Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb
Speaker 1: and this is Joe McCormick, and today we are bringing
Speaker 1: you a Weird House Cinema rewind. This episode originally aired
Speaker 1: December three, and it's on Inframan or the Super Inframan,
Speaker 1: one of the most absolutely, frantically enjoyable movies we have
Speaker 1: ever covered. That's right. This is a whole lot of
Speaker 1: fun featuring Danny Lee and just a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: monsters and really stylish costumes, lots of martial arts, action
Speaker 1: and alien It's Jeff, It's it's a real treat. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your mind, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and for today's episode. Oh,
Speaker 1: I feel so excited it I'm I'm literally tingling. I
Speaker 1: I feel like we have unearthed a holy artifact that
Speaker 1: was I guess maybe known by many by many others before,
Speaker 1: but this was my first time seeing today's selection, and
Speaker 1: it has filled me with such light and hope and
Speaker 1: goodwill and cheer. Uh. Today's selection is Inframan, also known
Speaker 1: as the Super Inframan, a nineteen seventy Hong Kong cinema
Speaker 1: extravaganza that truly must be seen to be believed. This
Speaker 1: movie has um. I was trying to think it has
Speaker 1: an ineffability about the experience of watching it, similar to
Speaker 1: a religious or psychedelic experiences. I think you can when
Speaker 1: you read the words of people who have seen this movie,
Speaker 1: they're trying to communicate something that just can't be said. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this this movie is something special. And uh, and I
Speaker 1: had not seen it before either. I was, I think,
Speaker 1: barely familiar with it. I think my only real connection
Speaker 1: to this is that I knew that the Jonah ray
Speaker 1: Um and a comedian and actor, it was a big
Speaker 1: fan of this film. And I knew that there were
Speaker 1: elements there were these costumes. In the most recent Netflix
Speaker 1: seasons of Mystery Science Theater three thousand, it copied the
Speaker 1: skeleton costumes from this movie. Uh, you know, I did
Speaker 1: kind of a riff on them, visual riff, but but
Speaker 1: that was it. Otherwise, this was all new to me,
Speaker 1: and I I mean, I'm I'm I'm glad I had
Speaker 1: not already seen it because I got to appreciate it
Speaker 1: a new This week I'm almost a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: one of those melancholy experiences that's so joyful, but it's
Speaker 1: also a little bit sad because you know you can
Speaker 1: never experience it for the first time again. But this
Speaker 1: is already a movie that I know I will watch
Speaker 1: probably dozens more times in my life. It's a new
Speaker 1: all time favorite for me. Among the weird how cinema selections.
Speaker 1: I put it right up there with Robot Jock's Mad
Speaker 1: Love and the other the best of the best. So
Speaker 1: what is the deal with in for Man? I would
Speaker 1: say Inframan combines peak I popping B movie craftsmanship with
Speaker 1: this infectious, pleasing hyper drive of manic absurdity. I wish
Speaker 1: there were more movies like this. And I'm not being
Speaker 1: ironic at all. I'm completely serious when I say that
Speaker 1: making a movie like this must require a certain kind
Speaker 1: of rare genius. Yeah. Absolutely, um. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: I should I should go and throw out Yeah this
Speaker 1: is some yeah, sometimes done as Inframan, the Superinframan, or
Speaker 1: the original Chinese title for this is Zone chall Rin
Speaker 1: or Chinese Superman. But yeah, this is uh. I feel
Speaker 1: like this movie is just an under the tree Christmas
Speaker 1: Morning sort of treat. Uh. You can basically feel the
Speaker 1: plastic crinkling as you as you watch it for the
Speaker 1: first time. You know, you have to have to undo
Speaker 1: some twist ties to remove it from the packaging. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to imagine the sort of person who
Speaker 1: would not be won over by this movie. Doctor should
Speaker 1: prescribe In for Man as a treatment for painful diseases.
Speaker 1: Hospitals should have TVs that only show In for Man.
Speaker 1: You can only be so sad while watching in. It's true.
Speaker 1: So apparently this was one movie, and as far as
Speaker 1: I know, it might be the only instance ever where
Speaker 1: the film critic Roger Ebert changed his original star rating
Speaker 1: years after his review for this movie. So when it
Speaker 1: came out, he wrote an absolutely glowing review. I mean,
Speaker 1: you read the words, it sounds like he's describing one
Speaker 1: of the greatest films he's ever seen, But he only
Speaker 1: gave it two point five stars. That you know, they
Speaker 1: went on a four star scale. But then more than
Speaker 1: twenty years later, he apparently went back and changed his
Speaker 1: rating from two point five to three, citing the fact
Speaker 1: that in the twenty years since he had seen or
Speaker 1: more than twenty twenty something plus years since he had
Speaker 1: seen in for Man, there was probably not a single
Speaker 1: month that went by that he didn't at some point
Speaker 1: find himself thinking of it fondly. Uh. Though, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: confused why he didn't just go straight to four stars,
Speaker 1: like what's holding you back at three? Because when you
Speaker 1: read his actual words, I think it's clear that he
Speaker 1: feels like we do, that he understands that the Inframan
Speaker 1: transcends just being a kind of a goofy zany movie
Speaker 1: and becomes a kind of genuine masterpiece. It is something
Speaker 1: to be cherished by the young and old and to
Speaker 1: be analyzed by generations of scholars and philosophers. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I guess with with Ebert, you never know
Speaker 1: exactly what you're gonna get. Like we've said before, I
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you agree with other times you know
Speaker 1: you want to get a shouting match with him. But
Speaker 1: I feel like the same Roger Ebert who gave Blade
Speaker 1: to three and a half stars. Uh, and I totally
Speaker 1: agree with that rating. UM would considerately, you know, pumping
Speaker 1: it up to three and a half at least for
Speaker 1: for this movie. I don't know. I want to understand
Speaker 1: these mental constraints keeping it limited to three. I guess
Speaker 1: some people are always trying to ice skate up hill good. Um,
Speaker 1: but no, no, I get you. Knowing systems are hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you it's it's it's a tough
Speaker 1: job you give yourself if you're going to rate every
Speaker 1: film you ever watch. And uh and and you know
Speaker 1: you have some sort of numerical value system that can
Speaker 1: apply to films like Infra Man, but also to films
Speaker 1: like you know, The Great Gatsby or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: Uh so I realized it's complicated now. It should come
Speaker 1: as no surprise to anyone that psychotronic film chronicler Michael
Speaker 1: Weldon wrote highly of the Inframan movie. Um. He wrote,
Speaker 1: quote almost NonStop laughs and excitement, with some great special effects,
Speaker 1: lots of skulls, and a character reading a Dennis Wheatley
Speaker 1: occult novel. I don't think I noticed that detail, but
Speaker 1: that's good. Yeah, yeah, May May is reading it late
Speaker 1: in the film. Okay, this is during the um largely
Speaker 1: non action oriented portion of the film in which the
Speaker 1: professor is researching things, which, incidentally, you know, this is
Speaker 1: about an hour into the film. And I've been loving
Speaker 1: it and I paused it because I had to do
Speaker 1: something else, and I was picking it back up at
Speaker 1: night when my my, my wife and son were home
Speaker 1: and I was like, Hey, you guys gotta come in
Speaker 1: here because this is this is great. Everybody's gonna love this.
Speaker 1: And so they sit down and I push play and
Speaker 1: it's immediately researched scene and I was like, seriously, this
Speaker 1: is the this is the longest stretch in the movie
Speaker 1: in which there are no monsters. Reckily, they stayed with it. Uh.
Speaker 1: They ended up watching the rest of the film with me,
Speaker 1: and they both agreed that it was excellent. I noticed
Speaker 1: a dynamic where maybe you felt the same thing, where
Speaker 1: when there were scenes of this movie that suddenly slowed
Speaker 1: down when there was a little bit of downtime, and
Speaker 1: there is not a lot of downtime in this movie,
Speaker 1: but when it arrives it is somehow hilarious. I think
Speaker 1: it's something about the change in pacing when it suddenly
Speaker 1: down shifts to characters just being still and quiet. For
Speaker 1: a moment, I couldn't stop laughing, and I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: exactly what that was. It just feels like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: now we're just watching them. Look at screens for a second. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think this is the time to drive home
Speaker 1: that this is a shob Brothers picture. Shot Brothers of course,
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong studio, uh, that noted for its many
Speaker 1: martial arts action films back in the day. So this
Speaker 1: is a this is a film that excels at motion. Uh,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, Like you know, going into a shot
Speaker 1: Brothers film that the stunts um and then the physical
Speaker 1: action is going to be excellent. Uh. And with this
Speaker 1: film we just have a lot of other excellent things
Speaker 1: built on top of that framework. I noticed when I
Speaker 1: was watching this movie and and foolishly trying to take
Speaker 1: comprehensive notes on the plot, which quickly proved impossible. A
Speaker 1: word I just kept typing over and over was immediately
Speaker 1: And I think that fact by itself helps give you
Speaker 1: a sense of what Inframan is all about. I was
Speaker 1: trying to think of analogies to communicate the feeling of
Speaker 1: this movie. And if this makes any sense to me,
Speaker 1: Inframan is almost kind of like an early Beatles song.
Speaker 1: It's like she Loves You. It's just tight and fast
Speaker 1: and instantly in the hook, and the catchy melody never
Speaker 1: stops Yeah, I think that's an adequate description. Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's worth noting for weird house cinema listeners that, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is our second Shot Brothers film that we've covered.
Speaker 1: The first was nineteen seventies six is The Oily Maniac,
Speaker 1: which had one incredible monster, some cool black magic, but
Speaker 1: also a fair amount of sleeves. Uh. This film, however,
Speaker 1: is all monsters. It's comic book action and is appropriate
Speaker 1: for all ages. Um and yeah, and came out in
Speaker 1: seventy five, so this is the year before Oily Maniac
Speaker 1: and there's more than one connection to be made between
Speaker 1: the casts. So how would we even do the elevator
Speaker 1: pitch for this movie? The first sentence I typed was
Speaker 1: just prepared to lose your mind. That's really good. When
Speaker 1: I was thinking on it, I was I thought, super
Speaker 1: Inframan is a buffet for the eyes and everything is desserted.
Speaker 1: That's very very true, very good. Um, So how to
Speaker 1: actually boil down the plot? I'll give it a shot.
Speaker 1: When a tyrannical which from a long lost Ice Age
Speaker 1: civilization named Princess Dragon Mom and then there's some alternate
Speaker 1: titles depending on translation, when she tries to destroy the
Speaker 1: world with a team of fidgety mutant Hinchman. A brave
Speaker 1: young man named Rama must volunteer for a dangerous experimental
Speaker 1: surgery that will put a nuclear reactor in his body
Speaker 1: and transform him into Inframan, a near invincible armored hero
Speaker 1: with thunder fists, and only Inframan can save us. Now, yep,
Speaker 1: that's pretty accurate. But and yet it does not. It
Speaker 1: does not and cannot fully convey the visual feast that
Speaker 1: is this film. Now, one thing that's interesting is that
Speaker 1: while I think this movie is more than the sum
Speaker 1: of its parts, it it comes together into this beautiful,
Speaker 1: transcendent whole. You can also quite clearly pick out a
Speaker 1: lot of the genre inputs on it. I think we're
Speaker 1: not original and observing this, a lot of people have
Speaker 1: commented that a lot of the genre can ventions of
Speaker 1: this movie seem largely derived from certain popular especially Japanese
Speaker 1: film and TV genres from the decade before this came out,
Speaker 1: and so a couple of things to mention here would
Speaker 1: probably be the influence of the so called Henshion hero shows.
Speaker 1: Um to describe this for American audience as our age.
Speaker 1: If you ever watched the Mighty morphin Power Rangers when
Speaker 1: you were a kid, and maybe you've got the feeling
Speaker 1: that is this part of a genre in some way?
Speaker 1: Does this uh you know these tropes feel kind of
Speaker 1: well worn, even though maybe I've never seen them before. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was indeed a sort of americanization
Speaker 1: of a long running Japanese TV show genre. Uh this
Speaker 1: this hingshion show, which henshion translates to something like transformation
Speaker 1: or changing body. These were shows about a regular person
Speaker 1: who would transform into a hero, who usually wore a
Speaker 1: suit that had some kind of cool, will elaborate helmet.
Speaker 1: Not always, but they would change clothes in some interesting way,
Speaker 1: and so they might have a device or say a
Speaker 1: magic word and then they'd go through a morphine sequence
Speaker 1: like the Power Rangers did, and this would transform them
Speaker 1: into their their hero more where they would have superpowers.
Speaker 1: So big examples of of popular hinging shows from Japan
Speaker 1: were Ultraman beginning in the mid sixties, and then there
Speaker 1: was a show called Caman Raiders that I think came
Speaker 1: a little bit later. Yeah, Ultraman. Of course, we we
Speaker 1: covered a tie up co production featuring Ultraman titled Hanuman
Speaker 1: Versus Seven Ultraman. So if you're interested in this type
Speaker 1: of film and you didn't hear that episode, go back
Speaker 1: and listen to it. It's pretty fun. Now. This is
Speaker 1: a rich genre that's also had a huge impact on
Speaker 1: cartoons of especially the eighties and nineties, a lot of
Speaker 1: things that would have been seeing outside of Japan. We're
Speaker 1: talking stuff like Sailor Moon, ThunderCats, Silverhawks, he Man Shira,
Speaker 1: of course Voltron, and in the world of animation, I'm
Speaker 1: to understand it was particularly useful because it allows you
Speaker 1: to reuse that transformation sequence in every episode and you know,
Speaker 1: as much of it as you needed to help you
Speaker 1: hit your desired um episode length, right, Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: could really pad that thing out with stuff that you
Speaker 1: that you had shot, you know, years before. Very economical
Speaker 1: way to make a show, especially, I think when you're
Speaker 1: you're dealing with something like animation, where you know your
Speaker 1: it's your your cost per frame is pretty high. But
Speaker 1: while you can clearly recognize that the bones of a
Speaker 1: of a Hinsion influence in in Inframan himself, this movie
Speaker 1: has a lot of other inputs. There's so much going on,
Speaker 1: so it clearly has kaiju inputs because there are these
Speaker 1: assortments of weird monsters that sometimes grow very large. Uh.
Speaker 1: It also has has strong martial arts movie influences. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of great kung fu scenes in it. And
Speaker 1: there is a subplot in the middle of it that
Speaker 1: feels like the movie suddenly shifts into an espionage thriller,
Speaker 1: like a brainwashing sleeper agent movie. And I loved that part. It'
Speaker 1: that was absolutely a genius move. Because you have so
Speaker 1: much action and so much monster action going on, You've
Speaker 1: you've got to find You've gotta have a way to
Speaker 1: pad that out a little bit. You need something else
Speaker 1: in there, and the espionage mind washing a plot works fabulously.
Speaker 1: So you and I may have watched different versions of
Speaker 1: the movie. I think we saw the same thing on
Speaker 1: the screen, I think, but different versions of getting the
Speaker 1: English translation. So while I often prefer subtitles to dubbing
Speaker 1: for foreign films, the dub track on the version of
Speaker 1: Inframan that I watched, which might be the only English dub,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. At least the version I saw was
Speaker 1: absolutely sublime. The frantic line delivery and unusual word choices
Speaker 1: were perfect. They really add to the gleeful absurdity of
Speaker 1: the film and inject even more irresistible energy and pleasure
Speaker 1: into the viewing experience. Uh So, the version I saw,
Speaker 1: I think was the main dub. Like it. It seems
Speaker 1: to be the dub that other reviewers have written about
Speaker 1: going back to the seventies, So I think it's the
Speaker 1: original one. And it was the dub that was present
Speaker 1: when I rented this movie from Google on on YouTube movies.
Speaker 1: So I would say watch this dub, but also make
Speaker 1: sure that if you do watch this movie, don't try
Speaker 1: to watch some low quality rip of this. This movie
Speaker 1: is gorgeous. It is a feast for the eyes, and
Speaker 1: you really do need to see it in full high definition. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I watched it on Apple TV and UH and and
Speaker 1: I had had the choice via Apple TV as well,
Speaker 1: but to watch it in uh either dubbed or subtitles.
Speaker 1: I watched it in its entirety with the subtitles, though
Speaker 1: I did go back and watch some scenes with the
Speaker 1: dub to get a taste of the dub. Because the
Speaker 1: thing about a Shab Brothers film from you know, from
Speaker 1: this era, is that the dub is kind of iconic,
Speaker 1: you know, um there's so there's something great about the
Speaker 1: way they're dubbed. And I have to say, even though
Speaker 1: I enjoyed here ring the Chinese language and and uh
Speaker 1: and and getting the subtitle experience and feeling like I
Speaker 1: was getting something, you know, closer to the original viewing experience,
Speaker 1: there's so much action on the screen at times you
Speaker 1: feel like you I felt like I might have been
Speaker 1: cheating myself by focusing on the dialogue and translation rather
Speaker 1: than the kicks and lasers and tentacles that are happening
Speaker 1: on the screen. Yeah. I would say, at least in
Speaker 1: my experience, the the burning fuse power of the English
Speaker 1: dub was definitely part of this art product. I would
Speaker 1: I would, I couldn't recommend this English dub enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the main there mainly There mainly two points
Speaker 1: to be made of distinction between the two. One is
Speaker 1: that it's my understanding that the dub introduces some plot
Speaker 1: holes that are not there otherwise um and and so
Speaker 1: I found that when I was looking at scenes, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you do the I did the experiment where I
Speaker 1: put on uh, the subtitles and the dub at the
Speaker 1: same time to see to what extent they matched up,
Speaker 1: and there were parts of the film where they're just
Speaker 1: talking about different things entirely, other parts where, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the tone is a little off, but essentially this is correct. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other areas the names of monsters, and you know,
Speaker 1: I take my monster names seriously, and um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So some of the names I like better in the
Speaker 1: subtitles than in the dub For example, Princess Dragon mom uh.
Speaker 1: In the she her name in the subtitles is demon
Speaker 1: Princess Elzebub, which is also a little goofy, but I
Speaker 1: like it. I prefer it to dragon mom. Oh. What
Speaker 1: how can you knock Princess Dragon mom? How can I
Speaker 1: mean like that? That feels so good coming out of
Speaker 1: my mouth. I just want to wander around the household
Speaker 1: day saying Princess Dragon mom Oh. And then there's a
Speaker 1: witch I as another one her female second in command
Speaker 1: or one of her female underlings, that has the monster
Speaker 1: hands with the eyeballs in the palm m. Guiermo del tour.
Speaker 1: You did not invent monsters with eyes in the palms
Speaker 1: of their hands. That is right here in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: five in inframan so which I was or was she
Speaker 1: called demon? Which I also or which demon? I sometimes
Speaker 1: I think so? And then. But but here's the other
Speaker 1: thing that that gets complicated with the names of these monsters.
Speaker 1: I noticed that in Michael Weldon's Ride Up he mentioned
Speaker 1: a few slightly different names for some of these monsters.
Speaker 1: So that leads me to think that perhaps there were
Speaker 1: different at least different subtitles at different points. I mean he,
Speaker 1: I mean this was a book from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Who he is writing about this? So who knows? So
Speaker 1: I'm wondering just how many different names we have for
Speaker 1: these these monsters, counting the original language versions, the subtitles,
Speaker 1: the dubs, uh who who knows? Well? So in my
Speaker 1: dub which I was called she Demon, simple but effective.
Speaker 1: But but whatever you call her, she demon is divine.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very I hate to cite an internet meme,
Speaker 1: but it's a very we have no choice but to
Speaker 1: stand kind of situation. Like every moment she's on screen
Speaker 1: is just like, damn, she demon is so cool? What
Speaker 1: religion is it that worships her? Can I join that?
Speaker 1: All right? Well, why don't we go ahead and get
Speaker 1: a taste of some audio here for this? I picked
Speaker 1: out what is an English language TV spot for this movie,
Speaker 1: which I particularly love because it has this vibe of
Speaker 1: of hey, everybody, go grab the kids. Inframan is about
Speaker 1: to kick skulls in the face. There's toad deathliest creatures
Speaker 1: of the universe. Watch out because nothing can stop in
Speaker 1: from He's six million years beyond bionics, beyond beyond your
Speaker 1: wildest imagination, the ultimate adventure with the ultimate here all
Speaker 1: who should have excitement in promnce. Sadly you could only
Speaker 1: hear that, you could not see that. And again that
Speaker 1: is one of the things about Infaman. It must be
Speaker 1: seen to be experienced. All right, Let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of the people involved here. First of all, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: we said, this is a Shaw Brothers studio film. This
Speaker 1: is a studio that operated from n through eleven and
Speaker 1: was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, making
Speaker 1: a significant impact not only in Chinese cinema, but internationally
Speaker 1: as well. The Shaws were Chinese film entrepreneurs. Three of
Speaker 1: the four Shaw brothers, Runji, run Me and Rundy, founded
Speaker 1: a film distribution company in nine operating out of Shanghai
Speaker 1: and Singapore. Run Me and the or their youngest brother
Speaker 1: run run Shop operated the Singapore Bass which would become
Speaker 1: the Shaw Organization, before taking over the Hong Kong based
Speaker 1: sister company Shaw and Sons Limited. In nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: a new company, Shaw Brothers was born. Run Me who
Speaker 1: produced this film Live nineteen o one through five and
Speaker 1: run Run lived in nineteen o seven through two thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen. Man I love seeing that Shaw Brothers logo
Speaker 1: at the beginning of a film. You see the hammered
Speaker 1: glass and and the it just it feels so good.
Speaker 1: It does you know you're you're in for some action. Um.
Speaker 1: And if anyone wants to hear more about Shaw Brothers,
Speaker 1: I believe we went into more detail in the Oily
Speaker 1: Maniac episode. And if you want to find that, UM,
Speaker 1: you can either dig around and stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: mind archives, or you can go to Samouda music dot
Speaker 1: com s E m U T A m U S
Speaker 1: I C that is UM. That's a blog, but I
Speaker 1: maintain and I just list all the films there. So
Speaker 1: occasionally people right in and say, hey, where's a list
Speaker 1: of all the films we've done for we're how cinema. Well,
Speaker 1: that is where you can find it, all right. The
Speaker 1: director of Inframan was Shaan Hua who lived well. I's
Speaker 1: still alive as far as I know. Born ninety two,
Speaker 1: a cinematographer turned director, active from nineteen seventy four through
Speaker 1: nineteen two. His other works include nine eight one's Kung
Speaker 1: Fu Zombie and nine eight one's Bloody Parrot. You know
Speaker 1: another one of my favorite weird house cinema. In fact,
Speaker 1: i's a multiple of my favorite weird house cinema movies
Speaker 1: we've done. We're directed by people who who were mainly
Speaker 1: cinematographers and then and then shifted to the director's chairs.
Speaker 1: Because mad love Carl Freund originally cinematographer and then directed
Speaker 1: the movie. Maybe that's because I guess you have a
Speaker 1: cinematographer in charge. This is somebody who really understands film
Speaker 1: as as as a visual compositional medium that needs to
Speaker 1: be a moment to moment feast for the eyes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean it makes you wonder about the
Speaker 1: other situations, you know, like writers turn directors, actors turned directors.
Speaker 1: You know, are these cases where musicians turn directors where
Speaker 1: you know, whatever they're their previous and prior UH focus
Speaker 1: was how to what extent does that end up? Becoming
Speaker 1: a part of their film vision as well. A lot
Speaker 1: of what I love about this movie is the way
Speaker 1: it would just like pile one crazy image on top
Speaker 1: of another in in such rapid succession that I would
Speaker 1: be just my mouth is hanging open while I'm enjoying
Speaker 1: the look of one scene, and then it before I'm
Speaker 1: even done having that feeling, it cuts to something else
Speaker 1: that also looks strange and amazing. Absolutely now. The writer
Speaker 1: on this film was Quality born nineteen thirty five, a
Speaker 1: one man screenplay machine with two hundred thirty three writing
Speaker 1: credits on IMDb, known for such writing for writing such
Speaker 1: Hong Kong action films as The thirty six Chamber of
Speaker 1: Shao Lyn from The Wesley's Mysterious File from two thousand
Speaker 1: and two and The Singing Killer from nineteen seventy, and
Speaker 1: he also acted on occasion, two hundred and thirty three
Speaker 1: writing credits in a career of how many years. How
Speaker 1: many screenplays is that per year? Uh? Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a lot. I think there's even Uh I don't think
Speaker 1: he's active anymore, but I think there was at least
Speaker 1: one recent film or one upcoming film that looked like
Speaker 1: maybe it was based on this uh Wesley's mysterious file
Speaker 1: thing that he had done earlier. Now onto the cast. Well,
Speaker 1: our lead here playing Raima uh slash Inframan is none
Speaker 1: other than Danny Lee born n Oh. Danny Lee is
Speaker 1: just great. Oh yeah. People may remember he was the
Speaker 1: lead in The Oily Maniac as well, but he's probably
Speaker 1: better known for such films as The Killer, The Untold Story,
Speaker 1: The Eight Immortals, Restaurant and City on Fire, Um Hong
Speaker 1: Kong actor, film producer, screenwriter, director who, at least later
Speaker 1: in his career, they made a kind of specially out
Speaker 1: of playing cops. He played a lot of detectives and cops.
Speaker 1: But this is early Danny Lee. I think, before he
Speaker 1: had even adopted that moniker uh when, in which case,
Speaker 1: you know he's in full like physical prime action hero
Speaker 1: leading man roles situation. At least in this movie, he's
Speaker 1: he's almost got that that el cento energy, somebody who
Speaker 1: just seems to like beam goodness and virtue out of
Speaker 1: his face. Yeah. I don't think Lee is active as
Speaker 1: an actor anymore, but he's still directing and producing, including
Speaker 1: the upcoming The Little Monk, which looks to be a
Speaker 1: Shaolin action movie. About a child monk. So uh sounds
Speaker 1: good now. The professor in this film Professor Liu ying
Speaker 1: t or I think in your version is he Professor Chang? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Professor chey Um played by Sea Wang who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty through two thousand and sixteen, another actor who was
Speaker 1: also in The Oily Maniac He who also was in
Speaker 1: Mafia Versus Ninja from five as well as John Woo's
Speaker 1: A Better Tomorrow from n six which starts chaw Yon fat.
Speaker 1: He is also wonderful in this movie and really enhances
Speaker 1: the absurd pleasure of some scenes, like the scenes where
Speaker 1: he's describing uh to to Raima, the young man played
Speaker 1: by Danny Lee who becomes in for Man, describing to
Speaker 1: him the process he's going to have to go through
Speaker 1: to become in for Man and talking about how painful
Speaker 1: and dangerous it will be and all the stuff he's
Speaker 1: gonna do to his body, but delivering it in this
Speaker 1: wonderfully somber way. It's so good. Yes, Yeah, he's He's
Speaker 1: really good. Has a lot of screen time. Alright. We
Speaker 1: mentioned Um Dragon Mom a k a demon Princess el Zebub,
Speaker 1: who is one of the most notable role of performances
Speaker 1: characters in this this film, Like when she hits the screen,
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, uh, this this film is something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every time she comes on screen, car alarms are going
Speaker 1: off outside your house. Is just like it is a
Speaker 1: kinetic impact. Yeah, well, I mean she is because she
Speaker 1: hits the screen and she's she's visually like the costuming,
Speaker 1: you know, it is incredible. And then she's immediately ordering
Speaker 1: my monsters around and like using a magic whip, so
Speaker 1: you know, just commands everybody's attention. She has a Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's got a great whip, and she throws people into
Speaker 1: a bottomless pit which actually does have a bottom, and
Speaker 1: it is on fire, and she likes to tell people
Speaker 1: how many thousands of degrees it is that they will
Speaker 1: be burning when they reached the bottom. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like three thousand, six thousand. It's it's very So. She
Speaker 1: is played by the actor Terry Lou And I don't
Speaker 1: have any you know, as far as I know, her
Speaker 1: birthday is unknown. This might be her most notable role,
Speaker 1: but she appeared in a number of horror and horror
Speaker 1: asque Hong Kong films during the nineties seventies, including the
Speaker 1: Oily Maniac from seventies six, And aside from the Oily
Speaker 1: Maniac connection, I think you can basically say the same
Speaker 1: thing for the other main female actors in this film.
Speaker 1: That's Manzooyan who plays Maymae that's the professor's daughter, and
Speaker 1: Dana who plays demon Witch. I um that they were
Speaker 1: both actors who were mostly active just in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies and did a lot of roles in um sort
Speaker 1: of horror bloody films. Well, yeah, both Terry Lou and
Speaker 1: Dana are just fabulous in this. Every scene with them
Speaker 1: is just rocket fuel. You know. I forgot almost forgot
Speaker 1: to mention Bruce Lee is in this really well not
Speaker 1: noticed that not Bruce Lee with two ease, that's Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee with one. That's Bruce Bruce LEI is kind of
Speaker 1: um uh So the actor Chin Lung Hong born nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty was not going by Bruce Ley yet um. But
Speaker 1: later after this film he apparently broke out as a
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee clone. So that was interesting. I'm not really
Speaker 1: familiar with any Bruce Lee clone movies, but when I
Speaker 1: looked at some of the cover art for them, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's going for it. He's just putting himself in Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee mode, which trans more first phenomenon. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you gotta be you know, you gotta have a certain
Speaker 1: amoun of fitness and um physical charisma to even aspire,
Speaker 1: uh to uh to be a knockoff Bruce Lee. So
Speaker 1: you know, kudos, and uh, I should just also mention
Speaker 1: that there basically I have a spot in the outline
Speaker 1: where I just put and the rest because this is
Speaker 1: a Shaw Brothers movie. This is a big martial arts
Speaker 1: action movie. And this film features an extended cast of
Speaker 1: Shaw Brothers regulars who you might recognize if you watch
Speaker 1: these films and you go deeper into the filmography for
Speaker 1: for inframan. Uh. The action in this film is great,
Speaker 1: and I have to say the monster suit acting is
Speaker 1: also just noticeably superb because we've mentioned films before, you know,
Speaker 1: where they have a monster suit and they just kind
Speaker 1: of just oh, we need to find somebody that's tall
Speaker 1: enough to wear this, or we need to find somebody
Speaker 1: who uh, you know, who can convince us that they
Speaker 1: they are the best person to walk like an ape um.
Speaker 1: But with this film, I mean, you have the Shaw
Speaker 1: Brothers ensemble, so you have individuals who are highly trained
Speaker 1: and in pique physical CONDI shan that are that are true,
Speaker 1: you know, that excel at physical performance, and so it's
Speaker 1: therefore not surprising that each suit comes alive with its
Speaker 1: own crazy energy. Like Um, the plant monster that we
Speaker 1: encounter is not just standing there sweating in the suit. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's in constant motion and the tentacles are
Speaker 1: constantly moving. And likewise, all the other monsters in this film,
Speaker 1: they all have some sort of unique physical energy that's
Speaker 1: going on that that that makes the thing come alive
Speaker 1: far more than it would be if it was just
Speaker 1: standing there. Oh yeah, I think I mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: that that, uh, Princess Dragon Mom's hingemen are all quite fidgety,
Speaker 1: but that in such a good way. Like every scene
Speaker 1: in in Princess Dragon Mom's ice layer below the Earth
Speaker 1: is fantastic, but they're they're made so wonderful because so
Speaker 1: you'll usually have the main action going on with Princess
Speaker 1: Dragon Mom, maybe like giving orders to a particular mutant
Speaker 1: or or talking with you know, discussing plans with Sheet
Speaker 1: demon Um, but then meanwhile in the background, the monsters
Speaker 1: are just kind of screwing around they'll be like moving.
Speaker 1: And there's there's one monster that looks like a scaly
Speaker 1: thing with a cylindrical head and a giant mustache. He's
Speaker 1: got a you know, a crimson mustache monster that breathes fire.
Speaker 1: And he's never still. He's constantly just wobbling around with
Speaker 1: his arms flailing in the air. And that may sound simple,
Speaker 1: but once you watch it, you really what a superb touch.
Speaker 1: It just makes everything in the scene more more electric. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for a movie that that needed or at least ended
Speaker 1: up with six different monster designs for this crew of
Speaker 1: monsters serving um els about not not counting the skeleton
Speaker 1: in which we'll get to in a bet um, but
Speaker 1: for to have a roster of six monsters, like, none
Speaker 1: of them are losers. They're all tremendous designs and they
Speaker 1: all they're all different from one another. Like we have
Speaker 1: the two robots that I think are sometimes called the
Speaker 1: Ironfist robots. We have this hairy gentleman who I think
Speaker 1: is sometimes just called long haired monster that that looks
Speaker 1: like it's more inspired by like traditional Asian um ghost
Speaker 1: and monster motifs. We have My one of my two
Speaker 1: favorites is mutant drill who is this kind of weird
Speaker 1: golem looking monster kind of resembles the Oily Maniac to
Speaker 1: certain extent, but has like two metal attack hands, one
Speaker 1: of which is a devastating drill. Yeah, he's he's a
Speaker 1: dreadful bipedal frog with like a with like a claw
Speaker 1: metal claw hand and a metal drill hand. And I
Speaker 1: actually didn't realize one of his hands was a drill
Speaker 1: until a good way is into the movie. There's just
Speaker 1: so much going on you can't catch it all. Yeah. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: there's spider Monster, who looks like a big, cool red spider,
Speaker 1: and then there's plant Monster, which I think is sometimes
Speaker 1: translated as an octopus monster, but he's clearly a plant.
Speaker 1: His his powers, which he really gets to show off
Speaker 1: in this movie, are all based about like going into
Speaker 1: the ground and growing up out of the ground and
Speaker 1: then doing plant things. Oh, there's such a good scene
Speaker 1: where he attacks the Human Science space and uh so
Speaker 1: he's supposed to go there and destroy it and I
Speaker 1: think kill Professor Chang or something. And he he like
Speaker 1: plants himself into the ground and turns into these rapidly
Speaker 1: growing vines that penetrate the walls and inframan has to
Speaker 1: defeat him by like X raying the vines to find
Speaker 1: where his heart is. Uh. And there's one part I
Speaker 1: absolutely loved because again it was one of these things
Speaker 1: where like the new ideas just keep piling on so fast.
Speaker 1: So he has just started attacking the base, and he's
Speaker 1: reaching his his vine tentacles in and and you know, grabbing,
Speaker 1: grabbing the scientists and flinging them around. Um, and I
Speaker 1: think there's some kind of emergency, like they have to, uh,
Speaker 1: they have to reactivate the power or Infra Man will
Speaker 1: be killed during his surgery. And so they're they're frantically
Speaker 1: trying to do that while while the octopus vine monster
Speaker 1: is is gumming everything up with his arms. And then
Speaker 1: suddenly all these workers just bust in through a door
Speaker 1: with circular saws and starts sawing vines. When that happened,
Speaker 1: I was like, I was just releasing gusts of of
Speaker 1: of crazy laughter. Oh my god, it's just so good.
Speaker 1: There were moments in this where and I guess it's
Speaker 1: just about the frantic pace of the action and just
Speaker 1: and also just how how well it's put together. There
Speaker 1: were moments where I thought, oh my goodness, the monsters
Speaker 1: might win, you know, like in the brief amount of
Speaker 1: time that you're actually able to think, uh during this film,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all happening. This movie is happening now.
Speaker 1: You know. There's not a lot of time for reflection.
Speaker 1: You're experiencing it, and therefore there were times where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, I think they got him. Come on and
Speaker 1: for Man, you know, yeah, it was it was really great. Now,
Speaker 1: we can't list everyone involved in the awesome look of
Speaker 1: this film, but I with I thought I would point
Speaker 1: out that Michio Mikami did the special effects on this film.
Speaker 1: He's credited for special effects. Uh. Mccami worked on a
Speaker 1: few different films, one of which is an insane looking
Speaker 1: film called Goki body Snatcher from Hell from which seems
Speaker 1: to have space blobs and vampires in it, directed by
Speaker 1: Hajimi Sato. Um might have to come back to that one,
Speaker 1: but he also did special effects on a ninety eight
Speaker 1: film titled Message from Space. Oh okay, okay, so I
Speaker 1: see the connection. I mean, Message from Space is not
Speaker 1: nearly on the level of infor Man. I think the
Speaker 1: informan is is in a class of its own. But
Speaker 1: I I see similarities. A lot of what was great
Speaker 1: about Message from Space was like these scenes just full
Speaker 1: of bizarre visual variety in the composition of the shot,
Speaker 1: where there's just all these different, strangely dressed characters in
Speaker 1: a beautifully decorated room simultaneously visually interesting and funny. Uh
Speaker 1: And and the same is true about this movie, but
Speaker 1: but even to a much greater extent. Yeah, and real
Speaker 1: quick the music here. Young Chen is credited with the
Speaker 1: music on this one, but I understand that this picture
Speaker 1: reuses music from previous Shot Brothers production, so nothing about
Speaker 1: it particularly stood out to me. But it's fine, it's good.
Speaker 1: It's perfectly good music for this film. Well, there are
Speaker 1: moments where I thought that the music really added to
Speaker 1: the comedy. So for example, the uh, the music and
Speaker 1: the opening credit sequence. I mean, so the opening credit sequence,
Speaker 1: it's kind of James Bondish in a way. It had
Speaker 1: a kind of uh, you know, psychic kaleidoscope. But then
Speaker 1: the music was almost kind of circus music, Like I
Speaker 1: was imagining that this was a vision that Hunter S.
Speaker 1: Thompson would be hallucinating while he's wandering around in the
Speaker 1: circus circus a sceno. Yeah, yeah, so much visual flare.
Speaker 1: And that's the the credits, the the parts of the
Speaker 1: movie where you see the schematics for Inframan are just beautiful.
Speaker 1: Um Like I'm I'm always it always takes me out
Speaker 1: whenever a movie decides to like show you the pages
Speaker 1: of a of a like an evil book, or show
Speaker 1: you some artwork or something or another, or or you know, blueprints,
Speaker 1: and if they don't look right, if something feels off
Speaker 1: about them or rushed, it instantly takes me out. But
Speaker 1: these were beautiful. They look from there from another dimension. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we're getting towards the part we're in. A
Speaker 1: normal episode, we would we would break down the plot more.
Speaker 1: I think it's just impossible to try to and and
Speaker 1: and and fruitless to try to explain the plot of
Speaker 1: Inframan scene by scene. I think it makes more sense
Speaker 1: for us to just talk about a few more sort
Speaker 1: of themes and highlights of the movie. Yes, but one
Speaker 1: thing where I do want to get in a little
Speaker 1: granular detail is is trying to explain the feel of
Speaker 1: the movie from the very first few scenes. So after
Speaker 1: the credits finish, uh, we go straight to a van
Speaker 1: full of children, singing a merry song. It's driving along
Speaker 1: a mountain road and the kids are singing, and then
Speaker 1: just there is an immediate flying reptile attack. I love
Speaker 1: how fast this movie gets into it after the credits finished.
Speaker 1: I think there are literally about eight seconds before the
Speaker 1: earth starts shaking and belching up monsters. Yeah, it's this
Speaker 1: fabulous scene to where like big big rubbery wing monster
Speaker 1: that looks great crashes onto like a a highway and
Speaker 1: then it instantly vanishes into thin air and then an
Speaker 1: earthquake just rips the earth apart. Yeah, so before you
Speaker 1: even understand what's going on, it's earthquake giant pterodactyl uh,
Speaker 1: like the the mutant dogs from Ghostbusters kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I almost wonder if they were inspired by the look
Speaker 1: of the of Princess Dragon Mom in her monster form
Speaker 1: in this movie, because I know Dan Ackroyd is a
Speaker 1: fan of of great B movies, so that that may
Speaker 1: have been an influence there. I wouldn't. I wouldn't put
Speaker 1: it past him. But then there's that, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: so the kids are out of the van and then
Speaker 1: the van gets sucked down into a ravine with the
Speaker 1: driver it's still in its screaming, bloody murder, and then
Speaker 1: you don't even have time to understand what's happening here,
Speaker 1: But then instantly you're seeing something else. A city is
Speaker 1: on fire, and everybody's running around screaming, what city is this?
Speaker 1: I don't know where at T plus forty five seconds
Speaker 1: since the credits have finished, and there's just Mayhem and
Speaker 1: everybody running around and everything's on fire, and for some reason,
Speaker 1: the thing that struck only the funniest about this is
Speaker 1: that all the people carrying luggage while the fires are burning,
Speaker 1: and then uh, and then at about seventy seconds in
Speaker 1: or T plus seventy seconds after the credits, were also
Speaker 1: onto something else. After the burning city, there's like a
Speaker 1: giant radio dish and a motorcade, and then we meet
Speaker 1: the professor and there's already a press gaggle shoving microphones
Speaker 1: in his face, and they want to know is it
Speaker 1: an attack another planet? What kind of monsters are they?
Speaker 1: And the Professor's having to push through them to to
Speaker 1: get down to business. This, of course, is Professor Chang,
Speaker 1: and he goes into this place where everybody's wearing these
Speaker 1: uh it's like a science center, but everybody's wearing these
Speaker 1: shiny uniforms, whether they look like they're members of ABBA. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even the professor's lab coat is speak silver and shiny. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and it was at this point where I was like,
Speaker 1: I have to stop trying to take comprehensive notes because
Speaker 1: the movie is just too much, too fast. And I'm
Speaker 1: not like I was pausing it literally every couple of seconds. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we if you were to make a
Speaker 1: note about every crazy cool thing you saw in this movie,
Speaker 1: or if we tried to talk about every crazy cool
Speaker 1: thing we saw in this movie, like we we'd never finish,
Speaker 1: you know, um, so many films. It's like if it
Speaker 1: has that one really weird thing you can focus on
Speaker 1: and and dwell on, you know, you can have a
Speaker 1: good time with it. But yeah, there's just so much
Speaker 1: in this film. It's it's it's it's just you know,
Speaker 1: visual overload in the best sense. So obviously this movie
Speaker 1: is going to have a lot of action, a lot
Speaker 1: of monster fights, you know, a lot of martial arts fighting,
Speaker 1: but then also sort of gadget fighting with monsters. And
Speaker 1: I gotta say this was this was top notch fighting.
Speaker 1: I am of the opinion, I know I've said this
Speaker 1: on this show before that a lot of times action
Speaker 1: in movies is actually is quite boring because I thinks
Speaker 1: some you know, subpar filmmakers think, well, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you just got to like put some action in there,
Speaker 1: Like they think of action is just like a block
Speaker 1: of some run time that will liven things up because
Speaker 1: there's violence going on. But violence in itself is not
Speaker 1: exciting or interesting. If it's like dramatically static, there's gotta
Speaker 1: be you know, drama to the action. There's there have
Speaker 1: to be changeups, there have to be interesting things happening
Speaker 1: during the fighting. Yeah, I mean, ultimately a choreograph fight
Speaker 1: needs to tell a story. And if you're film uh
Speaker 1: like style is a bunch of likes. I've seen films
Speaker 1: before where they have like truly some some great looking
Speaker 1: stunt work going on. But if you cut it in
Speaker 1: such a way that you can't follow it, there's no like,
Speaker 1: there's no beats to it. Uh you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: no back and forth, like you can't really get into it.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, they the action in this film, you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps unsurprisingly given the Shop Brothers production of it, um,
Speaker 1: the action is excellent, Like every all the stunts are
Speaker 1: are tremendous. Um, everything feels real even with even though
Speaker 1: you have these, you know, at times ridiculous elements going on,
Speaker 1: like like flying, lethal kicks and exploding spears and uh
Speaker 1: you know, fire breathing and laser beams. It's it's still
Speaker 1: has a very intense physicality to it. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: the and they know how to make the the action
Speaker 1: more exciting by not just having punching and kicking back
Speaker 1: and forth going on for a long time, like they
Speaker 1: keep changing it up with different tactics. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: was actually repeatedly impressed by the ways that Infaman came
Speaker 1: up with strategies for defeating the different monsters. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: for example, you've got the robots that shoot the spiky
Speaker 1: balls out of their arms basically on slink ease. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're slinky, retractable robots, And how he defeats them
Speaker 1: is by tangling up their slinkies. Genius, genius, I mean
Speaker 1: that that makes perfect sense. Actually, yeah, and that was
Speaker 1: after he tried to use lethal kick on them, which
Speaker 1: is this fabulous double footed flying kick that he says
Speaker 1: lethal kick while doing it. Um, he had used that
Speaker 1: successfully on a few of the other monsters and then
Speaker 1: now it doesn't work. Now we have to go on
Speaker 1: to the next you know, it's just it's it's it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: So we mentioned earlier that I think we both really
Speaker 1: enjoyed the sudden shift where the movie goes from this
Speaker 1: big monsters sci fi action thing into an espionage movie
Speaker 1: for a few minutes where one of the human scientists
Speaker 1: is is kidnapped by by Princess Dragon Mom and they
Speaker 1: take her down. They take him down to the base
Speaker 1: and she demon there points this giant gun at his
Speaker 1: head that like laser brainwashes him and we see a
Speaker 1: little animated screen read out of his brain. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then he has turned into a sleeper agent for Princess
Speaker 1: Dragon Mom with green eyes. Uh, Like his eyes glow green,
Speaker 1: and they send him back to like do spy work.
Speaker 1: He's trying to steal the plans for Inframan so that
Speaker 1: Princess Dragon Mom will know exactly what his weaknesses. And
Speaker 1: that whole sequence was so cool, especially I like the
Speaker 1: way that this was a simple touch, but the way
Speaker 1: they show that he's different when his eyes are not
Speaker 1: glowing green and shooting lasers at people. When he's reinfiltrating
Speaker 1: the base where he worked. They just put a little
Speaker 1: bit of makeup under his eyes, like he's dark, you know,
Speaker 1: his the undersides of his eyes are darkened, so something
Speaker 1: looks off about him. But everybody's just like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: welcome back. Yeah. I really don't want to spoil too much.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is one that I hope, you know,
Speaker 1: hope everybody sees at some point, So I don't want
Speaker 1: to spoil too much about the little details of of
Speaker 1: each battle. But there are some great parts where where
Speaker 1: a monster suddenly decides to get huge, you know, to
Speaker 1: grow to two kaiju size and then um and then
Speaker 1: Informan grows in turn. I didn't know he had that power,
Speaker 1: but he like sticks his fist up in the air
Speaker 1: and then he transforms into giant Infra man Um. And
Speaker 1: then the final battle down in the in the ice
Speaker 1: Palace of the Earth where Princess Dragon Mom lives is
Speaker 1: also just wonderful. Yeah, and there's a there's a penultimate
Speaker 1: battle too on the surface that I really love because
Speaker 1: it's between Team Informan when in they're like Abba esque
Speaker 1: costumes and the skeleton army that's serving Princess ils above
Speaker 1: which we haven't really described completely, but there it's kind
Speaker 1: of like bicycle helmets with an actual skull face underneath
Speaker 1: it in horns and these cool exploding spears. They look amazing.
Speaker 1: And this is like a big epic attle with I
Speaker 1: don't know, like at least twenty stunt man on the
Speaker 1: on the scene at one time, flying all over the place.
Speaker 1: Stuff is blowing up, and there's it's also just really
Speaker 1: well shot, like there's one terrific pan across the action. Uh.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely beautiful and conveys a sense of epic
Speaker 1: battle better than I think most epic battle films that
Speaker 1: I've seen. Last thing I got to mention, I could
Speaker 1: not stop thinking about that shot where after the monsters
Speaker 1: go out and kidnap uh Professor Chang's daughter, and we
Speaker 1: just see them riding on a boat. Oh, it's so good,
Speaker 1: the power boats cutting through the water going back to
Speaker 1: the the Evil Island fortress and they're all just chilling
Speaker 1: on the boat. Yeah. It's like skull guy to one
Speaker 1: side of him, monster to the other. And as my
Speaker 1: my wife pointed out, she got to watch this part
Speaker 1: and she loved it too. She's like, you also see
Speaker 1: the Professor do this kind of awkward necktie adjustment and
Speaker 1: he's like, it's windy out here on the water today. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like I said, both my my wife and son were
Speaker 1: totally won over by this film. My son was a
Speaker 1: little hesitant to watch it. He was like, I said
Speaker 1: him the trailer and he's like, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like it has as much of a plot,
Speaker 1: which on one level, you know, that's a good read.
Speaker 1: But but but then when foolish, well, he's really into
Speaker 1: the movie Shangshi that came out, the new Marvel film,
Speaker 1: which is in my opinion, excellent, and uh and he
Speaker 1: loved it too. It has you know, action and great
Speaker 1: characters and story. So you know, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: high bar to set for your your martial arts films.
Speaker 1: Uh So at first he was a little hesitant. At first,
Speaker 1: he was like, I would give this the martial arts
Speaker 1: in this film, I think a six um but I'm
Speaker 1: not sure out of how many I think he's using
Speaker 1: a ten point scale, I'm not sure. But as it
Speaker 1: proceeded he was like, no, I take it back. This
Speaker 1: is this is great, this is so funny. I love it. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a different kind of you make a big budget
Speaker 1: movie today, and there's obviously a lot you can do
Speaker 1: with lots of money and the technology you know, see
Speaker 1: g I and all that. But I think I have
Speaker 1: even more respect for the kind of sheer creative force
Speaker 1: and genius that allows you to do so much with
Speaker 1: the more limited resources available in n Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: as as my wife pointed out, you really have to
Speaker 1: sort of look to films like um Barbarella or Flash
Speaker 1: Gordon defined like Western counterparts that kind of match it
Speaker 1: for just tremendous sets and outfits. Yeah, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: speak on Roger Robert's behalf. I think the changing to
Speaker 1: three stars was an error he meant to do for
Speaker 1: that was just a typo. I give it four stars
Speaker 1: as well. This is one of my new all time favorites.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to find it, like, what's what's the
Speaker 1: best like disk of this to own? Because I know
Speaker 1: I will be revisiting it time after time for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. Yeah, I'm gonna either have to
Speaker 1: buy it or rent it again. Because my son only
Speaker 1: watched the last thirty minutes and he was asking me
Speaker 1: this morning. He's like, what happened before uh, tell me
Speaker 1: about it. I'm like, well, we'll just have to watch
Speaker 1: it again. So yeah, you can. You can buy or
Speaker 1: rent this film digitally at various websites. We mentioned a
Speaker 1: couple already. Um, but eighty eight Films also has a
Speaker 1: wonderful looking blu ray out of the film that offers
Speaker 1: the restored uncut HD transfer and I believe that's what
Speaker 1: we were watching as well. Um, in digital form. They're
Speaker 1: also various international formats available out there. But again we
Speaker 1: gotta stress if you watch this film, watch it in
Speaker 1: the best visual quality possible. Uh, don't settle for a rip, agreed.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if you get the chance to
Speaker 1: see it on the big screen, go for it. Um,
Speaker 1: that would be amazing. Yeah. So anyway, Yeah, great film,
Speaker 1: highly recommended. Uh, you know, one of the one of
Speaker 1: the best we've watched on a Weirdolt Cinema here. Speaking
Speaker 1: of which, if you want to watch other episodes of
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema, well, um, I told you where there
Speaker 1: archived earlier, but you can catch new episodes every Friday
Speaker 1: in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We
Speaker 1: are primarily a science and culture and curiosity the podcast
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