Ryô Tomioka plays young schoolboy Toru Aizawa, whose lives with his father, his mother having recently died in an automobile accident. One day, Toru sees a red light glinting on a nearby island and investigates, finding an egg resting on a strange red stone; when a baby turtle emerges from the egg, Toru keeps it as a pet, calling the reptile Toto (ignore the fact that the turtle looks more like a tortoise). As Toto starts to grow rapidly, Toru's neigbour Mai (Kaho) reailises that the turtle is a Gamera, which turns out to be quite fortuitous when a monster called Zedus appears and starts to feed on people.

I wasn't expecting much from Gamera the Brave, my hopes for a really decent Gamera movie dashed by the '90s trilogy, which others seem to praise, but which I found rather dull. So imagine my surprise when this 2006 movie, the last Gamera film to be made to date, turned out to be my favourite of the entire series (twelve films in total, starting with Gamera, the Giant Monster in 1965, re-edited as Gammera the Invincible for the U. S.).

Gamera the Brave strikes a fine balance between contemporary state-of-the-art movie-making and classic old-school kaiju flicks, paying respect to the Showa-era films with a kiddie-centric story that is easy to follow while ensuring that it the result is still slick enough for a modern audience. Both Zedus and Gamera are obviously 'man in a rubber suit' monsters, a deliberate move to please fans of the original movies, for whom the cheesy nature of the creatures is all part of the fun, but the mayhem that ensues when the monsters battle utilises all manner of modern special effects techniques, making for a really fun blend of the old and the new.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for the incredibly cute baby Gamera, the bit where the giant turtle rips off Zedus's tongue, and the sly reference to old Gamera foe Guiron!

GAMERA THE BRAVE is the last, to date, of the Japanese Gamera series of kaiju movies. It's a cheap and cheerful affair that manages to entertain despite the cliches of the story and the fact that it doesn't really have much in the way of budget to play with. For the first half of the running time, this is a cutesy, child-focused adventure in which a kid grieving for his dead mother finds a hatching turtle egg. He soon takes Gamera home and watches him grow to an incredible size. The second half of the film is a low-rent kaiju flick through and through, with Gamera combating a bigger and more fearsome opponent; the usual destruction ensues. Although this is cheesy stuff, packed full of dodgy CGI effects you're likely to laugh at, it does the job and I found it quite endearing despite the overload of sentiment.

Well, this 2006 movie titled "Gamera the Brave" (aka "Chiisaki yûsha-tachi: Gamera") is actually an enjoyable addition to the kaiju movie genre. However, you should keep in mind that this movie is the type of movie that appeals more to a younger audience than it does to a mature audience.

The storyline was pretty straight forward, as the kaiju movies tend to be. Two kaiju creatures end up duking it out in some Japanese city. Ain't they all like that essentially? But "Gamera the Brave" adds a more family-friendly layer to the storyline, as it revolves around a child who has lost his mother, finding what he believes to be an ordinary turtle with accelerated growth. But as a dragon-like kaiju awakens to wreck havoc, the turtle proves to be Gamera, a creature capable of duking it out with the vicious kaiju.

The effects in "Gamera the Brave" were actually good, especially when taking into consideration the genre and what it is usually known for. So this 2006 movie definitely upped the game a bit.

The acting in the movie was good, and that definitely added a good layer of enjoyment to the overall feel of the movie.

If you enjoy kaiju movies, then you should definitely take the time to sit down and watch this 2006 movie from writer Yukari Tatsui and director Ryuta Tasaki. My rating of this movie lands on a six out of ten stars.