Battle Beneath the Earth

This a British film attempting to pretend to everyone and fooling no one that it`s a big budget Hollywood movie . It starts with a couple of Las Vegas cops with laughably bad American accents getting a report of a disturbance . Cut to some stock footage of Vegas with the cop car stopping beside a sidewalk that was obviously filmed inside a studio . Every expense has been spared with BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH . Despite being set in the 1960s all the American troops have firearms and wear kit from the second world war while those nasty Chinese commies have death rays that are obviously flash lights , and in order to save on importing Chinese actors we have caucasians playing oriental villains . Why couldn`t they have employed Burt Kwouk ( Kato from THE PINK PANTHER movies ) I ask myself ?

There is some enjoyment to be had from BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH since it`s one of those " So bad it`s good " type films complete with absolutely ridiculous scenes that defy logic such as GIs` being able to defuse atomic bombs and people managing to outrun the blast from a nuclear explosion

"Battle Beneath the Earth" is an enjoyable film. But just because I enjoyed watching it does not mean that it's a particularly good nor intelligently made movie! After all, the plot is utterly ridiculous and the 'Chinese' in the film look about as Chinese as Steven Seagal or Bela Lugosi!

The story begins with a seemingly insane man ranting and raving in Las Vegas about sounds he's hearing beneath the pavement. Eventually, however, they realize that the man should be released from the asylum because there IS something going on under the ground....and it's a Dr. No-like Chinese general who is bent on world domination! Can he be stopped?

As I mentioned above, the Chinese in the film are certainly NOT Chinese but are Brits with Bela Lugosi hairdos and bits of prosthetic material around their eyes to make them look Asian! While the Americans are all played by Brits isn't that badly done, the Chinese in the film were embarrassingly bad. Plus the notion of Chinese folks tunneling from China throughout America....utterly silly and impossible. But despite all this, the film is fun and enjoyable...provided you first turn off your brain!

So many opportunities to laugh at this film. Where does one begin? European actors in "yellowface" playing the bad guy renegade Chinese army. (Let's see here -- the bad guy in his lair always has an eccentric pet with him -- okay the guy has a parrot! Check that off the list!)

A film obviously made in Britain pretending to be a Hollywood film, which takes place in Las Vegas (unconvincing cardboard set inside a sound stage, plus some actual second unit stock footage), San Diego (England), Oregon (England again) and Hawaii (more stock footage, plus various underground tunnels (more paper mache sets in a sound stage).

Comically fake nuclear bombs. Laser guns mounted on bulldozers. Giant spinning tape reel computer banks...no wait, those were real at that time.

Bad directing, jump cuts, dropped frames, one establishing shot where the camera drops off the tripod. Awkward staging. Hokey dialog. The whole plot totally ridiculous. Well, it is like a live action comic book. So why should I take any bit of it seriously? Well, the characters seem to be dead serious about the whole enterprise. (That's good. True camp does not work if you give a "nod and a wink" to the audience...though that one scene with the slot machines in the mental hospital was perhaps a bit over the line...)

Yes, fans of The Batman or Green Hornet TV shows of this time period will be right at home here. Plenty of bright primary colors, swish pan transitions, and blaring cool-daddyo-jazz soundtrack. It's all here for the fan of 1960's camp and Cold War pop culture kitsch to treasure as an endemic artifact of its time, the likes of which we may never see again.

Thank goodness.

I can agree with the various shortcomings of this film although I loved it when I first saw it at a kid's matinée feature. The concept is so like a Bond movie I'm surprised it wasn't used for one. The scheming Chinese General could easily have been Dr. No. The special effects are nominal but serviceable and I'll offer the backhanded compliment that it could have been much worse if it had been an penny-pinching American production.

Anyway, see it for yourself if you dare but it's light fluffy fun from the late 60's when it seemed the viewing public knew nothing of science and could ignore the glaring errors, both scientific and plot-oriented.

Bonus! Ed Bishop of Gerry Anderson fame has a substantial role. Bonus again! The Chinese officers drive around in yellow German Kubelwagens.

This movie is actually fairly entertaining, but mostly because spotting the continuity errors and absence of logic is so much fun. The concept is interesting, but the script is stunningly dumb. I think it is worth one viewing by fans of C-grade sci-fi, but unless you can turn the film into a drinking game - and you could - that is enough.