Super Inframan

1975 Power Rangers predecessor

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An alien witch woman (I think) invades earth with an army of mutants. Only the bionically-engineered titular super hero can save the day!

This is pretty badass, and unlike a lot of movies with guys in rubber monster suits, terrible special effects, and an ultra-wacky plot, this gets better as it goes along. The final 40 minutes or so is a feast of kung-fu mayhem with these cool skeleton guys, sort of the Super Inframan-equivalent to Storm Troopers, and the rubber-costumed mutants. Mayhem! I'd say it all looks like a Power Rangers show made for adults, but it's very clearly been made for kids and therefore not different at all from the Power Rangers. And that should embarrass me, but I am going to unapologetically like this. It's not even going to be a guilty pleasure. I enjoyed the opening, pure 70's Shaw Brothers goofballery with Inframan doing backflips while some great white-bread game show funk plays. I was joyfully confused with the editing during an opening scene where a rubber Pterodactyl sort-of flaps onto the road and then abruptly disappears before a road crumbles, some people start yelling about getting kids off a bus, the bus falls off a cliff, and a miniature city explodes. The summoning of skeleton warriors and demons by the strangely-hot witchy woman? Badass. Just a hodgepodge of monsters! The creation of Inframan with some of the cutest little special effects you'll ever see, naturally in a cruci-pose to make him a Christ figure because Christ figures are apparently big in Japan. But anyway, he's prepared to die to save mankind, willing to risk it all to have cartoon circuitry put in his head and appendages. The first monster that attacks--a blog with a drill for a hand and, wait a minute. . .Is that Octaman? Only a more powerful Octaman that can sink into the ground and unleash tentacles and regenerate, making him nearly invincible. During this first attack on the laboratory, there's also a guy with a rather unfortunate hole in the crotch of his Lycra suit. Another thing I thought was funny during this attack scene--Super Inframan makes his appearance and everybody already knows his name. And he's awesome! He shoots lasers and fire, so I'm not even sure why he ever bothers to kick and punch the bad guys. I guess because it's a Shaw Brothers movie. Lots of creativity at play here. There's another hot little number, another alien witch, with eyeballs in her palms like that guy in Pan's Labyrinth. The characters also morph into a giant form at one point, another thing that it has in common with the Power Rangers. And keep in mind, this is all before the movie really gets to its best parts. Later, you get lethal kick explosions, a character who I named Handlebar Mustache Viking Lizard, robots with spikyball hands and spring-loaded heads, and some really awesome sets, like something straight out of the Batman television show. It's terrific dorky fun!

My ankle hurts, and I am sad.