Infra-Man

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!

For anyone who has a soft spot for cheesy Asian action pictures, this one has it all; pseudo-sci-fi, kungfu heroes, kungfu villains, Skull Warriors by the thousand, and a villain with one of the most classic names in movie history: the dreaded. Princess DRAGONMOM! Stationed at the earth's core, she wakes up after a ten million year sleep (with her superscience still on the cutting edge and her minions still hanging around waiting for her to wake up), and becomes alarmed at the surface world's progress. She attacks with her massive resources and threatens a stunned world.

Naturally, the answer to this threat of millions of soldiers emerging from the center of the earth is to combat them with a handful of kungfu cops and their one leader, Inframan, a sort of early Cyborg created from a brave volunteer.

Clad in a (very) tight outfit, Princess Dragonmom makes demands to the world's leaders to serve under her. Frankly, I don't see how they could refuse. (Imagine seriously for a moment, the world's leaders having to go on t.v. and announce with a straight face that our world is in danger from.Princess DRAGONMOM!)

Princess Dragonmom has her own special henchmen, in the form of a half dozen of the oddest-looking rubber creatures ever created; one has tentacles for hands and speaks (I swear) in a tough New York accent (remember, this is dubbed); another has a drill-bit for a hand. How do they fight the kungfu cops? With kungfu, of course! The sight of a guy with tentacles doing kungfu blocks and chops (complete with loud THWACKS and POWS) is something I can't quite describe. I found myself rooting for the rubber monsters all the way through the movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The kungfu goodguys are in there kicking (literally), doing continual blackflips, frontflips and somersaults throughout the entire movie, the skull warriors outnumber the Stormtroopers from Star Wars (oddly, both are dressed in white) and are even worse shots (I think it's the glare from those white helmets), and Inframan kicks anyone's butt he comes up against, which in a way is a little anticlimactic. He's strange-looking and a walking special effect, but not really that interesting a character as say, a Chinese babe with an attitude.

By the end of the movie you may find yourself wishing that Dragonmom had won.

Seven stars.

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.

Let's look at INFRA-MAN for what it is:a rollicking kung fu/biker/disaster/monster flick of the highest magnitude! If you love cheap chopsocky movies and guy-in-a-rubber suit films, this is a serious contender for the ultimate trashy movie. Out of it's 88 minute running time, there are maybe five minutes where nothing ludicrous/exciting happens. How many films can you honestly say that about?

The plot in a nutshell:all hell breaks loose all over the world (in the form of earthquakes, firestorms, etc.) when the incredibly evil Princess Dragon Mom (yes, you read that right) awakens from eons of sleep. A hot Asian super-villain/dominatrix in a blond wig with a dragon's head/bullwhip for a left hand,she intends to enslave the Earth with the sorriest-looking bunch of monsters since SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS, and there's nothing we can do about it! Fortunately, Professor Chang creates Infra-Man, an utterly invincible cyborg superhero who is such a badass that he can come up with powers when he happens to need them.Much craziness and ass-whuppin' ensues, and it may just leave you dizzy! You have to watch this with a group of nine-year-olds (or drunk/stoned buddies) to get the full effect that this has on a fun-loving crowd. And how can you not love a movie where you can see the monster's hightop basketball shoes (look at Plant Man's feet during closeups)?

Two classic moments: When Infra-Man first shows up,even though he has only just been created,and absolutely no one other than Professor Chang knows about him, people point at him and exclaim "That's Infra-Man there!" And the moment when Professor Chang gives Infra-Man his newest weapons: "These are Thunderball fists! They have the power to destroy everything!" Need I tell you to rent this?

I saw this movie when it was first released to theaters in the US in 1975 as Inframan. The mid 70s were the days of Johnny Socko and Ultraman, so Inframan kind of felt like a souped up version of those.

The fact that I remember seeing this movie so vividly, even after 28 years have gone by, should be some indication that it's at least not humdrum. Sure, the monsters are fake, and the plot is ludicrous, but you aren't MEANT to take Inframan any more seriously than you did Ultraman (if you ever watched that show). This movie is nothing more (and nothing less!) than campy Japanese techno-samurai heroics at its Technicolor best.

Inframan does amazingly gymnastic things and defeats amazingly craptacular foes, and does so with great style and lots of intense colors. Though I was too young to have tried any hallucinogens back in 1975, I can say now, after more life experience, that this IS the kind of movie you would greatly enjoy while on hallucinogens; and even if you aren't tripping when you watch this movie, you'll get some of that same feel anyway. It's just that kind of movie. ;)