Gamera Is Coming

Fans of Kaiju Eiga or Japanese Giant Monster films are buzzing with yesterday's announcement of Shout Factory's May 18th DVD release of Daiei Motion Picture Company’s 1965 film Dai Kaiju Gamera in North America as Gamera, The Giant Monster.  The company has licensed all eight films in the series.  Announced in their press release are the details of the DVD. 

From Japan, the country that brought us such mythical movie monsters as Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra, storms Gamera, the titanic terrapin feared by adults and loved by children. On May 18, 2010, Shout! Factory will unleash GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER Special Edition on DVD for the first time in its unedited, original version, with English subtitles — in anamorphic widescreen from an all-new HD master. The DVD includes a 12-page booklet with an essay by the late director Noriaki Yuasa, a photo gallery, trailers, and more. The collectible GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER Special Edition DVD is priced to own at $19.93.

That news was exciting enough.  Now today comes news that August Ragone, author of the great EIJI TSUBURAYA: MASTER OF MONSTERS, is the disc's Special Features Producer.  According to his blog, he has "assembled an international rag-tag unit of die-hard fans, known as the "Z Plan Team", who have been working overtime in gathering as much information and materials on the original films as possible for the on-disc Special Features supplements (as well as the corresponding printed booklets), and we have uncovered tons of fascinating facts and trivia about the production of Daiei's beloved series."  August has also record the first of multiple comentaries for the film.

This is a very exciting announcement as the Gamera films have only been available in North America as faded, public domain, AIP Televison versions on DVD.  Now we will see them looking better than most of us have seen before with the original Japanese language and English subtitles. 

Gamera is really neat, he is made of turtle meat.  Great news.