"Maybe the Japanese thought they were working in another medium...like fabric sculpture..."

lemon_magic

Under the Webster's dictionary definition of "train wreck", there is a picture of "Iron Sharp/Space Chief". And the third definition says, "3. An event which exerts upon the observer the appalling, morbid fascination of a movie such as "Invasion Of The Neptune Men.""

Well, not really. But this film is endlessly fascinating in its gormlessness. It's basically the same film as "Prince Of Space" - there's a willowy bachelor in a leotard, cape,and spastic head gear, who has fabulous secret technology and a humble secret civilian identity, and he saves Earth from invaders while irritating, screechy voiced children cheer his every move. The only real difference is that "Neptune Men" is even duller, cheaper, and less coherent, has six screeching children instead of two, and the aliens have even less charisma than the Chicken Men of Kran-kor. Oh, and Space Chief flies a rocket powered Chevy with fins instead of a Norelco Nose Hair Trimmer. And he never actually goes into space.

It also resembles 'Prince Of Space" in that someone obviously took several episodes of a goofy Japanese children's show,slammed them together and tried to pass the resulting structural mess as a 'movie' called "Invasion Of The Neptune Men."

Which brings up the question, "Exactly how many children's' TV shows about wispy bachelors in leotards and capes who singlehandedly defeat alien invasions did Japan MAKE in those days?" Are there even more abominations like that out there in obscurity, waiting to confound our gaijin sensibilities with their Nippon-osity?? One shudders to think of the horrors that await! Indeed, "Fugitive Alien" may only be an omen of things to come.

Oh wait, there is one other obvious difference in IOTNM: a plot device called the "electron barrier", a city sized force field that protects the Japanese cities from airborne attack. And the Japanese manage to also whip up some advanced surface-to-air missile systems. (Stuff that Japan wouldn't have been allowed to have under the terms of their surrender in WW II).And Space Chief spends the last 20 minutes of the movie shooting down Neptune ships in an endless dogfight. The parallels to the events of the air war over Japan in WW II are as plain on the noses that aren't on the Neptune Men's faces: Someone wanted to indulge themselves with a fantasy where the air war over Japan had a different outcome.

Anyway, this is really horrible. Made even more sloppily and carelessly than "Prince Of Space", it features several plot cul-de-sacs that desperately needed to be edited out of the final product, stock footage by the metric ton, and endless scenes of children in short pants running their lungs out to bombastic Russian Cossack music. They also shriek bizarre imprecations that defy any explanation other than, "Well, it must be a Japanese thing". Or maybe "Japanese Tourettes' Syndrome."

Also of 'interest': 90 percent of the budget for the show was apparently expended to create 10-15 seconds of special effects for the climactic air battle scene, and the movie loops this footage more times than I could easily count to pad out the film. I mean, I ran out of fingers trying to tally the number of times Space Chief shot down the same three ships!

On its own merits, the movie deserves a 'zero', but for sheer 'golden turkey' entertainment value and tracking the miscues, gaffes, misjudgments and unintentionally hilarious speeches...AND as an excuse to make fun of Japan, I bump it up to two stars.

score 2/10

lemon_magic 3 September 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1165607/