Attack from Space
Entry updated 27 March 2023. Tagged: Film.
Japanese/US film (1965). Shintoho. Directed by Teruo Ishii. Written by Ichiro Miyagawa. Cast includes Hiroshi Hayashi and Ken Utsui. 75 minutes. Black and white.
Compiled from episodes 5 and 6 of the Japanese Super Giant film series (see Tokusatsu): The Artificial Satellite and the Destruction of Humanity (1957; 39 minutes; original title Sūpā Jaiantsu – Jinkō Eisei to Jinrui no Hametsu) and The Spaceship and the Clash of the Artificial Satellite (1958; 39 minutes; original title Sūpā Jaiantsu – Uchūtei to Jinkō Eisei no Gekitotsu). They form a two-part story that was edited and dubbed by Walter Manley Enterprises into Attack from Space for American television. The Superman-like hero Super Giant was renamed Star Man; the other US television films made from the series were Atomic Rulers (1965), Invaders from Space (1965) and Evil Brain from Outer Space (1966).
"From the distant Sapphire galaxy a ferocious set of creatures [see Aliens] have set out to conquer our universe – beginning with the planet Earth"; the High Council of the Emerald planet view the Sapphirean's ambitions with alarm, so send Star Man (Utsui) to Earth to defeat them.
Earth's space research is being sabotaged by a Sapphirean agents (and some traitors); this includes kidnapping and brainwashing Dr Yamanaka (Hayashi), the Scientist in charge of building a Spaceship. They want his superior engine design for their own spaceship, to return them to the Sapphirean nuclear-weapon filled space station that is orbiting our planet: however, Star Man arrives, thrashes the crew then blows up the space station – only to discover there is another, larger one nearby. The now upgraded Sapphirean space ship leaves Earth to join this space station, but not before luring Star Man towards "the death star" (which looks like a volcanic planet) in the hope the heat will kill him. It does not: nor do the rockets they fire at him.
On the space station Dr Yamanaka is forced to design new universe-conquering warships for the Sapphireans, who now demand that Earth surrender or die, blowing up the Himalayas to show they mean business and then – when no surrender is forthcoming – destroying parts of New York, London and Tokyo. Dr Yamanaka's children and a young scientist had also been brought onto the space station: when the brainwashing wears off they plot to sabotage the space station's control room, board the spaceship with Dr Yamanaka, then destroy the space station with it. On the verge of success they are captured, but Star Man frees them by beating up scores of Sapphirean troops in an extended fight scene, stopping occasionally to laugh, so allowing the spaceship to depart and destroy the space station. [SP]
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