Great Monster Duel: Gamera vs. Barugon

Directed by
 Budget

Great Monster Duel: Gamera vs. Barugon is a 1966 daiei tokusatsu kaiju film, the second ever gamera film ever made (To Date) .

## Plot

Set six months after the events of *Gamera, the Giant Monster*, a meteorite collides with the Z Plan rocket transporting the creature to Mars. Now free, Gamera returns to Earth and destroys Kurobe Dam in Japan. At the same time, three mercenaries are sent by Kano, a World War II veteran, to an island in the South Pacific to retrieve a huge opal he once found and hid in a cave. Despite warnings from the local villagers, the trio find and locate the opal, but one dies from a fatal scorpion sting. The second man, Keisuke, Kano's younger brother, is betrayed by his fellow expeditioner Onodera and apparently killed in a cave-in.

En route back to Japan, Onodera accidentally leaves the opal exposed to an infrared light. The heat incubates the opal - actually an egg - and a lizard eventually hatches. Growing to enormous size very quickly, the lizard destroys the ship and Kobe Harbor. Keisuke, having survived the cave-in, awakens in the care of the villagers. He then returns to Japan with a village girl called Karen, who refers to the lizard as Barugon. Barugon wreaks havoc in Osaka with its freeze-gas emitting tongue and stops the launching of the retaliative missiles with a rainbow-like ray emitted from seven spines on the middle of its back. Barugon encounters Gamera and the two battle, with Gamera eventually being frozen solid.

In the meantime, while debating with Kano on how to recover the opal, which he still believes to be aboard the sunken ship, Onodera inadvertently blurts out that he killed his two companions and then murders both Kano and Kano's wife to cover up his crime. After finding Onodera, Keisuke and Karen subdue him and leave him tied up in his home. Keisuke and Karen travel to the Japanese defense ministry and suggest a plan using a huge diamond to lure Barugon into a lake to drown. The plan fails because the diamond's radiation proves to be not enough. Another attempt by irradiating the diamond with additional infrared radiation almost succeeds, until Onodera, having been released and informed of the diamond by his wife, steals the gem. Both he and the diamond, however, are immediately devoured by Barugon.

Keisuke discovers that mirrors are not affected by Barugon's rainbow ray, so the military devises a plan to reflect its own rainbow emanation back at it with a giant mirror. Barugon is wounded by its own ray, but despite prompting it cannot be goaded into repeating its mistake. Gamera thaws out and attacks Barugon once again, and after a destructive battle it drowns Barugon in Lake Biwa, then flies away. Remorseful over the disaster his greed has caused, with his brothers now dead, and having found love with Karen, Keisuke decides to make a fresh start on the island where it all began.

## Cast

* Kojiro Hongo   as   Keisuke Hirata
* Kyoko Enami   as   Karen
* Yuzo Hayakawa   as   Kawajiri
* Takuya Fujioka   as   Dr. Sato
* Koji Fujiyama   as   Onodera
* Akira Natsuki   as   Ichiro Hirata
* Yoshio Kitahara   as   Professor Amano
* Ichiro Sugai   as   Dr. Matsushita
* Bontaro Miake   as   Self-Defense Force General
* Jutaro Hojo   as   Self-Defense Force Commander
* Kazuko Wakamatsu   as   Sadae Hirata
* Yuka Konno   as   Onodera's Lover
* Eiichi Takamura   as   Governor of Osaka
* Kenichi Tani   as   Lee
* Koichi Ito   as   Metropolitan Police Superintendent-General
* Hikaru Hoshi   as   Awaji Maru Captain
* Osamu Abe   as   Awaji Maru Crewman
* Jun Osanai
* Yoshihiro Hamaguchi   as   Awaji Maru Crewman
* Joe Ohara   as   Karen's Father
* Tsutomu Nakata   as   Hayashi
* Yuji Moriya   as   News Announcer (voice)
* Shinji Kawashima
* Gai Harada   as   Kishimoto
* Kazuo Mori   as   Awaji Maru Crewman
* Shin Minatsu   as   Awaji Maru Crewman
* Takehiko Goto
* Toichiro Kagawa   as   Man at Observatory
* Nobuko Shingu
* Hiroko Nishi
* Michiyo Hikari
* Takashi Masuda Dance Company
* Teruo Aragaki   as   Gamera

## Staff

* Directed by   Shigeo Tanaka
* Written by   Nisan Takahashi
* Produced by   Masaichi Nagata
* Music by   Chuji Kinoshita
* Cinematography by   Michio Takahashi
* Edited by   Tatsuji Nakashizu
* Production design by   Atsuji Shibata
* Assistant directing by   Segawa Masao
* Special effects by   Noriaki Yuasa

## U.S. release

Unlike the first Gamera film, *Gamera vs. Barugon* was not released theatrically in the United States. The film was acquired by American International Television and dubbed into English in Rome, Italy by the English Language Dubbers Association under the supervision of Salvatore Billitteri. AIP-TV showed the film on American television in 1967 as *War of the Monsters*. This version of the film is in the public domain in the United States and has been released on DVD by countless different companies. King Features Entertainment later released the film to television and VHS as *Gamera vs. Barugon* on July 14, 1987. The international English dub of *Gamera vs. Barugon*, as released by Sandy Frank Film Syndication, was featured on Season 3 of the movie-mocking television series *Mystery Science Theater 3000*. It was also the first Gamera movie riffed on the show during its original broadcast on the Minneapolis-area station KTMA. Both Shout! Factory and Mill Creek Entertainment have released the uncut Japanese version of *Gamera vs. Barugon* on DVD with English subtitles.

## Production

The film features stock footage from the first ever Gamera film. Due to the commercial success of Gamera, the Giant Monster, the follow-up, Gamera vs. Barugon, had an expanded budget that Yuasa stated was 80,000,000 yen.

## Release

Gamera vs. Barugon was released in Japan on 17 April 1966. The film was never released theatrically in the United States. It was first shown in the United States by American International Television as War of the Monsters with an English-language dub supervised by Salvatore Billitteri. The film was reissued to television and home video through Sandy Frank by King Features Entertainment in 1987 as Gamera vs. Barugon.

## DVD

**Shout! Factory** DVD (2010)

* Region: 1
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (1.0 Mono)
* Special Features: Audio commentary by August Ragone and Jason Varney, booklet, original movie program