This year, kaiju fans are not only marking the 70th birthday of Godzilla but also the 60th anniversary of another classic Japanese monster movie, with shiny new Gamera 4K resorations en route to celebrate.
Per a new report from Japan's CinemaToday, translated by TokyoScope, the first three Showa-era Gamera films – Noriaki Yuasa's Gamera, The Giant Monster (1965), Shigeo Tanaka's Gamera vs. Barugon (1966), and Yuasa's Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967) – are set to be digitally restored in 4K under the supervision of director Shinji Higuchi (Shin Godzilla, Bullet Train Explosion) and digital restoration whiz Shunichi Ogura.
Originally developed by Daiei Films as a way to compete with the success of Toho's Godzilla, the giant, fire-breathing turtle Gamera has gone on to become a kaiju icon in his own right. Although the pair have never officially gone head to head on screen together, the Gamera and Godzilla franchises have long influenced each other.
In a new statement, translated by Kaiju United, Higuchi, who made a name for himself working as SFX director on 1995's Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, has this to say of the restoration:
โThis film was made the year I was born, so itโs about 60 years old. Ideally, someone involved in the production should have supervised it, but as far as I could see, there was no one there. Thatโs a shame. And now, with the help of Shunichi Ogura, a legendary timing man for our generation, and Yoshiaki Abe, a colorist at Imagica who is at the forefront of digital grading, I, the unworthy Higuchi, have humbly accepted this important role as a representative of fans.
Uncovering the texture of the monstersโ skin, which had been buried in the darkness and hidden by the grain, and unearthing the atmosphere of the scene that was recorded on the low-sensitivity negative film of the time, was a wonderful and satisfying task, as it felt like reliving the great achievements of my predecessors who created wonderful works through repeated trial and error. It is particularly shocking to see the large number of double-roll composite shots, which were made by rewinding the original negative and exposing it twice without using an optical printer, as revealed by the timing data. I am deeply impressed by the efforts of my predecessors, who were making monster movies at a time when blue screen compositing was no longer an option.
Please watch with great interest as you witness the birth of Gamera as you have never seen it before.โ
Ogura adds:
โWhen I heard about this project, I was delighted because I never imagined Iโd be involved in the 4K restoration of โShowa Gamera,โ a film I saw in the theater as a child. I was also involved in the โHeisei Gamera Trilogyโ at the right time. What you saw in the theater was a print film (positive). This 4K restoration was done from the negative. Naturally, it will look different from the way it looked in the theater because it wasnโt printed through a positive. Negatives contain a wealth of information, such as the details in the bright and dark areas that couldnโt be expressed in a positive. I restored it in a way that preserves that information, while also striving to recreate the texture that was seen when I first saw it. Please look forward to it.โ
The Gamera 4Ks will be released in Japan starting on November 21. Gamera fans in Japan can also attend a Showa Gamera Film Festival this December, which will include all eight Showa Gamera films playing at Kadokawa Cinema Yurakucho. No news yet on an English-subtitled release of the Showa Gameras, but rest assured we'll keep you posted.
