|
The final, and most awaited Gamera Heisei Region
1 DVD, Gamera: Revenge of Iris. While this
DVD is better than ADV's Gamera:
Guardian of the Universe, it doesn't quite
reach the level of their Gamera:
Attack of Legion release. The video quality
is ahead of Gamera:
Guardian of the Universe, but artifacting
is present. Audio is very strong here, though, and
is presented flawlessly in Stereo in both Japanese
and English. The dub track here is amazingly bad,
I might add, where Gamera:
Attack of Legion's dub job was border lining
the actors not taking their job seriously... it is
very apparent that several of the voice actors here
where playing their lines "for kicks." Overall,
unless you cannot stand subtitles, I suggest you avoid
the English track on this disc. The extras on this
DVD, like the previous two in the series, are outstanding.
We have a huge selection of trailers related to Gamera
3: Incomplete Struggle along with several
trailers to other ADV releases, most notable is the
return of the very well done ADV Gamera:
Guardian of the Universe trailer (a advert
that points out the critical acclaim of the film and
is set to the awesome Collapse of Tokyo Tower
theme from that film). We are greeted with some more
behind the scenes, opening night, and press conference
footage pertaining to film; in similar fashion to
what appeared on the two previous DVDs. The added
footage, for this particular entry in the series,
is of a "on set" press event where Kaneko
is interviewed. The footage is nice, but clocks in
at a very short 52 seconds. The dubbing outtakes,
like seen on Gamera:
Attack of Legion, are once again hit and miss;
however, the Gamera: Revenge of Iris outtakes
seem more long winded and hit more than miss. The
"Gamera" Commentary feature is nice, but
rarely ends up being funny. It's amusing, and worth
listening to, but it almost makes one yearn for a
seriously done English commentary for the film. They
do make several references to other Kaiju, like Godzilla,
Rodan, Mothra, and Hedorah (as the Smog Monster).
Just nice to see that the people involved had some
basic background knowledge on the genre. As a general
complaint, some of the comments are out of synch as
the actors point out things that are currently no
longer on the screen... My DVD also cuts out the commentary
twice during the film, so possibly this is more of
a issue with my own disc, I am not sure. Bottom line,
though, is that this is a great DVD, and more than
worth a purchase for anyone interested in the series,
but fails to reach the quality seen in Gamera:
Attack of Legion.
|