Attack from Space

Extracted by Shintoho from a TV series, although pure space opera, 'Attack from Space' has serviceable production design with vivid special effects - although the spaceships still recall Ed Wood's hubcaps - and provides an interesting backdrop of postwar Japan; while the threat to mankind is prophetically called the 'Death Star'.

As befits the postwar spirit the stress is upon the citizens of Earth uniting behind Starman against an alien race called Superians who plan "to conquer the entire universe" (starting by blowing up the Tower of London) while the noble Dr Yamanaka declares himself "against war" and constantly stresses that the project he's working on is for "peaceful purposes".

Starman himself being Japanese shows a considerably greater propensity for violence than your average superhero, ditto his enthusiastic use of firearms.

This is another movie I wish MST3K had a chance to screen.

This movie is the combination of 2 Japanese movie serials from the Super Giant series of the late 1950s.

When I first saw this movie when I was a child, it scared the hell out of me, as it contains the usual 'violence against children' seen in movies like 'Invasion of the Neptune Men' and to a lesser extent, 'Prince of Space'. Even today, the scene where the Nazi-like soldiers kidnap the children is a little too edgy for anyone under 12 years old.

But the allure of this movie is the innocent and almost naive story line. Even though the movie has many ridiculous ideas, the actors remain deadly serious throughout.

The film opens with a bunch of ridiculous looking aliens with costumes that are right out of a 3rd grade theatre production. The aliens send 'Star Man' to protect the Earth from a invasion from the 'Spherions'.

Star Man is a slightly paunchy, overacting, average-looking, middle aged Japanese man. He flails his arms around, beating up Japanese extras in highly exaggerated and very poorly choreographed fight scenes. The fight scenes alone are worth the price of admission. Many times, actors aren't even close to being hit when they do flips and pretend to be knocked out.

Also, watch for the scene where Star Man disables flying saucers by bending what can only be described as a metal rack from a refrigerator.

As with most early Japanese Sci Flicks, there are numerous technical errors like people being able to breathe and fly through space.

But I recommend this movie to any B Movie fan. It's very campy and the shoddy production values are more than made up for by the movies goofy charm.

One of the reasons the TV show 'Batman' was so successful was because the actors took their roles so seriously. This is also what makes this movie work. All of the actors take their silly roles very seriously, as if they are acting in 'Hamlet. This only makes 'Attack from Space' even more enjoyable.

A movie like many others from Japan as I believe it is a fused together television show like Prince of Space and the Invasion of the Neptune Men edited together and dubbed into a movie. This one features the most heroic of all heroes, Starman! He flies, he is tough as steel and he fights so fabulously! He also has very incompetent villains; seriously, why were there literally no supervillains back in the early days featured in these movies? Superhero stuff in America was like that too, it was not as if they were not present in the comics, but instead we get a bunch of normal people attacking the super powered and nearly indestructible hero and if we are lucky we get one that is sort of clever...not in this particular film though.

The story, Starman is sent to stop this race of aliens from destroying the Earth or capturing it while a scientist along with his children are making a rocket. Well, the scientist and the kids get captured along with one assistant and get whisked away to outer space, as the attack from space is rather brief. Starman pursues the rocket, but is apparently killed by a missile hitting him and then falling into a death star. That is okay, as the kids' and the assistant have a plan and who knows, perhaps Starman will be back for a super long fight scene!

The fight scene at the end of this thing is incredibly long as Starman fights a huge army while needlessly flipping around and such. He is invulnerable, he has no reason to show off! I kind of wish they would have a fight as long as this thing in a Marvel film between hero and villain instead of the five minute fights we get that are cut with scenes of like other characters not involved in the fight, or trying to pad the part for the non powered person to save the day instead.

So, if you like to see a guy in a very silly costume fight a room full of military people, this film is for you! You may not think this at first as the film drags a bit, but once Starman finally reemerges it is game on! Not a very good film and probably a worse dub, but it is funny to watch so it has that going for it. It also features some really easy to defeat bad guys who show their might to the Earth by blowing up a mountaintop in an area where there are very few people to witness said might. I think they were still new to the whole villain thing.

Hell, there might not be any sinister aliens here, but my god does that end fight pack a literal punch! Lordy! I'm getting ahead of myself here. What this all boils down to is that Starman is up against some Nazi aliens called the Spherions who are out to destroy earth using a space station equipped with the firepower to destroy an entire planet. Sound familiar? Well, that bit about the Death Star won't as I've never heard that phrase used before.

Death Star you say? Well, it ain't a big space station that can destroy planets (although the Nazi aliens have one of them too), but an actual Star that means death for Starman. This film may be lacking in the scary alien department, but in the Starman floating through space department, this one wins.

Also, this film has the best Starman fight ever, as instead of Starman taking on thirty to forty bad guys at a time, this time round he takes on about one hundred guys armed to the teeth, takes their guns from them, and shoots the hell out of everyone while laughing. I put the death toll here in the thousands as this fight scene goes on forever.

Also, the makers of the film must have acquired a dummy that they then dressed in a bad guy costume, because your going to see this dummy about eight or nine times, being pushed off balconies or thrown across a room. Basically, the dummy makes the end fight scene easy.

Starman manages to kill most of the Spherion species in this film as you would expect, but makes you a bit sad at the end by waving goodbye when you know the actual actor that played the Starman died this year.

But for Starman fans I'd watch the film in the following sequence: Evil Brain from Outer Space, Invaders from Space, Attack from Space, and Atomic Rulers of the world.

Yep

This is actually pretty good for something that was made for Japanese tv in 1965. It has the longest fight scene ever and it's totally ridiculous. There a few things I didn't care for though. Even though Starman was just created in another galaxy, everyone on Earth knows who he is. That's just lame. Also they start off by explaining the powers he has and they never mention that bullets and fire can't hurt him. Besides those two minor issues, it's really not that bad.