Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris (1999)
Produced and Released by: Kadokawa-Daiei
Domestic Release by: ADV Films
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Images: Some images come from Monster Zero (check them out!)
By DrKain

Introduction

Gamera III: The Revenge of Iris was released in 1999; three years after Daiei released Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion. This movie is the final movie in the trilogy, and it does not disappoint one bit. In fact, it outdoes everything the first two movies established.

The Story

It is the year 1999, three years since the Legion invasion. Mayumi Nagamine (Shinobu Nakayama) has arrived in a village in the Philippines where a young Gyaos corpse is rotting. At the same time, a group of divers are looking for some sunken ships, but what they find is a graveyard full of dead Gameras. Also, a woman by the name of Mito Asakura and game designer Shinya Kurata are at the institute where the curved jewels found back in 1995 on Gamera are being kept. They all shattered in 1996 when Legion attacked and Gamera came back after the Sendai incident.

Next we meet Ayana Hirasaka (Ai Maeda), a girl whose parents were killed by Gamera while fighting the Gyaos in 1995. She is living with her relatives and brother in an old village in Nara Prefecture. Ayana’s brother is picked on every day, and she makes a deal that if she brings them the rock from a cave said to hold the Ryuseicho they would leave him alone, and she does. Moribe, the boy who likes Ayana and belongs to the family who guards the cave, finds out and sees Ayana carrying the rock. He helps her bring it back into the cave where they find a mysterious egg. They both agree not to say anything, and leave. Ayana asks her cousin about the Ryuseicho, and he shows her a book with myths, and that Ryuseicho may be a crimson phoenix. Being curious, Ayana goes back to the cave and finds the egg has hatched, along with a curved jewel, similar to those on Gamera, and it glows green.

Nagamine comes home and finds a package from a Shinya Kurata in Kyoto, this package contains all types of things such as mana. Mana is the energy source surrounding the world, and it was at its lowest in 1995 in Japan, which is what they figure brought the Gyaos to Japan at the time. She runs into a man on the street selling magazines that looks like Inspector Osako (Yukijiro Hotaru).

Nagamine meets Asakura while waiting for a press conference to start, and she tells her that she is glad she's willing to help with the Gyaos. During the conference Gamera is seen in Shibuya chasing after some Gyaos, and one of them crashes into a subway station, causing mass amounts of destruction everywhere as Gamera ruthlessly fires on the Gyaos, accidentally killing hundreds of people as they are stomped on, burned, and blown up, as the battle unravels. Gamera kills the Gyaos, and the body parts fall to the ground and crushes all of the homeless people except Osako. Shibuya is in flames when Gamera leaves, so the military realizes they must stop him no matter what.

Moribe’s grandmother tells him he is to be the new protector of the Ryuseicho. It is a monster that could destroy the world if the rock is ever removed. Moribe gets a nervous look on his face when she also tells him a sumo wrestler tried to remove it years ago, but no matter what he did, it would not budge. He is also told there is a dagger in a shrine in front of the cave, which is to kill the Ryuseicho if it is ever resurrected. Ayana shows up as Moribe is about to get the dagger. They both walk inside the cave and Ayana shows Moribe the baby creature that came from the egg. She named it Iris, the name of the cat in the house Gamera destroyed in 1995. Moribe thinks it is dangerous, but Ayana tells him her and Iris both have one thing in common, hatred for Gamera for killing their family. Days later, Moribe finds Ayana in some weird looking tube, and removes her from it. She is sent to the hospital and her brother goes with her.

Nagamine says hi to Osako, who cannot believe everything that has happened to him in Shibuya. He tells her that no matter what he does, he cannot escape being in situations surrounding monsters. Nara Prefecture may have been attacked by the Gyaos, so Nagamine is going to go there to investigate, and Osako agrees to help her as best he can. It turns out the village was attacked by Iris, who has sucked the live out of the villagers, leaving shriveled corpses. Nagamine finds some cell samples from the egg, and from a part of the cave where Iris tried to fuse with Ayana. While outside the cave, they find Moribe, who runs until he trips. He tells Nagamine everything that happened, and they go to the hospital to see Ayana.

Asagi Kusanagi (Ayako Fujitani) has returned to Japan, and talks to Nagamine about her discovery in a class about mana. Nagamine tells her about Ayana and the new monster, but when they go to the hospital, they learn that Ayana was transported to another place without permission. They also find out the egg’s chromosomes where the same as a Gyaos’, but the other ones were different. Nagamine gets help in locating Ayana, who was taken by Asakura and Kurata in Kyoto. Iris attacks some people in a forest, and makes waste of the army forces trying to stop it. Ayana wakes up after Nagamine and the others arrive in Kyoto, and she calls for Iris. Osako talks to Moribe, and convinces him to go to Kyoto to save her.

Spoiler Warning: if you do not want to know what happens in the end, stop reading here, and do not read the last paragraph in the Review section

Iris takes to the sky and battles Gamera until the planes firing at Iris were told to change the attack to Gamera. Gamera is knocked back from his persuit on Iris, but not for too long. Iris lands in Kyoto while Nagamine, Asakura, Kurata, Asagi, and Ayana are at the train station. Gamera lands in Kyoto and battles Iris until they land inside the train station. Asakura and Kurata are killed, and Gamera is knocked out. Ayana is about to merge with Iris when Moribe shows up and tries to stop it. He is hardly a match for Iris and is knocked out, and Ayana is pulled into Iris’ body. She finds out it was Iris who killed her aunt and uncle, along with the whole village, and she does not want anything to do with Iris afterwards. Gamera wakes up, and puts his hand through Iris’ body to get Ayana out of there, but he loses his arm in the process. Iris shoots at Gamera, but he uses the power of the fire to create an arm and kills Iris.

The military is informed there are hundreds of Gyaos headed for Japan, and they are to stop their assault on Gamera to focus on the Gyaos.

Ayana is saved, and Gamera walks outside of the station as the four survivors watch him. Asagi tells everyone he is going to battle the Gyaos coming to Japan, even if he is alone. Gamera prepares to battle the oncoming Gyaos invasion as the credits pull up.

Review

Wow, that was a lot of information there, and I know I missed things. Another thing, is that it's hard to find the cast information of who played who, so if you need to know, good luck finding it. ^_^

Anyway, Gamera III: The Revenge of Iris just plain rocks. There is nothing to hate about this movie. The special effects are awesome. Many of them looked realistic, especially when Gamera and Iris fought in the sky. That is one of the coolest battles of this movie. Actually, all the battles of this movie were over the top and have you at the edge of your seat. This has got to be one of the most, if not the most, realistic kaiju movie ever. Buildings fall to pieces even when a monster is stomping. One of my favorite scenes in Shibuya is where you see the reflection of a building with 109 on it from the glass of another building, and the Gyaos shoots its beam and the front of the building just slides down into the ground. Even the final battle scene in Kyoto is filled with realistic effects. I don’t know what the budget was for them, but it had to be pretty expensive.

The soundtrack for the movie surpasses the previous installments. Everything fit perfectly well, especially the mood. Kou Otani impresses me every time I hear his work, and this was no different.

The costume designs are phenomenal. First, you have the Nightmare Gamera suit, which looked like a monster with no pupils in his eyes, which was the point. Next is the suit for Gamera, which is his best look ever. The shell is more jagged and spiky looking, his face structure looks closer to a snapping turtle’s, and he has hair, which looks like a Mohawk. He also has a couple spikes on his elbows, and sharp claws. He really looks a lot like an actual turtle in this movie, and that helps with the realistic effects. The Gyaos did not have much screen time, but when you saw them, they looked just like the first movie’s Gyaos, but better. Iris also had an awesome design. His colors were mostly orange and silver, but they looked great. This is also one odd and cool looking monster. The tentacles were mostly CGI, but you could barely tell. The CGI used for his wings was great, and it looked really cool in the moonlit sky.

Although the movie ends on a cliffhanger, it leaves you satisfied, while wanting more. The story of Iris has ended, so the movie has completed what the point was. Some people may lose interest in the series with an open ended movie, which is too bad since this is a trilogy every Kaiju lover should have. Why let an open ending ruin something for you? As of right now no sequel is planned, but who knows what may come in the future.

Conclusion

Well, what else can I say without spoiling more than I already have? I hope I didn’t spoil it to the point where you don’t need to see it any more. Anyway, I highly recommend this movie for any Kaiju lover, especially if you love the first two movies. This and GMK are my top favorite movies, both are pretty realistic, but I think this one is more so.

My score: 5/5 stars.

DrKain