BEWARE, THE FIRE-BREATHING TURTLE!

Released in 1966 in the U.S., GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE was the stateside version of GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER released in Japan the previous year. The American cast included Albert "Dr. Cyclops" Dekker and Brian "Quatermass" Donlevy.

Sleeping peacefully for millions of years, Gamera is awakened by an atomic explosion. Needless to say, it's ticked, and taking a cue from Godzilla, wreaks havoc on Tokyo. Despite working in a shoddy studio with outdated equipment, the mean-looking, fanged terrapin did pretty well at the box office, spawning the sequel, GAMERA VS. BARUGON.

The following excerpt is from a special Gamera issue of Draculina Publishing's ORIENTAL CINEMA (Vol. 3 No. 6, 1995). Without getting too deep in the weeds, the title of this 'zine may seem startling to some of WoM's more sensitive readers; it ceased publishing in 2009 after 23 issues, which was before the U.S. federal government removed the term "oriental" from its official documents in 2016. In the United States, the "O" word became a "derogatory, offensive outdated racial slur when referring to people of Asian descent and is legally prohibited in federal documents. The term carries negative historical associations with Eurocentric perspectives, racial discrimination, and imperialistic views of Asian countries, rather than simply meaning 'eastern'". Hey, don't look at me, I got this straight from Google's AI assistant.

All social politics aside, OC's Gamera special includes lots of information on the terrifying turtle, such as articles on Daiei, the also ran Japanese company (that got left in the dust by studios such as Toho) that spawned it, the trials and tribulations of filming it, as well as Gamera films that were released over the ensuing years.

Tan Yun Yee.

GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE stills:

GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE U.S. Trailer: