Dragon-Wars aka Gamera Vs Barugon aka War of the Monsters aka Barugon Vs Godzilla aka Oh, My God!

Germany, my alternate home. I moved there in the summer of 2003 and learned a lot about a totally different, yet similar, culture. In the first few months, I was in a hotel, before moving into a nice German house out in a small village/town. My family and I would venture out into the German shops and I would go check out the entertainment sections and browse DVDs and what was left of the faded out VHS tapes. One thing I always kept my eyes peeled for was Godzilla DVDs.

On my first venture out to Media Markt, I found Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah, Godzilla Vs Mothra; and another film called Godzillas Todespranke. Now, this film was clearly showed a monster that was not at all from the Toho universe; it was actually the film Yongary. I never picked any of these titles up because at the time, I did not own a Region Free or Region 2 DVD player. And pretty much after that, those DVDs had disappeared from the market in my area. I found a few DVD copies of Gamera: Guardian of the Universe at a local Wal-Mart, and yes, they did have Wal-Mart in Germany.

Oh, wow. This must be the German DVD
for Godzilla Vs Biollante.

However, one DVD I ran across several times was called Dragonwars: Krieg Der Monster. The DVD cover, disc, and menus all have images of the King himself, Godzilla; which is all taken from the film Godzilla Vs Biollante. However, this is not Godzilla Vs Biollante nor is it a Godzilla film at all. This is actually Gamera Vs Barugon. Now if you know German, Krieg Der Monster translates to War of the Monsters which is what the American version of Gamera Vs Barugon is called.

Upon watching the film, which contains only German dubbing, something threw me off. Gamera has been re-named in this dubbing; Gamera is now called Barugon. The "Giant-Flying Turtle" is now Barugon. My initial response was; "Ok. Now what is Barugon called?" When Barugon first graces the screen; he is called Godzilla. I wish I was making this up.

Nope, the King has still
left the building

It seems that in Germany, monster films, especially Japanese monster films were severely butchered in translations. Some examples include Mechagodzilla being called King Kong; Titanosaurus is called Konga in Terror of Mechagodzilla. The original 1974 Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla is called King Kong Gegen Godzilla; Godzilla Vs Megalon is called King Kong: Demons from Outer Space; in which Jet Jaguar is called King Kong.

I had came across the actual King Kong Vs Godzilla film on German television in 2004 and it was called The Return of King Kong. This cut of King Kong Vs Godzilla was the American version that Universal owns. As far as I know, Toho only owns rights to it in Asia because of the deal they made to get the film made because of the usage of King Kong.

Going back to the film at hand, Gamera Vs Barugon, I was interested in seeing what the German print looked like. And to break it down, this is the same cut as the A.I.P. version which is known as War of the Monsters. The film is in widescreen, but is not presented in it's original scope, but in 1.78:1. There is print damage here and there, but this presentation is miles above the Public Domain print here in the States. One problem is that the video presentation is 4:3 and not 16:9. And that's due to the fact that the video generated title scrolls around the image, even the black bars.

A better "Dragon Wars" than that 2007 South Korean film.

The audio presentation of the German dub is pretty good for a 2.0 track. There is no English or Japanese audio tracks present on this disc; which is a shame because they could have synced the English audio right up. I also believe this film is Public Domain in Germany too, but don't hold me to that. I have seen several different DVD versions of this film that have milked Godzilla's image.

I mentioned in another blog post that I managed to score this DVD from eBay Germany for about $8 U.S. Dollars. I am pleased with it as German is my second language. I also find it quite humorous that the German translators renamed all the monsters. Other than that, this will serve no purpose to those who do not speak the language. So, move along. Nothing to see here.