Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris – Blu-ray Review
The Film:
Gamera has always lived in the shadow of Toho’s Godzilla, and was infamous for being nothing more than a campy, cheesy, rip-off the Toho’s creation. However, Shusuke Kaneko came and did something some thought was impossible: he gave you a reason to take Gamera seriously. The first two films in his trilogy, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and Attack of Legion (you can read my reviews of those here), were both critically and commercially successful. However, many trilogies suffer from a rushed and lackluster ending.
But Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris not only improves on the last two films, its argued to be one of the greatest Kaiju films ever made.
The film take splace three years after Gamera defeated Legion in Gamera 2: Attack of Legion, and Gamera has now shed his connection to humanity. Meanwhile, the Gyaos have returned from their defeat in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, and are more dangorous than ever. The film’s lead character Ayana Hirasaka (Ai Maeda) holds a grudge against Gamera for killing her parents during the Gyaos attack in the first film. After being bullied into trepassing and removing a sacred seal in her village’s temple, Ayana awakens and befriends a creature she names “Iris”. After the creature matures to its ultimate form, it uses Ayana’s hate to become more powerful. And Ayana uses Iris to take her revenge against Gamera.
If you haven’t guessed from that plot synopsis, Revenge of Iris is by far the darkest of the three films and that’s the film’s main strenght: the story. One thing you may notice while watching the film is that Gamera and the other monsters are absent for most of the film. But trust me when I say that it doesn’t hurt the film at all. In fact, adding in more monster action may actually hurt the story’s progression. One could argue this film belongs more in the horror genre than it does Kaiju. You get a sense of Ayana’s despair as she deals with her parents’ death and the constant bullying of her brother. Kaneko also continues to bring the spritual aspect shown in both Guardian of the Universe and Attack of Legion by introducing us to Miss Asukura (Senri Yamasaki) and Kurata Shinya (Toru Tezuka), who believe Gamera to be an evil spirit. Revenge of Iris also ties into the previous two films very well, and even offers explanation as to why the Legion just happened to show up on Earth and attack Japan.
However, the real stars of this movie are the monsters, and Kaneko is able to once again bring character to not only Gamera, but Iris as well. After the events of the previous film, Gamera has now shed his connection to Asagi Kusanagi (Ayako Fujitani), and now disregarded humans in battle. This is the first time we see Gamera this violent since, well, ever. It’s amazing how much Gamera has changed since the campy days of the Showa films to Revenge of Iris. You would almost think they aren’t the same creation. However, the Gyaos also make a return in this film, but the biggest threat to Gamera now is Iris. The creature feeds off Ayana’s hatred of Gamera, and that makes him a deadly foe for the Guardian of the Universe.
The VFX as well as the models in the film are amazing. And while the film was made in 1999, it seems almost a head of its time in that area. There’s an amazing fight sequence with Gamera and Iris in the sky that looks absolutely beautiful.
Overall, Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris is an amazing film, and a great way for Kaneko to end his trilogy. You could even argue this is the greatest Kaiju film since Ishiro Honda’s Gojira.
The Blu-ray:
Audio/Video: The video is presented in 1080p HD, and allows for a clean viewing of the film. The release of the previous two films had some grain during the night scenes, but that seems to be fixed in this release.
The audio is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital for both the English and Japanese tracks, but the 5.1 DTS HD is only presented in Japanese. The DTS HD makes for a great viewing experience for fans of the film. However, Mill Creek has cut out many of the lines from the English subtitles from the film.
Unlike the previous release from Mill Creek, this release has speial features, but not very much. All that is included is behind the scenes interviews and set videos from all three films, how they created the costume for Legion, deleted scenes from Revenge of Iris and trailers.
The Film: Rating: 
The Blu-ray: Rating: 
Yeah, so what’s the deal with the screwed-up subtitles? Not only are a lot of lines simply not translated, there’s at least one instance where the wrong subtitle appears (after Osako talks about what he’s been doing during the last few years and says he can’t help, that he’d just get in everybody’s way, Nagamine replies “Good Evening.”)
“Good Evening”? What?? I had to turn on the English soundtrack to find out what she really said. And then in the next scene, none of the male newsanchor’s lines are subtitled. So frustrating. I think the subtitles are botched badly enough that they should offer replacement discs with fixed versions.