujiyama's thief crashes his speedboat directly into the military command vessel before jumping aboard then outgunning the soldiers guarding the dazzling diamond being used as bait.

Onodera's unapologetic villainy is such that he feels precisely zero shame about inflicting further Barugon carnage on the world. He just wants to get paid, even if that means stealing the solution to a problem he has directly caused. Human greed and an indifference to ecological balance is a frequent driving force in kaiju films but it's fun seeing these ideas expressed specifically in terms of street level criminality and a passionate (but illogical) self-interest. The Gamera series is so committed to making human ingenuity a plausible solution to monster landings that it seems equally important, not to mention exciting, to pursue the ways in which the individual can work to scupper an otherwise unified defence.

Which brings us to the monsters themselves. While both Barugon and the barely featured Gamera conduct themselves with a stiffness normally associated with poorly pressed pocket money toys, Gamera vs Barugon does have an ace up its sleeve - special effects director Noriaki Yuasa. Daiei Film may not have the same kind of money, or international appeal, as Toho's irradiated output but Yuasa is able to iterate and innovate on the established language of monster confrontation. The special effects director's approach is distinct from that of Godzilla powerhouses Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya in that Yuasa is less interested in terrifying cataclysm, preferring to luxuriate in the company of these special effects and their surreal, seismic relationship with our world.

Perhaps lacking the confidence that Gamera and Barugon's Imperial stamped outfits will stand up to close scrutiny, Yuasa hides the creatures in night-time sorties, lit by tracer rounds and blanketed by luminous, but sooted, smoke. The background and foreground are stacked with shattered detailing, stressing both the danger of proximity and the sheer scale of these beasts. This smouldering approach to monster mise en scene is absolutely rooted in Tsuburaya's work on the original Godzilla but Yuasa pushes the smoked-out technique further, accounting for clashing, blood-thirsty characteristics in these less otherworldly creatures. Tsuburaya's Kaiju tower over their surroundings, Yuasa's are caged by them, stuck thrashing against humanity's shattering structures. This is wonderful, influential, work. Yuasa's gloriously gritty approach to special effects staging clearly discernible in Teruyoshi Nakano and Eiichi Asada's later, exemplary runs with the Godzilla franchise.

Godzilla: Final Wars

Just so you know it isn't fucking about, Godzilla: Final Wars begins at the South Pole in the midst of a nuclear war. The Japanese Prime Minister from Godzilla: Tokyo SOS commands the submarine battleship Atragon in a final, desperate battle against The King of Monsters while all reality collapses around them. This is Ryuhei Kitamura's film in a nutshell - an adrenalised rummage through the Toho back catalogue with an emphasis on violent flippancy. Kitamura ditches the regal splendour of the last two cycles to zero in on Godzilla as a manoeuvrable, unbeatable scrapper.

Although fresh from international success with Versus and the insipid Azumi, Kitamura is a bold choice for Toho. Like the Bond producers the studio tends to play risk averse, preferring to stick with tested hands and groomed talent. Kitamura's idea of Godzilla is an impertinent slugfest told with the visual language of V-Cinema. Heroes are moustached mixed martial artists or amped-up pop stars with bad attitudes. Heroines are shot leg first, and outfitted for pinku thrillers. It's a trash cinema aesthetic that blends wonderfully with the smoke choked devastation of Eiichi Asada. The special effects director's work is reminiscent of Teruyoshi Nakano, with whom he worked on The Return of Godzilla. Everything is brutal and distinctive, washed in rubble greys and void blacks.

When it can drag its attention away from a team of backflipping mutants, Final Wars puts Godzilla to work. The basic premise of Destroy All Monsters is inverted, placing Godzilla in the antagonistic King Ghidorah role. Freed from a couple of trillion tons of Antarctic ice, The Big G must travel the globe thumping former kaiju allies who are stuck in the thrall of cool guy aliens. Final Wars isn't about radioactive calamity or mankind perverting the laws of nature, it's about who's the best toy. It's Godzilla as the coolest, most powerful action figure grinding lesser merchandise beneath his heel. Although overlong and a little too excited by routine shonen superheroics, Final Wars is basically delightful. It's exactly the kind of film the latchkey kid from All Monsters Attack would make.

Godzilla: Tokyo SOS

Another frenetic treat from Masaaki Tezuka. The director follows up Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla with Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, a Kiryu rematch that ropes in Mothra and two of her offspring. The first out-and-out sequel in the Millennium cycle is a slight, almost supplementary feature that expands on the previous film's resurrection theme in an expertly ordered action setting. Instead of an interesting inflection to be brushed aside for battle, Kiryu's strange half-life informs and drives Tokyo SOS. Mothra, acting as a kind of kaiju envoy, warns humanity that the reanimated Kiryu is an affront to all monsterkind. As long as this Mechagodzilla exists, Godzilla will be drawn to it. Unfortunately Japan's automated saviour is actually its millstone. 

It's not clear why Godzilla homes in on Kiryu. It could be that the King of Monsters views the robotic reflection as a threat to his throne. Equally it could be that Godzilla 1954 was a relative, perhaps even a parent. How Kiryu chooses to confront his opponent, when freed from human control, lends a certain plausibility to this idea. Working alongside two silk spitting larvae, Kiryu restrains rather than attacks Godzilla. He traps the beast in his malfunctioning metal carapace, then drags him down to the deepest depths of the Pacific Ocean. Is Kiryu atoning for his radioactive rampages? He certainly seems to have bonded with a few of the humans that have piloted and maintained his metal body. Has he finally learnt to empathise with mankind? Maybe he simply wishes to be dead again, and has correctly deduced that Godzilla's elimination will mean he will be left in peace.