add site
services
publishers
database
health videos
toolbar
stats
live show
health store
more stuff
JOIN/LOGIN
| advertise add site services publishers database health videos
| | about toolbar stats live show health store more stuff JOIN/LOGIN |
Gamera vs. Zigra (ガメラ対深海怪獣ジグラ Gamera tai Shinkai Kaijū Jigura, Gamera versus Deep Sea Monster Zigra) is a 1971 daikaiju eiga (giant-monster movie) featuring the popular Gamera character created by Daiei Motion Picture Company. Gamera vs. Zigra was passed on by AIP-TV for US distribution, and was later picked up by Sandy Frank in the 1980s. It is one of five Gamera films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Episode 316, October 19, 1991). [edit] PlotWithout warning, Zigra - an alien being - attacks a moon base. Soon after (back on Earth), Kenny and his friend Helen, along with their fathers, see a strange spaceship (Zigra's) descending into the ocean. Investigating, they are soon captured and instructed to tell the world of Zigra's great achievements in science. The Zigra "space woman" creates a gigantic earthquake ("magnitude 18 no less") and they learn of Zigra's past history, advancing in science and destroying their planet. Searching out a new home, Zigra found Earth and orders the "earth creatures" to surrender the Earth. While speaking with Earth, Tom declares the Zigra woman is crazy. In anger, she puts the men in a hypnotic state. Kenny and Helen take action, successfully using the ships console to escape. Enraged, Zigra orders their death. He sends the woman to kill the children. After a close call on the surface of the water, Gamera saves the children and their fathers from Zigra. After questioning the children, the UN decides to attack Zigra. The jets scramble.and Zigra makes short work of them with his laser beam. The Zigra woman, disguised as a babe (after stealing a swimsuit), searches for Kenny and Helen. She hitches a ride with the Sea World dolphin trainer back to the facility. She changes into another stolen outfit and proceeds to wander the facility which is now crawling with military. She overhears the exasperation of the UN's fruitless efforts to defeat Zigra. While chasing the children, some photographers identify the Zigran woman as Lora Lee. After ditching the Zigran woman, the children call for Gamera. Gamera begins an underwater assault on the Zigra spaceship, which retaliates until transforming into a shark-like monster. The battle continues until Gamera beaches Zigra, who then retaliates, sending Gamera into the sea for recuperation. Zigra threatens again, claiming to be all-powerful. Back at Marine World, the dolphin trainer and the scientists divulge a way to break the control with "sonic waves." They use this information to disable the Zigra woman. Lora Lee, it is discovered, was brought aboard Zigra's ship when he attacked the moon base. The scientists go to look for Gamera, hoping to work with him to defeat Zigra. But as the bathoscope is trying to revive Gamera, Zigra attacks them - again demanding the immediate surrender of the Earth. An electrical storm appears above the bay and a bolt of lightning somehow revives Gamera and he snatches the bathoscope and returns it to the surface while Zigra is sleeping. Gamera returns to the sea to face off against Zigra for the final battle. [edit] ZigraZigra is an alien monster featured in Gamera vs. Zigra, the seventh Gamera film. Zigra is a deadly opponent whose appearance is similar to that of a Goblin Shark, possessing a silvery gray, armor-plated hide, a pointed nose, a row of sharp fins on his back, as well as sharp pectoral fins. Unlike most Kaiju, Zigra is intelligent and capable of speech, presumably by telepathic means. He is an alien from an unknown planet that landed on earth via a small spaceship shell—the ship sports the same dorsal fins. For much of the first half of the film, he uses a captured human female as an extension of his will to infiltrate dry land. The agent (Lora Lee Virus), possesses a symbiotic relation to the ship and also can put humans in a trance by eye contact and snapping her fingers. After the agent was subdued, the shell was destroyed by Gamera, revealing Zigra's full form. Due to differences in Earth's environment to his native planet, Zigra grew in size to match Gamera's. Zigra's combat style, like many Gamera Kaiju, is geared towards melee combat. A brutal opponent, he is capable of firing a silk like spray that can paralyze an opponent, and then follow through with vicious slashes with his sharp fins. Despite an otherwise fish-like appearance, he can exist out of the water, albeit with some difficulty: He was immobilized on the beach until he improvised an awkward standing posture with his tail fins. Zigra invaded earth with the intention of enslaving the human race and raising them like cattle - he came from a planet where instead of people eating fish, fish eat people (thus making the film the first known Japanese instance of the Russian reversal). Like Viras attempted three films earlier, Zigra held a pair of human children hostage in order to force the human race to conform to his plan, but Gamera engaged him in battle. Gamera eventually threw him on land, using a rock to play his theme song on Zigra's dorsal fins like a xylophone before setting the alien shark ablaze with his fire breath. In the film Gamera: Super Monster, Zigra fought with Gamera again in one of the many stock footage scenes. When Gamera hits his back with the rock, his theme song is not played, and is instead replaced by a new, simple tune. [edit] External links
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ↑ top of page ↑ | about thumbshots |
