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 (wikipedia)

INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN-1961-Invaders from space attack Earth. While scientists investigate, a group of little boys are saved from the pointy headed metal invaders by the superhero Iron Sharp (Shin'ichi “Sonny” Chiba in his film debut) who is also the friend of one of the scientists. 

It's very dumb and kiddie oriented. 

When the aliens attack there's a quick shot of Hitler on billboard being destroyed. This led to rumors that actually footage from WW 2 was used but all the destruction footage is taken from a movie called "WW 2 Breaks Out". This Toei production was directed by Koji Ota.

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Clone-Zilla

 

AGON THE ATOMIC DRAGON-A giant dyno-lizard terrorizes the coast of Japan, stomping trees, buildings, an atomic reactor and a lighthouse. It's attracted to uranium. A reporter (Shinji Hirota), a government agent (Asao Matsumoto), a scientist (Nobuhiko Shima) and his female assistant (Akemi Sawa) try to stop it. This four part Japanese TV series was shot in black and white but tinted in sepia given it a very odd quality. It's a pretty cheap production but with much more than a passing resemblance to Godzilla. At one point Toho prevented it from being shown but later relented.

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Johnny Sokko!

 

VOYAGE INTO SPACE-1970-Alien monster Lord Guillotine leads an invading force from the planet Gargoyle. On the high sea Johnny Sokko (Mitsunobu Kaneko) meets U3 (Akio Ito) an agent of Unicorn pretending to be writer Johnny Mano. Their ship is attacked by a giant sea monster. They make it to an island, totally dry, and pursued by members of The Gargoyle gang. The duo meet Dr. Guardian who is being forced to create a giant robot. He's killed helping the two escape. A bomb he planted blows up the evil headquarters but the giant robot survives and only obeys Johnny. Lord Guillotine sends the Dragulon (the underwater monster) to destroy Tokyo. Giant Robo (Toshiyuki Tsuchiyama) is victorious and Johnny joins Unicorn. Lord Guillotine has two weird henchmen, the silver skinned Dr. Botanus and the pegged legged Executioner. 

There's lots of crazy monsters and battles and funny dialogue but in the end the giant metallic hero sacrifices himself to save the Earth in a sad finale. 

This Japanese production was actually a TV show edited from First episode, 2 middle episodes and the last episode. Director Minoru Yamada went on to the “Kamen Rider” series and many other similar live action TV series.

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Bugs In Japan

WAR OF THE INSECTS-(GENOCIDE)-1968-A huge swarm of insects causes a plane carrying a hydrogen bomb to crash. Jozi, a philandering jerk who tells his wife Ukari he’s out collecting insect samples when he’s really cheating with Annabelle (Kathy Horan), a white woman who loves insects and hates humans. Jozi is accused of killing 3 pilots who had survived the plane crash. Dr. Nagumo tries to help him. A coroner says the men were bitten to death by insects but the rude Fascistic American commanding officer disagrees. When Jozi escapes the police with the help of Yukari (she’s pregnant) he hides out with Annabelle who it turns out is a Nazi concentration camp survivor and a spy who uses bees to get the lone survivor pilot Charly to talk. Annabelle wants to spread poison insects all over the world and wipe out mankind. After Jozi and Yukari escape Annabelle's henchmen (along with a lady MD) they help Nagumo with an experiment. He wants to be bitten by one of the deadly bugs to feel it's effects! He has a weird psychedelic vision where insects tell him they fear nuclear destruction more than humans. While Jozi and Yukari search for the H-bomb, Annabelle plans her own experiment on Nagumo but when the insects escape she's killed. In the end evil America explodes the lost H bomb and everyone dies except pregnant Yukari. 

Kind of crazy revisionist propaganda sci-fi film from Kazui Nihonmatsu, director of THE X FROM OUTER SPACE.

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Japan Science Fiction (in Color!)

WARNING FROM SPACE-1956- Aliens shaped like stars seek Dr. Kamura (Bontaro Miake) because Earth has made too many mistakes. While Dr. Matsuda (Isao Yamagata) and his young assistant Toro (Keizo Kawasaki) discuss what to do when a flying saucer crashes into Tokyo bay. Matsuda and Toru’s father Dr. Itsobe (Shozo Nanbu) work with other scientists on sending a rocket into space to investigate but some of the star creatures rise from the water and terrorize folks. Later on the star creatures transform a star female into an earthling who looks like a famous night club singer and the scientists in Japan believe the alien threat is over. However while canoeing Toru finds the transformed star lady floating in a lake claiming amnesia. Dr. M's wife convinces him to take the woman in and she exhibits some out of this world jumping skills while playing tennis. After she's mobbed by some school girls who think she's the famous performer, she visits Dr. I and destroys a formula he's working on. Later she explains that she is from a hidden planet and they want to stop the scientists from harnessing a new kind of energy. The story takes a different turn when it's discovered that a giant asteroid is going to collide with Earth and Matsuda is kidnapped by a gangster named Sato who wants his energy formula. The population panics. When it seems all hope is lost the aliens reappear and rescue Matsuda who gives them his formula. They make a nuclear rocket that destroys the threat. Children are reunited with their parents! The final scene has the female turning back into a star creature. 

Koji Shima directed this weird early Japanese science fiction film (the first in color) with the cushion like star creatures created by Taro Okamoto, a famous abstract painter. The movie didn't fare well on it's initial release but influenced many Japanese Sci-Fi films to come. Some say it even influenced Kubrick on 2001!

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Starman Rules!

ATOMIC RULERS-1957/1965-Out in space the unusual inhabitants of “The Emerald Planet” are concerned about the Earth's atomic energy contaminating space. They invent STARMAN (Ken Utsui) out of steel and sent him to Earth. He wears a white jumpsuit with glider wings, has an antenna on his head and an accentuated crotch. He has three special powers: 1) he can fly through space 2) He can detect radiation 3) He can speak and understand any language. He's strong but not Superman strong and is impervious to bullets. He can also disguise himself as an ordinary Japanese human in a suit and tie. He's sent specifically to Japan for two reasons. One, Mongolia plans to use atomic power to rule the world and want to use Japan as an example to the rest of the world and two, this is a Japanese production culled from two movies. Two enemy agents are delivering a detonator but Starman intervenes. During their fight some kids from an orphanage grab the bag containing the detonator and run away but one kid is captured and threatened by one of the spies  (he seems like a child molester to me). Starman goes to the orphanage to retrieve the bag and meets the kids and the nun who runs the place who informs Star that one kid is missing. Also visiting is a police detective and his sister. Star rescues the kid but the bad guys steal the detonator back and take the sister hostage. Eventually all is revealed at a Mongolian embassy banquet and their leader announces his evil plan. Although Starman gets the detonator back and seems to thwart their conquest plan he is force to turn it over to the leader when he vows to kill the sister who’s still his prisoner. Later Star invades their headquarters and saves the sister, although they are almost blown up. He beats up everyone else and saves the world.

Called "Super Giant" in Japan, this adventure is culled from the first two movies in the series. The fights are hysterical and the dubbed dialogue is also funny. All of them were directed by Teruo Ishii.

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X From Japan (not porno)

THE X FROM OUTER SPACE-In Japan, a four person crew: Capt. Sano (Shinya Wazaki), Dr. Shioda (Kensuki Sonoi), Signal officier Miyamoto (Shinichi Yanagawa) and biologist Lisa (Peggy Neal), takeoff for Mars after several other expeditions have disappeared. The ground crew led by Dr. Kato (Eiji Okada) blame UFOs. After the group does encounter a alien craft, the doc falls ill and they have to stop at a moon base where they meet Michiko (Itoko Harada) and Shioda's replacement Dr. Stein (Mike Daneen). They almost crash but return to Earth safely with some spoors that turn into a giant monster (Guilala).The rubbery creature is one of the worst “Kaiju” ever! Sano, Miyamoto, Lisa and Michiko go to the moon in an effort to create a substance that will destroy the out of control, outer space being. This dumb sci-fi space opera , directed and written by Kazui Hihonmatsu, is full of talk, running around and has sugary happy ending.

In his only giant monster movie star Eiji Okada was better known for as the star of Alain Resnais' HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR and Hiroshi Teshigahara's WOMAN IN THE DUNES. He's also in THE UGLY AMERICAN (with Marlon Brando) and the excellent but often overlooked THE FACE OF ANOTHER.

In 2008 a comedy “sequel” THE MONSTER X STRIKES BACK was produced.

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Japan Sci-Fi

BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE-1959-In 1965 Earth is invaded by aliens from the planet Natal with a base on the moon. They use an anti-gravity machine and some kind of mind control as their main weapons. Earth holds a world conference in Japan. The invaders make a guy in a turban do sabotage but when he's thwarted he's disintegrated by a UFO. It's decided Earth will send two manned rockets to the moon. One headed by Japanese Dr. Adachi (Koreya Senda; also in THE H-MAN) and the other by Dr. Richardson (Len Stanford in his only film role apparently), a white guy. After some hi-jinx in space like one guy who doesn't even know about weightlessness and crew member Iwamura (Yoshio Tsuchyia from many other Toho productions and Kurosawa films) almost sabotaging the mission after his mind is taken over, both ships land on the moon. The crews investigate and discover some short aliens who capture Etsuko (Kyoko Anzai), the female crew member. They also make Iwamura destroy one of the ships but he comes to his senses in time and sacrifices his own life so the second ship can go back to Earth and come up with a solution to the invasion. There are lots of toy effects. 

The Adachi character had also appeared earlier in THE MYSTERIANS. Many Godzilla "hands" were  in this, not the least being the great Ishiro Honda who directed this fun Toho production which was distributed on a double bill in the US by Columbia pictures. mind 

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Americans In Japan (and underwater)

LATITUDE ZERO-1969-This Toho production much like the previous year's THE GREEN SLIME was made in Japan but used several American actors in the lead roles. An American reporter Perry Lawton (Richard Jaeckel; also in GREEN SLIME) and two Japanese scientists Dr. Ken Tashiro (Akira Takarada; from the original GODZILLA) and Dr. Jules Masson (Masumi Okada) are trapped in a diving belt after an horrendous explosion. They are rescued by the crew of the atomic submarine Alpha, under the leadership Captain MacKenzie (Joseph Cotton), a Capt. Nemo-ish guy in an open silk shirt and gold chain who claims his sub is 160 years old! Which is nothing since he's 204! His assistant is Dr. Barton (Linda Haynes), a cutie in a very revealing outfit. He has to abort his mission of studying underwater volcanoes (which caused the diving belt to crash) and rush home because of Masson's head injury. Cesar Romero is the evil Dr. Malic who has one of his subs attack the Alpha. ("How bloody inventive that MacKenzie is") His “companion” is Lucretia (Patricia Medina; Mrs. Joseph Cotton in real life). 

It seems that Malic would have taken over the surface world long ago if not for the efforts of MacKenzie and “Latitude Zero” an underwater paradise/kingdom with a sun, waterfalls and agents all over the world. A new recruit, Dr. Okada (Tetsu Nakamura) who has invented a secret formula, is kidnapped (along with his daughter) by Malic who threatens them with some whacky furry man-bats. He acts very crazy while putting a woman's brain into the body of a lion (man in a suit) he's crossed with a vulture. ("You're a monster!" "No, I'm a genius!") MacKenzie (and his servant Kobo) joins forces with the three land lubbers to invade Malic's island and rescue the doctor. They wear gold jumpsuits with gloves that have flame throwers and lasers built in the fingers. Along the way they are terrorized by a landslide, giant rats and small bats. Eventually Malic is defeated (by his own creature) and Lawton returns to the surface where no one believes his story.

I wonder if Joseph Cotton while making movies like CITIZEN KANE & THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS with Orson Welles ever thought he'd be fighting flying man-bats while shooting a laser from his finger? Probably not, but that's show biz! Cotton doesn't look too happy most of the time despite being protector of the Earth. Romero steals the show as the insane bad guy who really loses it in the end. Medina seemed to be enjoying her role too. There's of course a lot of GODZILLA connections here. GORJIRA star Takarada (who's voice isn't dubbed in this film. He's actually speaking English for a change), special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya (who died soon after this), composer Akira Ifukube and as Malic's winged lion Haruo Nakajima who played Godzilla many times! 

LATITUDE ZERO was directed by the legendary Ishiro Honda who also made the disappointing GODZILLA'S REVENGE the same year. It's a lot like STARMAN with a little of TV's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA thrown in but the ending makes no sense!

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What's That Crawling Across Your Mind?

THE GREEN SLIME-1968-A giant asteroid is on a collusion course with Earth. Members of a crew aboard space station Gamma are sent to investigate. Robert Horton is Jack Rankin the kind of egotistical, hard edged commander who is sent to the satellite to over see things. Richard Jaeckel is Vince Elliot the commander in charge of Gamma who also happens to been a rival of Rankin's. Elliot's fiancée(Luciana Paluzzi ) was also once sweet on Rankin. It seems Vince once made a mistake that cost some crewmen their lives, blah, blah.. The asteroid is destroyed but not before a living green fungus is brought aboard ship.

Although this was made at Toei Studios in Japan and has a Japanese director none of the cast members are Asian (it was a co-production with MGM) but seeing some of the cheesy sets and effects makes you think Star-Man or Rhodan might pop up! The tentacle monsters the slime grows into looks like Syd & Marty Kroft rejects! It's hilarious!

And it doesn't help that the male crew wear toy motorcycle helmets. It's funny to see Horton being a hard ass while wearing one. A briefly seen nurse is played by Linda Miller (Jackie Gleason's daughter). Co-screenwriter Bill Finger was a comic book writer who helped Bob Kane develop the original Batman character. Director Kinji Fukasaku was a busy film maker right up until his death in 2007. His other films include the whacky MESSAGE FROM SPACE, GRAVEYARD OF HONOR and BATTLE ROYALE 1 and 2. It seems the one thing everyone really remembers about this movie is the awesome theme song!

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RIP Irene Kaelin

One from Japan; One from the Philippines

GAPPA-THE TRIPHIBIAN MONSTER-(DAIKYOJU GAPPA)-Japan-1967-Combining plot elements from RODAN and GORGO, this Japanese production tells the story of the accidental discovery and capture of a prehistoric creature on a remote island by a group of scientist-ex-plorers. The characters agonize over their find and their personal lives. A woman reporter is chastised by a male scientist (“Go back to Tokyo and learn to cook”) and at the end she decides he’s right and quits her job and marries him! The monster is actually a baby and it’s parents come looking for it. They are very, very phony looking even by 60’s Japanese standards, which probably explains why director Haruyasu Noguchi never made another film! Star Tamio Kawaji was also in TOKYO DRIFTER.




FIRECRACKER-New World-1981- This funny, made in The Philippines martial arts action-er features Julian Kesner as an American martial arts instructor searching for her missing sister. The search leads her to an illegal fighting tournament where she meets Chuck (Darby Hinton), henchman to the drug-dealing owner Erik (screenwriter Ken Metcalfe). Gresner‘s style isn’t very impressive and sometimes she acts like she’s high but she has a couple of fights in her underwear (and high heels) and one topless! The funniest character is Grip, another gangster played by Vic Diaz. She also gets help from Pete, a big American bar owner, Rey, a pretty tough local guy and a police detective.

All the fights are pretty funny. The weirdest scene involves a pre-sex knife cutting off of jeans! Some of the music seems stolen from The B52’s “Planet Claire”!

Eventually, Kesner finds out Chucky boy was responsible for her sister’s death (“Hey, look, I’m sorry. What can I say?”) and kills him in a death match.

Director Ciro H. Santiago directed around 50 Philippines based exploitation films (most with the bald headed Diaz as a sadistic henchman) including VAMPIRE HOOKERS (1979) and many Road Warrior type rip-offs. Julian Kesner later worked for Fred Olen Ray and Gary Graver. Darby Hinton was later in "The Days Of Our Lives" soap opera and Andy Sidaris’ MALIBU EXPRESS.

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Saturday Morning Trio

RETURNER-2002-This is a great sci-fi/action film with a time travel storyline from Japan. A young girl (Anne Suzuki) from the future (2084) travels 80 into the past to prevent a alien invasion that dooms Earth. She gets help from "Gun for Hire" named Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who is out to avenge the death of a childhood friend at the hands of gangster Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani in a great performance). Though a few plot holes might show through RETURNER and director Takashi Yamazaki deliver the goods....



RIDERS OF THE WHISPERING SKULL-1937-is a typically cheap and creaky western from Republic Pictures featuring the team known as "The Three Mesquiteers" (Stony, Tucson & Lullaby). This has the unusual feature of a supernatural plot involving a cursed treasure. Of course it's actually those "bad" Native American Indians once again and this particular tribe (described by one character as "a cult") like human sacrifices. The trio are kind of lamebrained if you ask me and seem to stick their collective noses into stuff that's none of their business. Stony is played by Robert Livingston. He played the same character around 20 times and was in about 80 other forgetable films but wound up his career in three Al Adamson movies! Stuntman Crash Corrigan who also specialized in playing gorillas is Tucson.



WEBS-(2003)-I have the unfortunate knack of never learning my lesson. When I saw this movie was being shown on The Sci-Fi Channel as "An Original Movie Presentation" I should have known better. It's happened before. Sci-Fi advertises a movie as being "exclusive" or even "made for Sci-Fi" yet when it's shown words are bleeped out and scenes are obviously cut. Why would they make a movie for TV that needed to be cut for language and content. I mean you'd think the producers would know this right?

Wrong! The answer is the station simply purchases some unreleased crap that no one wants and "presents" it as their own. But why they would want to take credit for such garbage is beyond me! For a while they were "snake crazy". Then it was sharks. I got caught in "Spider Weekend" apparently. Maybe it was a homage to the opening of SPIDER-MAN 2. I don't know...

Except this:

This one is kind of weird. It's almost like a pilot for a TV series though. Some electricians, led by direct to video fodder Richard Greico (did this guy ever have a career?) accidently travel to a parallel universe where the inhabitants battle blood drinking spider-people. It sounds interesting but the premise is really wasted mostly on fights and a few gory killings.

Director David Wu was also an actor, producer and editor in Hong Kong. In better days, he wrote THE BRIDE WITH THE WHITE and it's sequel (which he also directed). After directing episodes of TV shows like POWER PLAY and RELIC HUNTER, he was second unit director for BRIDE OF CHUCKY.

Oh yeah, I forgot the Sci-Fi channel recently changed their name to Sy-Fy! Sorry! They should be too.

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Miike Strikes Again!

ZEBRAMAN-2004-Japanese maverick director Takashi Miike scores again with this insane super hero comedy/drama/takeoff. Shin’ichi (Sho Aikawa) is a doormat teacher who’s ridiculed by the school staff and students, his wife cheats on him, his daughter is a slut and his young son is bullied at the school. To escape reality at night he dons a home made costume of Zebraman, based on a long forgotten TV show. But when slimy real aliens actually invade the Earth it’s up to Shin’ichi to become the real Zebraman and save the world! The first half hour is tough going but after that it really takes off. Star Aikawa also appeared in Miike’s DEAD OR ALIVE series. Miike made this after ONE MISSED CALL.

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Happy New Year!

THE BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL-(KYUKETSUKI GOKEMIDORI)-1968-After a bomb threat a plane has an encounter with a UFO and crashes. Survivors include one of the pilots (Teruo Yoshida), a stewardess (Tomomi Sato), a dirt bag politician (Eizo Kitamura; later in THE STREETFIGHTER’S LAST REVENGE) , his toady assistant and his wife (also the politician's mistress), a sniper who assassinated a British ambassador, a fat guy who had intended to set off a bomb and a scientist (Kazuo Kato from several Kurosawa films). The one non-Asian is an American woman (Kathy Horan; also in THE GREEN SLIME) who’s husband was killed in Vietnam. It turns out Earth has been invaded by an alien race called The Gokemidoro who plan on destroying all Earthlings. They are gray blob creatures that put an opening in their victims’ foreheads and then inhabit the body. They kill by sucking all the blood out of their victims. The politician causes a lot of problems as they fight to survive. The chilling downer ending is very well done.

Director Hajime Sato had made a few other films including BATTLE BENEATH THE SEA but BODY SNATCHER (aka GOKE-BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL) was his last. Here he uses different color lighting when the alien kills it’s victims creating some eerie effects.


"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow"-Anonymous

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