The plutonium transport Kairu-Maru heads across the Pacific ocean with military escort. Out of nowhere a potential crisis emerges as somehow the Kairu-Maru runs aground upon something. Luckily the ship suffers no structural damage but the mystery remains, what on Earth has the ship run into? It would seem to be some sort of rocky atoll but without warning, the atoll moves on its own, drifting under the sea and into the distance. Racked with guilt, one of the officers on the military escort – Yoshinari Yonemori (Tsuyoshi Ihara) goes to see Naoya Kusanagi (Akira Onodera) who is in charge of the Yashima Marine Insurance’s inpending investigation of the atoll. Yonemori is desperate to be a part of the mission for extremely vague reasons – he feels responsible for the potentially disastrous accident out at sea and feels this will somehow make amends. Kusanagi is understandably unconvinced however and doesn’t want any military involvement and seems unconvinced. Meanwhile at the Fukuoka Municipal Zoo an ornithologist named Mayumi Nagamine (Shinubu Nakayama - Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2, Fist of Legend) receives an attempted call from her colleague Professor Hirata, but unfortunately the line goes dead before she can speak to him. Hirata is on Himegami Island investigating reports of an entirely new species of bird, but something is very wrong as we cut to the island to see two men running in panic in the midst of a heavy storm towards a small jetty. They never make it away from the island however, one is attacked by something unseen, while the other can only yell about “a bird” into a boat’s radio before something rips the roof from the cabin and he too is gone. Yonemori is becoming alarmingly stalker-like while this is going on, asking at a store local to Mr. Kusanagi about what he likes to drink. As luck would have it he meets his teenage daughter Asagi (Ayako Fujitani – daughter of Steven bloody Seagal, I kid you not) who takes him back to their house – ooh err! Kusanagi comes home to find Yonemori has cleaned up and cooked dinner and is pretty close to prostrating himself at the man’s feet. Touched by this pathetic display of grovelling, he agrees to let him be part of the investigation, but he’s not paying him a dime. Damn right, the creep.

Nagamine gets a visit too from a Nagasaki police Inspector Osako who has come to ask for her help – Himegami Island is totally deserted, the few families that live there are gone and their homes lie in ruins. Fearing that the mysterious species of bird that Prof. Hirata was investigating might be responsible, he requests that Nagamine accompany his team to the island to try and determine what happened. The party searches the partially destroyed village and they find what looks like a huge pile of bird guano. Being a bird expert, Nagamine quickly throws on her rubber gloves and plunges her hands in looking for pellets – things that went through the bird’s system without being digested. As luck would have it, she pulls out poor Prof. Hirata’s gold pen. Osako is suitably freaked out by this finding but Nagamine presses on up into the mountains when suddenly a great wing creature screams through the air above them and away towards another island. Nagamine urges them to follow, as there are no more people on that island it must be looking elsewhere! They pursue by helicopter but can’t help the poor dog the creature snatches up. Eventually they get along-side it and Nagamine does what any self-respecting scientist would do – she throws the door open and starts taking pictures. Luckily it actually pays off as the flashes from the camera don’t go down well with the creature, which turns and retreats back to the island. From this vantage point the investigation team makes a startling discovery – there are in fact three of these creatures, all circling the mountain on Hinegami Island. Out in the Pacific, the Yashima team finds the atoll with the help of Yonemori and they climb onto it to investigate. Seemingly made out of rock, a number of small pieces of metal are found, all of which have a comma-like shape. Then something else is found slightly protruding from the rock and it is decided to dig into the rock to discover what it is. At the same time as this, Nagamine and Inspector Osako are called to see various representatives of the Japanese government and military. Due to their encounter with the winged beasts it is decided that they must help find a way of dealing with the beasts, however due to their rare nature the government wants them taken alive, despite Nagamine’s protests and the fact it’s a bloody stupid idea.

We segue to Yonemori and crew who have revealed a stone tablet covered in ancient runes. While examining it Yonemori realises that the tablet is at body temperature and suddenly a high-pitched noise begins and the tablet crumbles. The atoll starts to move and the team vacate it, Yonemori is underwater briefly and sees what appears to be the huge monstrous head of something drift past. Nagamine and Osako have formulated a plan meanwhile, to capture the beasts using a dome stadium in Fukuoka – forcing them into it using huge search lights and then closing the huge roof. As they set up at the dome Yonemori appears, warning Nagamine and the military that a great creature that came out of the atoll is also headed towards Fukuoka! Though they succeed in driving the creatures into the stadium, things go pear-shaped when they attempt to tranquillise them, allowing one to escape before they could close the roof. He doesn’t get far though as he flies over the harbour the mighty atoll monster emerges from the water and sends him crashing into some industrial buildings which explode spectacularly. This daikaiju, which looks like a gigantic turtle with tusks protruding from his mouth, crashes through the city towards the stadium, wanting to get the other two creatures, now unconscious and caged. The stadium prevents the mighty turtle from getting its huge hands on the winged creatures however, who cut the bars using some sort of sonic laser and escape in the commotion. Gamera turns to see them depart and then retracts his limbs, replacing them rocket blasts that come from his arm and leg holes and he takes off, spinning away into the sky in pursuit of the creatures. Later Yonemori visits Kusanagi and they discuss the runes on the atoll’s stone tablet which talk of the ‘last hope Gamera’ which will arise at the same time as ‘the Shadow of Evil, Gyaos’. They determine that Gamera must be the great turtle kaiju, and that the winged creatures are Gyaos. Kusanagi also has theories about the metal commas that were found on the atoll being a previously unseen metal, possibly the legendary ‘Orichalcum’ – the metal believed to be used by the people of Atlantis. Could Gamera be from some ancient sunken civiliation, sent to fight an old enemy that has arisen again as the deadly Gyaos? What part do these metal commas play in this tale, and why did the one Yonemori gave to Asagi as a souvenir glow when she touched it?

Susuke Kaneko and Kazunori Itô have crafted an intriguing daikaiju adventure that while not as good as the other two heisei Gamera films is a fine new introduction to everybody’s favourite rocket-powered giant turtle. The decision was obviously made to start from scratch and they have crafted an entirely new origin and debut for the creature, rather than merely ignoring the numerous sequels the way Godzilla did. The new origin is an interesting one and leaves enough ambiguities to potentially give the monster further development in the follow-ups. Visually this film is a treat, possibly boasting a larger budget than its Big G contemporaries qw this is the first daikaiju movie to use a substantial amount of computer graphics. Gamera launches great balls of flame from his mouth that look mightily impressive as they are spewed forth towards their intended victim. The use of CGI in creating the flying Gyaos, and Gamera’s spinning jet-powered mode of flight look impressive, particularly Gamera’s which looks a million miles away from the extremely silly and cheesy special effects of the old Gamera movies. The CGI does have the effect however of showing up some of the more cheesy aspects of the monster costumes and exposing some other rather cheap-looking effects, but things are a bit too fun for things like that to truly matter, even if the Gyaos is rather goofy-looking. The monster battles too, while not the longest, show some impressive work in the effects, choreography, and use of miniatures. The near-compulsory destruction of Tokyo looks very impressive and the way the monsters battle is a little more fitting of the participants – rather than just knocking into each other and grappling around pointlessly they use hit and run attacks and projectile weapons, the results seem a little more likely than some of the goofy wrestling moves employed by Godzilla and company. Some cool flying chases make good use of the monsters’ powers, and the monsters are attributed with some intelligence, such as Gyaos sneakily using the Tokyo Tower to avoid missiles fired at him by the military. It is an aspect of the monster battles that Kaneko has perfected during his making of daikaiju films and one of the main reasons why GMK was so enjoyable. Kaiju fans will be very happy.

Despite the title however, the main protagonists in this film are Yonemori and Nagamine who are attempting to make sense of these ancient creatures and understand what they’re doing. Yonemori is concerned with Gamera after the near-disastrous accident with the ship carrying the plutonium, and he gets caught up in the legend of Gamera and his possible connections with a mythical sunken country, possibly Atlantis. Nagamine is at first drawn in because of her expertise in ornithology and because her colleague and mentor, Professor Hirata, was killed investigating Gyaos sightings. After her experience she is by default the leading expert in the creatures as she is the only expert to have survived encountering the creatures, and is forced into helping a stubborn government official in attempting to capture the creatures for study. Unfortunately, neither character is particularly interesting, their reasons for being there are later discarded and they become tools for plot exposition. Their scenes where they talk about the monsters become tedious, especially in the last third of the film where we’re far more concerned in seeing the daikaiju tangle. Character development is minimal and neither character really has any chemistry with anybody else, they’re flat and dull. Also, though there are some scenes that show the loss of human life due to the destruction caused by the monsters, there are few scenes where our main characters are themselves put in any danger. This was an element of GMK which worked well where the heroine gets herself into extremely dangerous situations in order to report on the battles between the monsters, there is little of this sense of danger here which makes it more difficult to care. Another problem is Asagi Kusanagi who becomes that old mainstay – The Kid With the Psychic Connection to the Monster. Unfortunately this doesn’t work particularly well or have any real purpose, it doesn’t get much better than “ugh, he’s coming” dialogue and the girl experiencing manifestations of the injuries suffered by Gamera. Ayako Fujitani doesn’t help as Asagi either and comes off as extremely wooden, a bit like daddy. Perhaps its just because she’s young and I’m sure she’ll get better, so please don’t hurt me Mr. Seagal, sir. Also, while I enjoyed the stern performances of the military and government officials that get involved, their insistence for so much of the movie that Gyaos must be captured and Gamera is the bigger threat and must be killed, despite the fact it’s the Gyaos that have been eating people and causing the most trouble, gets really frustrating. A few too many clichés.

The greater emphasis on the people affected by the monsters’ battles does have its positive effects too however. The film is punctuated with news reports of events happening through the movie, most of which are local reports telling local inhabitants when to evacuate and the like, and there was also a short report on the effect of Gyaos destoying Tokyo on the stock market! These news reports are excellent because they add a lot of legitimacy to the proceedings, and give the feel people dealing with a real situation as it is handled in the same way as the Japanese would deal with an earthquake or a car crash. It gave a greater feel of the scope of the destruction and the awareness of what effects a disaster of this proportions would have should it actually happen. Something else that really stood out was the orchestral score used. Perhaps trying to replicate Godzilla, Gamera has a rousing soundtrack with a recurring main theme which is similar in style to the Big G’s, kicking in when the eponymous amphibian triumphantly storms onto the scene. The score never becomes overbearing and does a good job of heightening the tension and boosting the atmosphere. Kaneko also has a good eye for striking images, such as the Gyaos perched on top of the damaged Tokyo Tower silhouetted against the sky in sunset, or Gamera’s climactic attack on Gyaos. Inspiring stuff.

Overall this is a decent daikaiju movie that shows a great deal of promise that the two sequels were all set to deliver. Interestingly while Toho have attempted on more than one occasion to make Godzilla a more destructive badass the way he used to be, Kaneko and Itô did not go this route but still managed to refresh the monster considerably. While some of the characters were flawed, you’re really going to want to pick this up as a companion to the follow-ups, and its still got some cracking giant monster action. A great display of what Kaneko and Itô are capable of within the daikaiju genre.