Infra-Man

Hard to rate a movie as bad as this that's so much fun! The key to this one is kung-fu fighting monsters, "thunderball fists", and of course, Princess Dragon Mom! Wielding a very long whip she plots to rule the earth and unfortunately only Inframan tries to stop her. Dig the fact that everybody in the film drives VWs. Shaw Bros' do Ultraman, and it's a pretty bizarre affair. Best scene -- Professor and the monsters on the motorboat going to monkey-skull island. Truly strange.

Super Infra-man (1975) was the Shaw Brothers attempt to try and start a franchise super hero like Ultraman. Filmed in Shawscope (panavision) Super Infra-man is an enjoyable action film filled with cheesy over the top bad guys and a whole lot of sci-fi mumbo jumbo. Danny Lee is chosen to become Infra-man when Earth is threatened by a race of interstellar demons. To sum up the movie, just imagine an episode of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that was action-directed by Bruce Lee! That's because one of the Dragon's protégés was involved with directing the fight scenes. The whole cast seems to be in on the joke and no one takes it too seriously. Harmless family fun.

Highly recommended!

Factoid: For some reason, the Shaw Brothers like to recycle stock footage from their other films and reuse certain scenes over and over.

...that you'll want to watch over and over again. A weird, psychedelic mixture of martial arts movies, Japanese giant monster movies, spy adventures, and just plain goofiness. The plot makes no senses, the characters are thinnest cardboard, and the monsters are truly hilarious. If you wonder where they came up with Power Rangers, look no further than here.

This is a hoot and a half; a Shaw Brothers' gem. Add in a manga based story, the Shaw Bros. studio lot, sci-fi, and lots of amazing, kampy fighting surpassing even the staged corny fighting by the Bat in blue tights Adam West, and that's Super Inframan in a nutshell. According to production notes, Danny Lee did don the Inframan suit on and I loved the transformation sequences with really 70ish sound effects! There's 70s written throughout this one. I never knew a Demon Princess could dress and look so funky psychedelic! I thought she stopped by a Viking convention. Plus, best use of motorcycle helmets goes to the numerous black-clad skull minions who take turns getting an Inframan-ish beating and lots of well-timed body flips. This film is a very good homage to Japan's Kaiju. Please ignore the fact that the monsters are human-sized rather than several stories tall. The Super Inframan and the Mighty Peking Man should be shown back-to-back at Subway Cinema 2004 at the Film Forum in NYC!

Shaw Brothers is mostly known for their kung fu films, but they did occasionally try things outside of their wheelhouse namely Mighty Peking Man and Super Infra Man. Super Inframan is your basic rubber suit monster battle but filtered through the lense of Hong Kong kung fu flicks complete with bad audio syncing and out of place sounding impact shots. In terms of plot.....Image if you had an entire seasons worth of Power Rangers plots squished into 90 minutes and compressed the storytelling into about 20 minutes filling the rest with action scenes. The movie is non stop action and unapologetically silly and if you're a fan of silly monster movies or kung fu flicks you'll find something to like. Just don't expect much of a coherent narrative.