Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Super Infra-Man

and alien It's Jeff, It's it's a real treat. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and for today's episode. Oh, I feel so excited it I'm I'm literally tingling. I I feel like we have unearthed a holy artifact that was I guess maybe known by many by many others before, but this was my first time seeing today's selection, and it has filled me with such light and hope and

goodwill and cheer. Uh. Today's selection is Inframan, also known as the Super Inframan, a nineteen seventy Hong Kong cinema extravaganza that truly must be seen to be believed. This movie has um. I was trying to think it has an ineffability about the experience of watching it, similar to a religious or psychedelic experiences. I think you can when you read the words of people who have seen this movie, they're trying to communicate something that just can't be said. Yeah, yeah,

this this movie is something special. And uh, and I had not seen it before either. I was, I think, barely familiar with it. I think my only real connection to this is that I knew that the Jonah ray Um and a comedian and actor, it was a big fan of this film. And I knew that there were elements there were these costumes. In the most recent Netflix seasons of Mystery Science Theater three thousand, it copied the

skeleton costumes from this movie. Uh, you know, I did kind of a riff on them, visual riff, but but that was it. Otherwise, this was all new to me, and I I mean, I'm I'm I'm glad I had not already seen it because I got to appreciate it a new This week I'm almost a little bit. It's one of those melancholy experiences that's so joyful, but it's also a little bit sad because you know you can never experience it for the first time again. But this is already a movie that I know I will watch

probably dozens more times in my life. It's a new all time favorite for me. Among the weird how cinema selections. I put it right up there with Robot Jock's Mad Love and the other the best of the best. So what is the deal with in for Man? I would say Inframan combines peak I popping B movie craftsmanship with this infectious, pleasing hyper drive of manic absurdity. I wish there were more movies like this. And I'm not being

ironic at all. I'm completely serious when I say that making a movie like this must require a certain kind of rare genius. Yeah. Absolutely, um. Oh, by the way, I should I should go and throw out Yeah this is some yeah, sometimes done as Inframan, the Superinframan, or the original Chinese title for this is Zone chall Rin or Chinese Superman. But yeah, this is uh. I feel like this movie is just an under the tree Christmas

Morning sort of treat. Uh. You can basically feel the plastic crinkling as you as you watch it for the first time. You know, you have to have to undo some twist ties to remove it from the packaging. Um, it's it's hard to imagine the sort of person who would not be won over by this movie. Doctor should prescribe In for Man as a treatment for painful diseases. Hospitals should have TVs that only show In for Man. You can only be so sad while watching in. It's true.

So apparently this was one movie, and as far as I know, it might be the only instance ever where the film critic Roger Ebert changed his original star rating years after his review for this movie. So when it came out, he wrote an absolutely glowing review. I mean, you read the words, it sounds like he's describing one of the greatest films he's ever seen, But he only gave it two point five stars. That you know, they

went on a four star scale. But then more than twenty years later, he apparently went back and changed his rating from two point five to three, citing the fact that in the twenty years since he had seen or more than twenty twenty something plus years since he had seen in for Man, there was probably not a single month that went by that he didn't at some point find himself thinking of it fondly. Uh. Though, I'm gonna confused why he didn't just go straight to four stars,

like what's holding you back at three? Because when you read his actual words, I think it's clear that he feels like we do, that he understands that the Inframan transcends just being a kind of a goofy zany movie and becomes a kind of genuine masterpiece. It is something to be cherished by the young and old and to be analyzed by generations of scholars and philosophers. No, absolutely, I mean I guess with with Ebert, you never know

exactly what you're gonna get. Like we've said before, I you know, sometimes you agree with other times you know you want to get a shouting match with him. But I feel like the same Roger Ebert who gave Blade to three and a half stars. Uh, and I totally agree with that rating. UM would considerately, you know, pumping it up to three and a half at least for for this movie. I don't know. I want to understand these mental constraints keeping it limited to three. I guess

some people are always trying to ice skate up hill good. Um, but no, no, I get you. Knowing systems are hard. I mean, how do you it's it's it's a tough job you give yourself if you're going to rate every film you ever watch. And uh and and you know you have some sort of numerical value system that can apply to films like Infra Man, but also to films like you know, The Great Gatsby or whatever. You know.

Uh so I realized it's complicated now. It should come as no surprise to anyone that psychotronic film chronicler Michael Weldon wrote highly of the Inframan movie. Um. He wrote, quote almost NonStop laughs and excitement, with some great special effects, lots of skulls, and a character reading a Dennis Wheatley occult novel. I don't think I noticed that detail, but that's good. Yeah, yeah, May May is reading it late

in the film. Okay, this is during the um largely non action oriented portion of the film in which the professor is researching things, which, incidentally, you know, this is about an hour into the film. And I've been loving it and I paused it because I had to do something else, and I was picking it back up at night when my my, my wife and son were home and I was like, Hey, you guys gotta come in here because this is this is great. Everybody's gonna love this.

And so they sit down and I push play and it's immediately researched scene and I was like, seriously, this is the this is the longest stretch in the movie in which there are no monsters. Reckily, they stayed with it. Uh. They ended up watching the rest of the film with me,

and they both agreed that it was excellent. I noticed a dynamic where maybe you felt the same thing, where when there were scenes of this movie that suddenly slowed down when there was a little bit of downtime, and there is not a lot of downtime in this movie, but when it arrives it is somehow hilarious. I think it's something about the change in pacing when it suddenly down shifts to characters just being still and quiet. For a moment, I couldn't stop laughing, and I wasn't sure

exactly what that was. It just feels like, oh, okay, now we're just watching them. Look at screens for a second. Yeah, And I think this is the time to drive home that this is a shob Brothers picture. Shot Brothers of course, the Hong Kong studio, uh, that noted for its many martial arts action films back in the day. So this is a this is a film that excels at motion. Uh, if nothing else, Like you know, going into a shot Brothers film that the stunts um and then the physical

action is going to be excellent. Uh. And with this film we just have a lot of other excellent things built on top of that framework. I noticed when I was watching this movie and and foolishly trying to take comprehensive notes on the plot, which quickly proved impossible. A word I just kept typing over and over was immediately And I think that fact by itself helps give you a sense of what Inframan is all about. I was trying to think of analogies to communicate the feeling of

this movie. And if this makes any sense to me, Inframan is almost kind of like an early Beatles song. It's like she Loves You. It's just tight and fast and instantly in the hook, and the catchy melody never stops Yeah, I think that's an adequate description. Um, it's it's it's worth noting for weird house cinema listeners that, Uh, this is our second Shot Brothers film that we've covered.

The first was nineteen seventies six is The Oily Maniac, which had one incredible monster, some cool black magic, but also a fair amount of sleeves. Uh. This film, however, is all monsters. It's comic book action and is appropriate for all ages. Um and yeah, and came out in seventy five, so this is the year before Oily Maniac and there's more than one connection to be made between the casts. So how would we even do the elevator pitch for this movie? The first sentence I typed was

just prepared to lose your mind. That's really good. When I was thinking on it, I was I thought, super Inframan is a buffet for the eyes and everything is desserted. That's very very true, very good. Um, So how to actually boil down the plot? I'll give it a shot. When a tyrannical which from a long lost Ice Age civilization named Princess Dragon Mom and then there's some alternate titles depending on translation, when she tries to destroy the

world with a team of fidgety mutant Hinchman. A brave young man named Rama must volunteer for a dangerous experimental surgery that will put a nuclear reactor in his body and transform him into Inframan, a near invincible armored hero with thunder fists, and only Inframan can save us. Now, yep, that's pretty accurate. But and yet it does not. It does not and cannot fully convey the visual feast that

is this film. Now, one thing that's interesting is that while I think this movie is more than the sum of its parts, it it comes together into this beautiful, transcendent whole. You can also quite clearly pick out a

lot of the genre inputs on it. I think we're not original and observing this, a lot of people have commented that a lot of the genre can ventions of this movie seem largely derived from certain popular especially Japanese film and TV genres from the decade before this came out, and so a couple of things to mention here would probably be the influence of the so called Henshion hero shows. Um to describe this for American audience as our age.

If you ever watched the Mighty morphin Power Rangers when you were a kid, and maybe you've got the feeling that is this part of a genre in some way? Does this uh you know these tropes feel kind of well worn, even though maybe I've never seen them before. Well, yes, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was indeed a sort of americanization of a long running Japanese TV show genre. Uh this this hingshion show, which henshion translates to something like transformation

or changing body. These were shows about a regular person who would transform into a hero, who usually wore a suit that had some kind of cool, will elaborate helmet. Not always, but they would change clothes in some interesting way, and so they might have a device or say a magic word and then they'd go through a morphine sequence like the Power Rangers did, and this would transform them into their their hero more where they would have superpowers.

So big examples of of popular hinging shows from Japan were Ultraman beginning in the mid sixties, and then there was a show called Caman Raiders that I think came a little bit later. Yeah, Ultraman. Of course, we we covered a tie up co production featuring Ultraman titled Hanuman Versus Seven Ultraman. So if you're interested in this type of film and you didn't hear that episode, go back

and listen to it. It's pretty fun. Now. This is a rich genre that's also had a huge impact on cartoons of especially the eighties and nineties, a lot of

things that would have been seeing outside of Japan. We're talking stuff like Sailor Moon, ThunderCats, Silverhawks, he Man Shira, of course Voltron, and in the world of animation, I'm to understand it was particularly useful because it allows you to reuse that transformation sequence in every episode and you know, as much of it as you needed to help you hit your desired um episode length, right, Yeah, so you could really pad that thing out with stuff that you

that you had shot, you know, years before. Very economical way to make a show, especially, I think when you're you're dealing with something like animation, where you know your it's your your cost per frame is pretty high. But while you can clearly recognize that the bones of a of a Hinsion influence in in Inframan himself, this movie has a lot of other inputs. There's so much going on, so it clearly has kaiju inputs because there are these

assortments of weird monsters that sometimes grow very large. Uh. It also has has strong martial arts movie influences. There's a lot of great kung fu scenes in it. And there is a subplot in the middle of it that feels like the movie suddenly shifts into an espionage thriller, like a brainwashing sleeper agent movie. And I loved that part. It'

that was absolutely a genius move. Because you have so much action and so much monster action going on, You've you've got to find You've gotta have a way to pad that out a little bit. You need something else in there, and the espionage mind washing a plot works fabulously. So you and I may have watched different versions of the movie. I think we saw the same thing on the screen, I think, but different versions of getting the

English translation. So while I often prefer subtitles to dubbing for foreign films, the dub track on the version of Inframan that I watched, which might be the only English dub, I'm not sure. At least the version I saw was absolutely sublime. The frantic line delivery and unusual word choices were perfect. They really add to the gleeful absurdity of the film and inject even more irresistible energy and pleasure into the viewing experience. Uh So, the version I saw,

I think was the main dub. Like it. It seems to be the dub that other reviewers have written about going back to the seventies, So I think it's the original one. And it was the dub that was present when I rented this movie from Google on on YouTube movies. So I would say watch this dub, but also make sure that if you do watch this movie, don't try to watch some low quality rip of this. This movie is gorgeous. It is a feast for the eyes, and

you really do need to see it in full high definition. Yeah. Absolutely. I watched it on Apple TV and UH and and I had had the choice via Apple TV as well, but to watch it in uh either dubbed or subtitles. I watched it in its entirety with the subtitles, though I did go back and watch some scenes with the

dub to get a taste of the dub. Because the thing about a Shab Brothers film from you know, from this era, is that the dub is kind of iconic, you know, um there's so there's something great about the

way they're dubbed. And I have to say, even though I enjoyed here ring the Chinese language and and uh and and getting the subtitle experience and feeling like I was getting something, you know, closer to the original viewing experience, there's so much action on the screen at times you feel like you I felt like I might have been cheating myself by focusing on the dialogue and translation rather than the kicks and lasers and tentacles that are happening

on the screen. Yeah. I would say, at least in my experience, the the burning fuse power of the English dub was definitely part of this art product. I would I would, I couldn't recommend this English dub enough. Yeah, I think the main there mainly There mainly two points

to be made of distinction between the two. One is that it's my understanding that the dub introduces some plot holes that are not there otherwise um and and so I found that when I was looking at scenes, for instance, if you do the I did the experiment where I put on uh, the subtitles and the dub at the same time to see to what extent they matched up, and there were parts of the film where they're just talking about different things entirely, other parts where, like, you know,

the tone is a little off, but essentially this is correct. Uh. The other areas the names of monsters, and you know, I take my monster names seriously, and um, I don't know. So some of the names I like better in the subtitles than in the dub For example, Princess Dragon mom uh. In the she her name in the subtitles is demon Princess Elzebub, which is also a little goofy, but I like it. I prefer it to dragon mom. Oh. What how can you knock Princess Dragon mom? How can I

mean like that? That feels so good coming out of my mouth. I just want to wander around the household day saying Princess Dragon mom Oh. And then there's a witch I as another one her female second in command or one of her female underlings, that has the monster hands with the eyeballs in the palm m. Guiermo del tour. You did not invent monsters with eyes in the palms of their hands. That is right here in nineteen seventy five in inframan so which I was or was she

called demon? Which I also or which demon? I sometimes I think so? And then. But but here's the other thing that that gets complicated with the names of these monsters. I noticed that in Michael Weldon's Ride Up he mentioned a few slightly different names for some of these monsters. So that leads me to think that perhaps there were different at least different subtitles at different points. I mean he, I mean this was a book from the nineteen eighties.

Who he is writing about this? So who knows? So I'm wondering just how many different names we have for these these monsters, counting the original language versions, the subtitles, the dubs, uh who who knows? Well? So in my dub which I was called she Demon, simple but effective. But but whatever you call her, she demon is divine. It's it's a very I hate to cite an internet meme, but it's a very we have no choice but to stand kind of situation. Like every moment she's on screen

is just like, damn, she demon is so cool? What religion is it that worships her? Can I join that? All right? Well, why don't we go ahead and get a taste of some audio here for this? I picked out what is an English language TV spot for this movie, which I particularly love because it has this vibe of of hey, everybody, go grab the kids. Inframan is about to kick skulls in the face. There's toad deathliest creatures

of the universe. Watch out because nothing can stop in from He's six million years beyond bionics, beyond beyond your wildest imagination, the ultimate adventure with the ultimate here all who should have excitement in promnce. Sadly you could only hear that, you could not see that. And again that is one of the things about Infaman. It must be seen to be experienced. All right, Let's talk about some of the people involved here. First of all, Yeah, like

we said, this is a Shaw Brothers studio film. This is a studio that operated from n through eleven and was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, making a significant impact not only in Chinese cinema, but internationally as well. The Shaws were Chinese film entrepreneurs. Three of the four Shaw brothers, Runji, run Me and Rundy, founded a film distribution company in nine operating out of Shanghai

and Singapore. Run Me and the or their youngest brother run run Shop operated the Singapore Bass which would become the Shaw Organization, before taking over the Hong Kong based sister company Shaw and Sons Limited. In nineteen fifty eight, a new company, Shaw Brothers was born. Run Me who produced this film Live nineteen o one through five and run Run lived in nineteen o seven through two thousand and fourteen. Man I love seeing that Shaw Brothers logo

at the beginning of a film. You see the hammered glass and and the it just it feels so good. It does you know you're you're in for some action. Um. And if anyone wants to hear more about Shaw Brothers, I believe we went into more detail in the Oily Maniac episode. And if you want to find that, UM, you can either dig around and stuff to blow your mind archives, or you can go to Samouda music dot com s E m U T A m U S I C that is UM. That's a blog, but I

maintain and I just list all the films there. So occasionally people right in and say, hey, where's a list of all the films we've done for we're how cinema. Well, that is where you can find it, all right. The director of Inframan was Shaan Hua who lived well. I's still alive as far as I know. Born ninety two, a cinematographer turned director, active from nineteen seventy four through nineteen two. His other works include nine eight one's Kung

Fu Zombie and nine eight one's Bloody Parrot. You know another one of my favorite weird house cinema. In fact, i's a multiple of my favorite weird house cinema movies we've done. We're directed by people who who were mainly cinematographers and then and then shifted to the director's chairs. Because mad love Carl Freund originally cinematographer and then directed the movie. Maybe that's because I guess you have a

cinematographer in charge. This is somebody who really understands film as as as a visual compositional medium that needs to be a moment to moment feast for the eyes. Yeah, that's true. I mean it makes you wonder about the other situations, you know, like writers turn directors, actors turned directors. You know, are these cases where musicians turn directors where you know, whatever they're their previous and prior UH focus was how to what extent does that end up? Becoming

a part of their film vision as well. A lot of what I love about this movie is the way it would just like pile one crazy image on top of another in in such rapid succession that I would be just my mouth is hanging open while I'm enjoying the look of one scene, and then it before I'm even done having that feeling, it cuts to something else

that also looks strange and amazing. Absolutely now. The writer on this film was Quality born nineteen thirty five, a one man screenplay machine with two hundred thirty three writing credits on IMDb, known for such writing for writing such Hong Kong action films as The thirty six Chamber of Shao Lyn from The Wesley's Mysterious File from two thousand and two and The Singing Killer from nineteen seventy, and he also acted on occasion, two hundred and thirty three

writing credits in a career of how many years. How many screenplays is that per year? Uh? Yeah, it was a lot. I think there's even Uh I don't think he's active anymore, but I think there was at least one recent film or one upcoming film that looked like maybe it was based on this uh Wesley's mysterious file thing that he had done earlier. Now onto the cast. Well, our lead here playing Raima uh slash Inframan is none other than Danny Lee born n Oh. Danny Lee is

just great. Oh yeah. People may remember he was the lead in The Oily Maniac as well, but he's probably better known for such films as The Killer, The Untold Story, The Eight Immortals, Restaurant and City on Fire, Um Hong Kong actor, film producer, screenwriter, director who, at least later in his career, they made a kind of specially out of playing cops. He played a lot of detectives and cops.

But this is early Danny Lee. I think, before he had even adopted that moniker uh when, in which case, you know he's in full like physical prime action hero leading man roles situation. At least in this movie, he's he's almost got that that el cento energy, somebody who just seems to like beam goodness and virtue out of his face. Yeah. I don't think Lee is active as an actor anymore, but he's still directing and producing, including the upcoming The Little Monk, which looks to be a

Shaolin action movie. About a child monk. So uh sounds good now. The professor in this film Professor Liu ying t or I think in your version is he Professor Chang? Yeah? Professor chey Um played by Sea Wang who lived nineteen thirty through two thousand and sixteen, another actor who was also in The Oily Maniac He who also was in Mafia Versus Ninja from five as well as John Woo's A Better Tomorrow from n six which starts chaw Yon fat.

He is also wonderful in this movie and really enhances the absurd pleasure of some scenes, like the scenes where he's describing uh to to Raima, the young man played by Danny Lee who becomes in for Man, describing to him the process he's going to have to go through to become in for Man and talking about how painful and dangerous it will be and all the stuff he's gonna do to his body, but delivering it in this wonderfully somber way. It's so good. Yes, Yeah, he's He's

really good. Has a lot of screen time. Alright. We mentioned Um Dragon Mom a k a demon Princess el Zebub, who is one of the most notable role of performances characters in this this film, Like when she hits the screen, you're like, wow, uh, this this film is something else. Yeah, every time she comes on screen, car alarms are going off outside your house. Is just like it is a kinetic impact. Yeah, well, I mean she is because she hits the screen and she's she's visually like the costuming,

you know, it is incredible. And then she's immediately ordering my monsters around and like using a magic whip, so you know, just commands everybody's attention. She has a Yeah, she's got a great whip, and she throws people into a bottomless pit which actually does have a bottom, and it is on fire, and she likes to tell people how many thousands of degrees it is that they will be burning when they reached the bottom. Oh yeah, it's

like three thousand, six thousand. It's it's very So. She is played by the actor Terry Lou And I don't have any you know, as far as I know, her birthday is unknown. This might be her most notable role, but she appeared in a number of horror and horror asque Hong Kong films during the nineties seventies, including the Oily Maniac from seventies six, And aside from the Oily Maniac connection, I think you can basically say the same thing for the other main female actors in this film.

That's Manzooyan who plays Maymae that's the professor's daughter, and Dana who plays demon Witch. I um that they were both actors who were mostly active just in the nineteen seventies and did a lot of roles in um sort of horror bloody films. Well, yeah, both Terry Lou and Dana are just fabulous in this. Every scene with them is just rocket fuel. You know. I forgot almost forgot to mention Bruce Lee is in this really well not noticed that not Bruce Lee with two ease, that's Bruce

Lee with one. That's Bruce Bruce LEI is kind of um uh So the actor Chin Lung Hong born nineteen fifty was not going by Bruce Ley yet um. But later after this film he apparently broke out as a Bruce Lee clone. So that was interesting. I'm not really familiar with any Bruce Lee clone movies, but when I looked at some of the cover art for them, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, he's going for it. He's just putting himself in Bruce

Lee mode, which trans more first phenomenon. Yeah, I mean you gotta be you know, you gotta have a certain amoun of fitness and um physical charisma to even aspire, uh to uh to be a knockoff Bruce Lee. So you know, kudos, and uh, I should just also mention that there basically I have a spot in the outline where I just put and the rest because this is a Shaw Brothers movie. This is a big martial arts

action movie. And this film features an extended cast of Shaw Brothers regulars who you might recognize if you watch these films and you go deeper into the filmography for

for inframan. Uh. The action in this film is great, and I have to say the monster suit acting is also just noticeably superb because we've mentioned films before, you know, where they have a monster suit and they just kind of just oh, we need to find somebody that's tall enough to wear this, or we need to find somebody who uh, you know, who can convince us that they they are the best person to walk like an ape um.

But with this film, I mean, you have the Shaw Brothers ensemble, so you have individuals who are highly trained and in pique physical CONDI shan that are that are true, you know, that excel at physical performance, and so it's therefore not surprising that each suit comes alive with its own crazy energy. Like Um, the plant monster that we encounter is not just standing there sweating in the suit. No, I mean, he's in constant motion and the tentacles are

constantly moving. And likewise, all the other monsters in this film, they all have some sort of unique physical energy that's going on that that that makes the thing come alive far more than it would be if it was just standing there. Oh yeah, I think I mentioned earlier that that that, uh, Princess Dragon Mom's hingemen are all quite fidgety,

but that in such a good way. Like every scene in in Princess Dragon Mom's ice layer below the Earth is fantastic, but they're they're made so wonderful because so you'll usually have the main action going on with Princess Dragon Mom, maybe like giving orders to a particular mutant or or talking with you know, discussing plans with Sheet demon Um, but then meanwhile in the background, the monsters are just kind of screwing around they'll be like moving.

And there's there's one monster that looks like a scaly thing with a cylindrical head and a giant mustache. He's got a you know, a crimson mustache monster that breathes fire. And he's never still. He's constantly just wobbling around with his arms flailing in the air. And that may sound simple, but once you watch it, you really what a superb touch.

It just makes everything in the scene more more electric. Yeah, for a movie that that needed or at least ended up with six different monster designs for this crew of monsters serving um els about not not counting the skeleton in which we'll get to in a bet um, but for to have a roster of six monsters, like, none of them are losers. They're all tremendous designs and they all they're all different from one another. Like we have the two robots that I think are sometimes called the

Ironfist robots. We have this hairy gentleman who I think is sometimes just called long haired monster that that looks like it's more inspired by like traditional Asian um ghost and monster motifs. We have My one of my two favorites is mutant drill who is this kind of weird golem looking monster kind of resembles the Oily Maniac to certain extent, but has like two metal attack hands, one of which is a devastating drill. Yeah, he's he's a dreadful bipedal frog with like a with like a claw

metal claw hand and a metal drill hand. And I actually didn't realize one of his hands was a drill until a good way is into the movie. There's just so much going on you can't catch it all. Yeah. Yeah, Um, there's spider Monster, who looks like a big, cool red spider, and then there's plant Monster, which I think is sometimes translated as an octopus monster, but he's clearly a plant.

His his powers, which he really gets to show off in this movie, are all based about like going into the ground and growing up out of the ground and then doing plant things. Oh, there's such a good scene where he attacks the Human Science space and uh so he's supposed to go there and destroy it and I

think kill Professor Chang or something. And he he like plants himself into the ground and turns into these rapidly growing vines that penetrate the walls and inframan has to defeat him by like X raying the vines to find where his heart is. Uh. And there's one part I absolutely loved because again it was one of these things where like the new ideas just keep piling on so fast. So he has just started attacking the base, and he's reaching his his vine tentacles in and and you know, grabbing,

grabbing the scientists and flinging them around. Um, and I think there's some kind of emergency, like they have to, uh, they have to reactivate the power or Infra Man will be killed during his surgery. And so they're they're frantically trying to do that while while the octopus vine monster is is gumming everything up with his arms. And then suddenly all these workers just bust in through a door

with circular saws and starts sawing vines. When that happened, I was like, I was just releasing gusts of of of crazy laughter. Oh my god, it's just so good. There were moments in this where and I guess it's just about the frantic pace of the action and just and also just how how well it's put together. There were moments where I thought, oh my goodness, the monsters might win, you know, like in the brief amount of time that you're actually able to think, uh during this film,

I mean, it's all happening. This movie is happening now. You know. There's not a lot of time for reflection. You're experiencing it, and therefore there were times where it's like, oh, my goodness, I think they got him. Come on and for Man, you know, yeah, it was it was really great. Now, we can't list everyone involved in the awesome look of this film, but I with I thought I would point out that Michio Mikami did the special effects on this film.

He's credited for special effects. Uh. Mccami worked on a few different films, one of which is an insane looking film called Goki body Snatcher from Hell from which seems to have space blobs and vampires in it, directed by Hajimi Sato. Um might have to come back to that one, but he also did special effects on a ninety eight film titled Message from Space. Oh okay, okay, so I see the connection. I mean, Message from Space is not nearly on the level of infor Man. I think the

informan is is in a class of its own. But I I see similarities. A lot of what was great about Message from Space was like these scenes just full of bizarre visual variety in the composition of the shot, where there's just all these different, strangely dressed characters in a beautifully decorated room simultaneously visually interesting and funny. Uh And and the same is true about this movie, but but even to a much greater extent. Yeah, and real

quick the music here. Young Chen is credited with the music on this one, but I understand that this picture reuses music from previous Shot Brothers production, so nothing about it particularly stood out to me. But it's fine, it's good. It's perfectly good music for this film. Well, there are moments where I thought that the music really added to the comedy. So for example, the uh, the music and the opening credit sequence. I mean, so the opening credit sequence,

it's kind of James Bondish in a way. It had a kind of uh, you know, psychic kaleidoscope. But then the music was almost kind of circus music, Like I was imagining that this was a vision that Hunter S. Thompson would be hallucinating while he's wandering around in the circus circus a sceno. Yeah, yeah, so much visual flare. And that's the the credits, the the parts of the movie where you see the schematics for Inframan are just beautiful.

Um Like I'm I'm always it always takes me out whenever a movie decides to like show you the pages of a of a like an evil book, or show you some artwork or something or another, or or you know, blueprints, and if they don't look right, if something feels off about them or rushed, it instantly takes me out. But these were beautiful. They look from there from another dimension. Okay, well, I guess we're getting towards the part we're in. A normal episode, we would we would break down the plot more.

I think it's just impossible to try to and and and and fruitless to try to explain the plot of Inframan scene by scene. I think it makes more sense for us to just talk about a few more sort of themes and highlights of the movie. Yes, but one thing where I do want to get in a little granular detail is is trying to explain the feel of the movie from the very first few scenes. So after the credits finish, uh, we go straight to a van

full of children, singing a merry song. It's driving along a mountain road and the kids are singing, and then just there is an immediate flying reptile attack. I love how fast this movie gets into it after the credits finished. I think there are literally about eight seconds before the

earth starts shaking and belching up monsters. Yeah, it's this fabulous scene to where like big big rubbery wing monster that looks great crashes onto like a a highway and then it instantly vanishes into thin air and then an earthquake just rips the earth apart. Yeah, so before you even understand what's going on, it's earthquake giant pterodactyl uh, like the the mutant dogs from Ghostbusters kind of thing.

I almost wonder if they were inspired by the look of the of Princess Dragon Mom in her monster form in this movie, because I know Dan Ackroyd is a fan of of great B movies, so that that may have been an influence there. I wouldn't. I wouldn't put

it past him. But then there's that, and then suddenly so the kids are out of the van and then the van gets sucked down into a ravine with the driver it's still in its screaming, bloody murder, and then you don't even have time to understand what's happening here, But then instantly you're seeing something else. A city is on fire, and everybody's running around screaming, what city is this?

I don't know where at T plus forty five seconds since the credits have finished, and there's just Mayhem and everybody running around and everything's on fire, and for some reason, the thing that struck only the funniest about this is that all the people carrying luggage while the fires are burning, and then uh, and then at about seventy seconds in or T plus seventy seconds after the credits, were also

onto something else. After the burning city, there's like a giant radio dish and a motorcade, and then we meet the professor and there's already a press gaggle shoving microphones in his face, and they want to know is it an attack another planet? What kind of monsters are they? And the Professor's having to push through them to to

get down to business. This, of course, is Professor Chang, and he goes into this place where everybody's wearing these uh it's like a science center, but everybody's wearing these shiny uniforms, whether they look like they're members of ABBA. Yeah. Even the professor's lab coat is speak silver and shiny. Yeah. Yeah. And and it was at this point where I was like, I have to stop trying to take comprehensive notes because the movie is just too much, too fast. And I'm

not like I was pausing it literally every couple of seconds. Yeah. I mean, if we if you were to make a note about every crazy cool thing you saw in this movie, or if we tried to talk about every crazy cool thing we saw in this movie, like we we'd never finish, you know, um, so many films. It's like if it has that one really weird thing you can focus on and and dwell on, you know, you can have a good time with it. But yeah, there's just so much in this film. It's it's it's it's just you know,

visual overload in the best sense. So obviously this movie is going to have a lot of action, a lot of monster fights, you know, a lot of martial arts fighting, but then also sort of gadget fighting with monsters. And I gotta say this was this was top notch fighting.

I am of the opinion, I know I've said this on this show before that a lot of times action in movies is actually is quite boring because I thinks some you know, subpar filmmakers think, well, uh, you know, you just got to like put some action in there, Like they think of action is just like a block of some run time that will liven things up because there's violence going on. But violence in itself is not exciting or interesting. If it's like dramatically static, there's gotta

be you know, drama to the action. There's there have to be changeups, there have to be interesting things happening during the fighting. Yeah, I mean, ultimately a choreograph fight needs to tell a story. And if you're film uh like style is a bunch of likes. I've seen films before where they have like truly some some great looking stunt work going on. But if you cut it in such a way that you can't follow it, there's no like,

there's no beats to it. Uh you know, there's there's no back and forth, like you can't really get into it. And so yeah, they the action in this film, you know, perhaps unsurprisingly given the Shop Brothers production of it, um, the action is excellent, Like every all the stunts are are tremendous. Um, everything feels real even with even though you have these, you know, at times ridiculous elements going on, like like flying, lethal kicks and exploding spears and uh

you know, fire breathing and laser beams. It's it's still has a very intense physicality to it. Oh yeah, and the and they know how to make the the action more exciting by not just having punching and kicking back and forth going on for a long time, like they keep changing it up with different tactics. Uh. And I was actually repeatedly impressed by the ways that Infaman came up with strategies for defeating the different monsters. Uh. So, for example, you've got the robots that shoot the spiky

balls out of their arms basically on slink ease. You know, they're they're slinky, retractable robots, And how he defeats them is by tangling up their slinkies. Genius, genius, I mean that that makes perfect sense. Actually, yeah, and that was after he tried to use lethal kick on them, which is this fabulous double footed flying kick that he says lethal kick while doing it. Um, he had used that successfully on a few of the other monsters and then

now it doesn't work. Now we have to go on to the next you know, it's just it's it's it's beautiful. So we mentioned earlier that I think we both really enjoyed the sudden shift where the movie goes from this big monsters sci fi action thing into an espionage movie for a few minutes where one of the human scientists is is kidnapped by by Princess Dragon Mom and they

take her down. They take him down to the base and she demon there points this giant gun at his head that like laser brainwashes him and we see a little animated screen read out of his brain. Uh. And then he has turned into a sleeper agent for Princess Dragon Mom with green eyes. Uh, Like his eyes glow green, and they send him back to like do spy work. He's trying to steal the plans for Inframan so that

Princess Dragon Mom will know exactly what his weaknesses. And that whole sequence was so cool, especially I like the way that this was a simple touch, but the way they show that he's different when his eyes are not glowing green and shooting lasers at people. When he's reinfiltrating the base where he worked. They just put a little bit of makeup under his eyes, like he's dark, you know, his the undersides of his eyes are darkened, so something

looks off about him. But everybody's just like, oh, hey, welcome back. Yeah. I really don't want to spoil too much. I mean, this is one that I hope, you know, hope everybody sees at some point, So I don't want to spoil too much about the little details of of each battle. But there are some great parts where where a monster suddenly decides to get huge, you know, to grow to two kaiju size and then um and then

Informan grows in turn. I didn't know he had that power, but he like sticks his fist up in the air and then he transforms into giant Infra man Um. And then the final battle down in the in the ice Palace of the Earth where Princess Dragon Mom lives is

also just wonderful. Yeah, and there's a there's a penultimate battle too on the surface that I really love because it's between Team Informan when in they're like Abba esque costumes and the skeleton army that's serving Princess ils above which we haven't really described completely, but there it's kind of like bicycle helmets with an actual skull face underneath it in horns and these cool exploding spears. They look amazing.

And this is like a big epic attle with I don't know, like at least twenty stunt man on the on the scene at one time, flying all over the place. Stuff is blowing up, and there's it's also just really well shot, like there's one terrific pan across the action. Uh. That is absolutely beautiful and conveys a sense of epic battle better than I think most epic battle films that

I've seen. Last thing I got to mention, I could not stop thinking about that shot where after the monsters go out and kidnap uh Professor Chang's daughter, and we just see them riding on a boat. Oh, it's so good, the power boats cutting through the water going back to the the Evil Island fortress and they're all just chilling on the boat. Yeah. It's like skull guy to one side of him, monster to the other. And as my my wife pointed out, she got to watch this part

and she loved it too. She's like, you also see the Professor do this kind of awkward necktie adjustment and he's like, it's windy out here on the water today. Yeah. Like I said, both my my wife and son were totally won over by this film. My son was a little hesitant to watch it. He was like, I said him the trailer and he's like, I don't know, it doesn't look like it has as much of a plot, which on one level, you know, that's a good read.

But but but then when foolish, well, he's really into the movie Shangshi that came out, the new Marvel film, which is in my opinion, excellent, and uh and he loved it too. It has you know, action and great characters and story. So you know, that's a that's a high bar to set for your your martial arts films. Uh So at first he was a little hesitant. At first, he was like, I would give this the martial arts in this film, I think a six um but I'm not sure out of how many I think he's using

a ten point scale, I'm not sure. But as it proceeded he was like, no, I take it back. This is this is great, this is so funny. I love it. So, yeah, it's a different kind of you make a big budget movie today, and there's obviously a lot you can do with lots of money and the technology you know, see

g I and all that. But I think I have even more respect for the kind of sheer creative force and genius that allows you to do so much with the more limited resources available in n Yeah, I think, as as my wife pointed out, you really have to sort of look to films like um Barbarella or Flash Gordon defined like Western counterparts that kind of match it for just tremendous sets and outfits. Yeah, so I'm gonna

speak on Roger Robert's behalf. I think the changing to three stars was an error he meant to do for that was just a typo. I give it four stars as well. This is one of my new all time favorites. I'm gonna have to find it, like, what's what's the best like disk of this to own? Because I know I will be revisiting it time after time for the rest of my life. Yeah, I'm gonna either have to buy it or rent it again. Because my son only watched the last thirty minutes and he was asking me

this morning. He's like, what happened before uh, tell me about it. I'm like, well, we'll just have to watch it again. So yeah, you can. You can buy or rent this film digitally at various websites. We mentioned a couple already. Um, but eighty eight Films also has a wonderful looking blu ray out of the film that offers the restored uncut HD transfer and I believe that's what we were watching as well. Um, in digital form. They're

also various international formats available out there. But again we gotta stress if you watch this film, watch it in the best visual quality possible. Uh, don't settle for a rip, agreed. I mean, I guess if you get the chance to see it on the big screen, go for it. Um, that would be amazing. Yeah. So anyway, Yeah, great film, highly recommended. Uh, you know, one of the one of

the best we've watched on a Weirdolt Cinema here. Speaking of which, if you want to watch other episodes of Weird House Cinema, well, um, I told you where there archived earlier, but you can catch new episodes every Friday in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We are primarily a science and culture and curiosity the podcast with Core episodes that come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have a short form artifact that comes out on Wednesdays.

We have listener mail on Monday's rerun on the weekend, but on Fridays, that's when we just set most of our serious concerns aside and just focus in on a weird film. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow

Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.