Super
Inframan
(aka Infra-Man/1975/Region
3, NTSC Format)
Picture:
B- Sound: C Extras: C+ Film: B
PLEASE
NOTE:
Though discontinued, this is a DVD that can only be operated on
machines capable of playing back DVDs set for Region 3 and the NTSC
format, but it has been upgraded to Blu-ray with two versions on the
same disc. Now, both versions of the film have been nicely restored
for Blu-ray and you can read more about it among all the films in the
ShawScope:
Volume Four
Box Set at this link:
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16732/ShawScope,+Volume+Four+(1975+-+1983/with+Super
Now
for the older DVD review...
Some
films are so unbelievable, you have to see them to believe they ever
got made. This is particularly true for certain genre works. By
1975, with the first Star
Wars
two years away, the superhero genre was in another golden period.
Besides toys going like crazy and TV shows doing well, spoofs of the
genre and characters were in swing as a reaction to Vietnam. The
Shaw Brothers, so well known for their martial arts films and the
occasional cult genre work, went into obscurity when Hollywood went
back into the full swing of effects-driven blockbusters. New
interest in their work has surfaced thanks to Quentin Tarantino, but
not enough people have heard of one of their best films. Hua Shan's
Super
Inframan
(issued as simply Infra-Man
in the United States) took on everything happening in character
action in 1975.
Beginning
with sending up the very popular Ultraman,
then Superman (the 'S' was actually used in original promotions
outside the U.S.!) as a representative of all the great serious comic
hero characters, the film and its screenplay by I Kuang knows no
boundaries or limits. This is why this film has such a strong
following. But the creators did not stop there. They wanted to also
make their hero a martial arts kickin', spinnin' and body flippin'
version of then megahit The
Six Million Dollar Man,
the monsters were demented martial arts versions of the human-sized
characters from many a Sid & Marty Krofft TV series and the
military science groups are in the proud tradition of Destroy
All Monsters.
This is more than a mere pastiche, it is a non-stop romp that shows
a true love of all these great aspects of pop culture genres of the
time and brings them together into something very unexpected and
unforgettable. Our heroes' powers even come from the sun like that
famous Kryptonian we all know and love.
The
villain is Princess Elzibub (Princess Dragon Mom in the dubbed U.S.
version, for those who might remember) who has a skeleton army that
looks like something out of Michel Gondry's classic Music Video for
Daft Punk's great hit Around The World and a variety of other
supernatural creatures at her command. She wants to take over the
world. There is also an unspoken but very real conflict going on
here between the supernatural as evil gone wrong and technology as
the savior of this literally Satanic evil. The dichotomy is much
more pronounced in the film than those critics who wrote it off as
''kid's stuff'' and the ''Dragon Mom'' moniker in the U.S. version
negates this point a bit. This actually gets darker than you would
think in the climax, considering the context, which makes it all the
more fascination. Our hero is played by Danny Lee, best known
internationally years later as the main police officer in John Woo's
The
Killer.
He excels in this role and makes it all the more believable, being
''formatted'' to become the title character just in time for the
first attack.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is beautifully restored and
makes the film look terrific here, as shot by cinematography by
Tadashi Nishimoto, under the name Lan-Shan Ho. It may be dubbed
ShawScope, but it was shot very well with real anamorphic Panavision
lenses and holds up remarkably as a result. The color is often
stunning, even when the more dated effects kick in. There is a
sequence the hero grows into a Godzilla size to battle a monster of
equal size and threat. This forced perception work holds up
shockingly well. Video Red holds up particularly good, likely in
part due to PAL being better than NTSC in this respect. The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is here in Mandarin and Cantonese, bit both
are a bit smaller-sounding than I would have liked, but I am
ever-amused by the use (and abuse) of sound effects from Stanley
Kubrick's 2001:
A Space Odyssey
(1968) as if that made it more ''scientific'' or something. Fans in
the U.S. will be disappointed the gloriously corny English dub is
sadly not included, but watching the film in a more straightforward
way gave me a new appreciation of how good it really is beyond just
the fun aspects. Some great English subtitles are included, but they
did not to subtitle all our heroes' trick weapons, though maybe
putting them in brackets would have helped. This version is the Hong
Kong 84 minutes cut, though the U.S. version runs 92 minutes.
Extras
include a stills gallery, the original Hong Kong release poster, a
text frame dubbed 'production notes,' bios on the director & two
male leads, and trailers for this and four other feature films from
the Celestial DVD catalog including Star
Wars
spoof Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star
and Shaw Brothers' classic The
Mighty Peking Man
(reviewed elsewhere on this site in its restored release.) With the
likes of the lame Power Rangers and other wrestling-as-superhero
franchises amok today, none of them would have been possible without
Super
Inframan.
This never became a franchise and is a great stand-alone work that
is a must-see for genre lovers. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert loved
this film and you should see why.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
