With bankruptcy looming over, Daiei decided to release one more Gamera movie to cash in on the giant turtle's popularity. The budget was to be the same as the “Gamera vs. Jiger” but the plot, a return to the more child-friendly alien installments like “Gamera vs. Viras” or “Gamera vs. Guiron.” This couldn't save Daiei Film and the company went bankrupt soon after the July release of the flick, forcing another to distribute the recently released movie. As a result, “Gamera vs. Zigra” turned out being the last Gamera film in a very long time if we don't count the disastrous “Gamera: Super Monsters” from 1980.
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A shark-shaped spaceship kidnaps a buggy from the surface of the Moon. On Earth, the same sentient ship kidnaps two marine biologists and their children, Kenichi (Yasushi Sakagami) and Helen (Gloria Zoellner) who are on an expedition to research about ocean pollution. In the ship, they get hypnotized by a mysterious woman (Eiko Yanami) who wants Earth to surrender to the alien lifeform Zigra who wants to use the planet as its new home, and people, as its food. The two children manage to run away with their fathers and get saved by Gamera, forcing the woman to go to land and try to kill them. Meanwhile, Gamera fights with the bipedal flying shark Zigra but the space giant hypnotizes Gamera. The two biologists and their children have no option but to plunge deep underwater to try to revive the hypnotized turtle and save Earth.
“Gamera vs. Zigra” is aimed at children even more than any of the previous outings of the franchise. That is a bit of a shame, especially considering that the preceding installment, the super interesting “Gamera vs. Jiger” seems to be aimed at a somewhat more mature audience. Here, following the formula introduced with “Gamera vs. Gyaos”, we get Japanese and non-Japanese children protagonists but they are way younger than any other characters in the franchise. They seem to be around five years old at best and as such, the movie seems to be aimed at an audience of similar age. So, it's no surprise that “Gamera vs. Zigra” is very simple, infantile, even. Of course, there is the compulsory message which each of the films in the series has, in that case, it is something like “littering the ocean is bad”. As such, it is a bit similar to “Godzilla vs. Hedorah” from the same year but much less unimaginative than Yoshimitsu Banno's batshit crazy psychedelic trip of a film.
Together with the young main characters, return two other of the worst things in the series, the idiotic grown-ups and the heavy recycling of older material. The older characters in this movie, from the scientist parents to the scantily clad evil alien, are, for a lack of a better word, total idiots. Though scientists, the parents don't know anything about basic science or anything else for that matter and have to rely on five-year-olds to teach them how to eradicate the evil Zigra. The same applies to the alien woman who can hypnotize tens of people with a single flick of her fingers but gets constantly outsmarted by the kids. It's not fun and is a sign of lazy writing than anything else. It doesn't help that the acting is atrocious, too, with Yasushi Sakagami and Gloria Zoellner being the worst main children-actors in the entire series and Eiko Yanami being used for nothing more than eye candy.
All of that drabness would've been okay were the design of Zigra interesting or the fight between the two monsters, fun. Sadly, neither of them is. Zigra, who is a mixture between a shark and a dolphin with a bird's beak and the ability to stand upright, proves one of the most boring and unimaginative monsters in the entire franchise. His special attacks are also incredibly boring. Whereas Gamera's two previous enemies, Gyaos and Jiger managed to surprise their opponent with shurikens, scorpion-like tails and who knows what else, Zigra mostly hypnotizes and cuts with his fin, and that's about it. This results in very boring and childish fights in one of which Gamera plays Zigra's back as a xylophone. Its more boring than it sounds, trust me.
Though one of the last films directed by Noriaki Yuasa and the final real installment in the Gamera franchise for many years, “Gamera vs. Zigra” is anything but a swansong for the venerable franchise. Rather than with a bang, the series fizzles out with a whimper. Sure, the environmental themes are timely and interesting but they are backed up neither by interesting plot nor with gripping monster design and fights, resulting in a dull, childish, and ultimately forgettable flick.
