EVIL BRAIN FROM OUTER SPACE
Japan / USA, 1965
Directors: Koreyoshi Akasaka, Teruo Ishii & Akira Mitsuwa
2/10
Japan / USA, 1965
Directors: Koreyoshi Akasaka, Teruo Ishii & Akira Mitsuwa
2/10
First, some trivia:
"Evil Brain From Outer Space" was edited together of the last 3 episodes from the Japanese b/w film series "Super Giant" - episode 7 'The Space Mutant Appears', episode 8 'The Devil's Incarnation' & episode 9 'The Poison Moth Kingdom'.
Now for the review:
I wanted to enjoy this but it was just impossible because nothing in here made any sense (at least to me).
There's 'Starman', a superhero made from the strongest steel from the Emerald Planet (Green Lantern anyone?), there's the Sumerian mutants from the Planet Zimar and their leader Balazar (his body is dead, but his evil brain lives on), there are loads of goofy-looking guys in spandex suits (Power Rangers anyone?) and loads of angry men in trenchcoats.
I wanted to enjoy this but it was just impossible because nothing in here made any sense (at least to me).
There's 'Starman', a superhero made from the strongest steel from the Emerald Planet (Green Lantern anyone?), there's the Sumerian mutants from the Planet Zimar and their leader Balazar (his body is dead, but his evil brain lives on), there are loads of goofy-looking guys in spandex suits (Power Rangers anyone?) and loads of angry men in trenchcoats.
For the greater part, the 'movie' consists of endless people-chasing-other-people scenes, loads of tiresome Starman-fights-against-villains scenes, countless characters who appear and disappear, countless plot points that just make no sense, cheap-looking effects, ugly kids, derailing model trains, nuclear bombs, cotton candy
- and by the time the movie ended, I was a broken man.
Posts
Yeah, I've attempted this one about three times, and I either fall asleep or get bored and wander off. Ah well. What can you do?
ReplyDeleteGood crazy, nonsensical fun. I've never seen the unedited Japanese originals, but this was a regular practice for a lot of Jap TV series to mash a few episodes together to make a "movie" out of it. TIME OF THE APES, SWORDS OF THE SPACE ARK and MIGHTY JACK come to mind.
ReplyDelete@Craig:
ReplyDeleteIt could have been so fun but unfortunately it's just boring.
@Venom:
Yeah, they did that to many TV series - but why? Maybe I'm stupid but I have no idea why they did that...
I am going to assume that it made more economical sense for American producers to condense a series into one or more "movies" cutting out a lot of exposition and leaving mostly action. Also, a lot of these Japanese things are a lot more adult oriented than what Americans would be comfortable with allowing their kids to watch.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw TIME OF THE APES (a Japanese version of PLANET OF THE APES and more faithful to the actual book than the movie) I thought it was supposed to be a movie even though it was all over the map. I chalked it up to just nutty Japanese sci fi. Later on I learned it was a TV show.
It wasn't until the 'Power Rangers' that a Japanese series was more or less released at length on nationwide TV even though all the original Japanese actors are cut out leaving only the action scenes and new scenes unrelated to the original sources plot replacing them.
The original ULTRAMAN and one of its spin offs ULTRASEVEN were the exceptions that got wide release on TV here in a series format with only a couple episodes being edited for violence.
@venom: sorry for the late reply, a bit busy at the moment with travelling and filmfestival-visits.
ReplyDeleteThank you, that was a very insightful comment. It's strange for an European to understand this because we never got to see all those Japanese series, let alone the cut-together-movies.
For a very long time the only thing I knew about Japan were the Godzilla-movies and a whole load of animated kids stuff like Niklaas or Perrine.
In the 90s the Japan culture finally exploded here in Europe and suddenly, stuff like Power Rangers, Akira and Tamagotchi were all over the place.
btw: never heard of ULTRAMAN/SEVEN or TIME OF THE APES before, but as you can guess, I'm seriously interested in that APES stuff :-)
This movie should be packaged as a great cure for insomnia. Like Craig I always fall asleep.
ReplyDeleteLOL you nailed it, Melissa :-)
ReplyDeleteHey, no problem, Maynard, these things are an acquired taste anyways. ULTRAMAN is basically like GODZILLA, only it's an alien superhero who bonds with an earth man, a member of the Science Patrol. Whenever monsters invade from outer or inner space, Ultraman appears and saves the day. He's like superman, only giant sized. ULTRA SEVEN was one of the spin offs. There's been dozens of ULTRAMAN shows and I couldn't tell you how many hundreds of episodes.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be a very reliable source when it comes to Japanese stuff.
ReplyDeleteTell me, wasn't there a Godzilla movie where some guy in a Ultraman-like suit became as big as Godzilla and helped him fight against 2 monsters?
Yeah, that's GODZILLA VS. MEGALON (1973). It's on my 'Worst Godzilla Movie list' at CAC. I do like the film, but most of the 70s films are not as good as the ones from the 50s and 60s. MEGALON is goofy fun, but not well made/crafted movies like the original GODZILLA, or others like MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA (1964). I would like to guess that just about everybody liked these kinds of things as a kid and some of us never grew out of liking them, lol.
ReplyDeleteAh yeah, that's the one. Was one of the very first Godzilla-movies I've ever seen and I remember that I really loved it.
ReplyDeleteSaw it again a few years later and... err, it didn't impress me as much as it did when I was 7-8 years old. Still, I kinda enjoyed it.
One day I need to buy and rewatch all the oldschool Godzilla movies. I guess I'm also still not grown out of liking all these monster movies :-)