Gamera: Guardian of the Universe

A giant floating mass of coral is discovered in the Pacific; at the same time, birds taller than a person are sighted on a remote island. The two are connected: the birds are a predatory species called Gyaos and the coral mass is in fact a creature made to stop them. Gamera wakes and the first clash takes place over Fukuoka. The subject is not monster combat but the information the military holds always arriving too late. The city is destroyed while decision-making bodies convene; the film takes the military procedure seriously and makes it the engine of the narrative. The form is unusually disciplined for the genre. The destruction was shot with large miniatures, the camera is kept at human height, and the creatures are mostly shown from below. That makes them dangerous rather than merely large. The production restarted the Gamera series and is counted among the genre's most respected work of the nineties. Shusuke Kaneko directs. Ayako Fujitani, who plays the young girl, is Steven Seagal's daughter and was living in Japan at the time; she continued in the role across the next two films. Tsuyoshi Ihara and Shinobu Nakayama are in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like kaiju cinema and miniature effects. Who it is not for: anyone after character depth; the human story is functional and thin.