Galaxy Lords (Review)
Galaxy Lords
2018
Written by Dan Underhill and Von Bilka
Directed by Von Bilka
Galaxy Lords is pure cinema. Galaxy Lords is great fun and a galactic adventure in the stars. A group of friends went and made one of the best movies to pop into 2018 and I loved every second of it. From the Champions of the Cosmos having a starship battle with the villainous Adorastius and his now super powered ship to Commander Helios having a duel with enemy goons on airsleds that are clearly treadmills spray-painted red to Wranthelon flying through the cosmos as a rainbow-trailing star that was just waiting for “The More You Know” to appear on screen, the whole thing is amazing from start to finish.
In the far far future, the galaxy has yet to recover from galactic war. But their brief period of peace comes to an abrupt end when Adorastius (Von Bilka), the last of a band of warlords, is busted out of Space Jail Gargantuan by a cool cardboard robot who laser blasts many of the guards into puddles of red goo! Only Commander Helios (Dan Underhill), the hero who brought the villains down last time can save the day, but he’s retired and in self-imposed exile as a simple farmer, trying to forget the horrors of war. But the same horrors are also why he can’t forget, and why he can’t sit idly by while the galaxy his friends died to protect burns again.
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Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: cool robots, Dan Underhill, Jim Povolo, Jon Raila, Von Bilka, Zachary Hart Baker
Cazadores de Espías (Review)
Cazadores de Espías
aka Spy Hunter
1969
Story by Adolfo Torres Portillo
Screenplay by Rafael Baledón
Directed by Rafael Baledón
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Still more exciting than whenever Mantaur wrestled!
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In 1969, Mexico had noticed the whole secret agents thing has gotten a little ridiculous and thus ripe for parody. Enter Cazadores de Espías, a comedic film filled with secret agents, double crosses, identical twins, a carnivorous plant, a masked villain, a seductive villainess, a luchador, a mad scientist, and even a robot. There is plenty of goofy action across the board, lending Cazadores de Espías the power to potentially be something bigger than it is. Unfortunately, there is no subtitled version at all, and the first half of the film leans heavily on verbal jokes, leaving people like me to be forced to lean on their rusty Spanish. At TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles, but they probably would have come in handy here! Despite the lack of clear understanding of a few plot points, the general gist was easy to get, and no one needs subtitles when a robot is running around! Cazadores de Espías is fun, but thanks to the language veil it isn’t as fun as it should have been.
Cazadores de Espías was filmed around the same time as Muñecas Peligrosas and Con Licencia Para Matar, which is pretty obvious. It features familiar sets and cast members, and all are directed by Rafael Baledón (though this time the original story is by Adolfo Torres Portillo). The sets usually used at the villain’s lair is now a hotel, a control room is now a villain lair, and the familiar nightclub returns, though there is now a big wrestling ring in part of it. The goons of the mysterious Mr. X were big X’s on their uniforms (instead of G’s or K’s!) Mexican villains are all sponsored by the same letters that sponsor Sesame Street!
As the film is rather obscure, please enjoy the longer film synopsis review. But as the film is hard to follow at parts, please forgive any errors that creep in due to confusion or language barriers. As usual, I blame those nefarious Spider Gnomes of Jupiter, who cause me no end of troubles. I will defeat you one day, Spider Gnomes of Jupiter! Fans of random Mexican song interludes will enjoy the performances by Los Rockyn Devil’s, The Shadow of the Beast, Manolo Muñoz, Rubin “Penjamo” Mendez, and Jose Antonio Zevala. Non-fans will find a convenient time to go to the bathroom. Now on with the show!
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Adolfo Torres Portillo, Carlos East, cool robots, Eleazar García "Chelelo", Héctor Andremar, Julián de Meriche, Leonorilda Ochoa, luchadores, Maura Monti, Mexico, Nathanael "Frankenstein" León, plants eating dudes, Rafael Baledón, Spies, We don't need no stinking subtitles
La Nave de los Monstruos (Review)
La Nave de los Monstruos
aka The Ship of Monsters
1960
Story by José María Fernández Unsáin
Adapted by Alfredo Varela
Directed by Rogelio A. González
An amazing adventure, La Nave de los Monstruos – aka The Ship of Monsters – is essential global pop cinema viewing, not simply just essential Mexican pop cinema viewing. A purely entertaining spectacle of space ladies who desperately need to replace the missing men from their civilization, thus are quested to scour the galaxy to find suitable males. But despite collected a rogues gallery of interesting monsters, nothing prepares them for the human male and his singing cowboy ways. Those who haven’t seen the film are now confused, not realizing the singing cowboy is presented as the irresistible bit of manliness that the rest of the galaxy is missing. In addition, he introduces the concept of love, which causes jealously and the best case of surprise space vampirism I’ve ever seen in a movie.
The introduction to love concepts aren’t why everyone loves this film, it’s just the gravy on top. The real reason for the season is the amazing monster costumes! We got a crosscut of 1950s man in suit monsters, including a boxy robot. The costumes themselves are spectacular, some having appeared in Mexican cinema before, and a few that will show up again almost a decade later.
The Ship of Monsters takes more than just some of the monster designs from American science fiction films, there is a constant mention of radiation and atomic throughout the movie. The men from the planet Venus all died due to atomic sickness, everyone on Tor’s homeworld died due to nuclear radiation, and Zok’s planet had a radioactive disaster that rendered his entire species nothing but walking talking skeletons. While Mexico wasn’t a direct participant in the Cold War, it does lie in close enough proximity to the US that had any sort of nuclear exchange happened, it would suffer dire consequences as well. So the thought must have been on their minds. Mexico didn’t suffer from weapons being used on it like Japan, so their response in film is more a warning of the possibilities, not a reflection of the destruction of war and atomic horror returned in monstrous form.
The joy of the monsters on the rampage propels The Ship of Monsters into amazing land, and you should track down a copy as soon as you can. Unfortunately, it only seems to be released as part of double DVDs. Where the heck is Criterion? Get on it, cinephiles! This is movie magic, so break out your wands and Wingardium Leviosa a copy to your player.

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As all the men on Planet Venus have died due to radiation sickness, the interplanetary fleet is sent out to collect men. During a montage as the credits roll, Gamma and Beta’s ship picks up what is dubbed in the credits as Los Monstruos de las Galaxias:
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It’s another Republican primary debate!
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Flying Saucers Over Istanbul (Review)
Flying Saucers Over Istanbul
aka Uçan Daireler Istanbulda
1955
Written and directed by Orhan Erçin
Alien space women come to Earth to search for (what else) manly men as all of theirs are dead. So of course they head to Turkey, the manliest country in the galaxy. But the only men the space women meet in Flying Saucers Over Istanbul (Uçan daireler Istanbulda) are two greedy idiots who proceed to try to sell alien secrets to get rich in schemes that might have played well in 1955 Turkey, but now are just annoying. Perhaps they didn’t play too well in 1955 Turkey, as the film reportedly did not fare well at the box office.
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Rosie returns for revenge on the Jetsons!
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Flying Saucers Over Istanbul was one of those films that was lost in the quagmire of Turkish vaults, even thought possibly lost until a rather nice looking print surfaced relatively recently. If you can only view Turkish films that have been scratched to the point where they are barely watchable, you might be disappointed this is too clean. I think it’s just right, there needs to be some grit and fadedness on the prints, but digitally remastered Turkish pop cinema would destroy the entire aesthetic.
The attraction to Flying Saucers Over Istanbul is the effects. Hubcaps suspended by fishing wire with sparklers going off are our Flying Saucers. The space women have their own female robot, who is little more than plywood with light bulb attachments. Sadly the space stuff occupies maybe a quarter at most of the running time.
Do you enjoy belly dancing? Do you enjoy two jokers attempting to sell space miracle potions to rich old women? Do you enjoy a guy carrying a gigantic obviously fake camera? Because those are the themes of the majority of Flying Saucers Over Istanbul! Never fear, they throw in a fake Marilyn Monroe to distract everyone.
As you’ve probably guessed from my whining, the non-space stuff isn’t what I call entertaining. There is an attempted theme of loneliness among women, the Earth women who run a Lonely Hearts Nightclub that’s desperate to attract male guests for their clients to hit on contrast with the invading Space Women from Planet Merih, who kidnap men forcibly to replace their now dead males. But that’s about all the contrast the two sides get, their methods are wholly different (kidnapping vs coercion) and their looks are totally different(the Earth women are old, the space women look young). In the end, neither side really achieves success in their goal.
Director/writer/star Orhan Erçin directed only one more film right after this in 1955 (the comedy Çeto Sihirbaz, featuring either a magician or a wizard depending on your translation), then did not direct again until two films in 1987! He later died in 1993, on his birthday. He has unfairly been compared to Ed Wood since this film has resurfaced. Flying Saucers Over Istanbul is a comedy, and much of the camp was intentional. Still, it’s not very good.
The fake Marilyn Monroe was played by Mirella Monro, whose name implies she made a living impersonating the American star. This is her only listed role, and she died in 1968. I was unable to find any more information on her, as every link was just cast listing for this film.
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: cool robots, Deniz Tanyeli, Orhan Erçin, Özcan Tekgül, Türkan Şamil, Turkey, Zafer Önen
Robotstar Jjanga (Review)
Robotstar Jjanga
aka 로보트 스타 짱가 aka Roboteu seuta Jjang-ga
1988
Written and directed by Kim Yeong-han
NOOOOooOOOoooOOooOOOOoooOOO!!!! It’s more awful Korean Children’s cinema! Why do I watch this? Okay, someone requested Robotstar Jjanga, and it’s also the first part of a film series that eventually featured a Korean Batman. But in this prequel, the actor who goes on to be Batman (or Betaman) is an awkward teen who wets the bed. The Dark Knight Returns was never so gritty….wait, I think Batman did wet his pants in some story….
As usual with Korean Children’s movies, the main event is a “funny” fat guy who acts like a giant baby man. He turns out to also be an intergalactic hero who lives on Earth in disguise (and unaware of who he is) until he’s called back to duty, at which point everyone becomes cartoons and character designs are stolen from The Transformers. Hey, this might be the only chance you will ever get to see toy accurate Reflector menace humans! The flying space carrier Fortress Maximus has been used by Transformers canon (a fact I learned thanks to the Transformers Wiki) so that’s not as unique as it seemed. As someone who had the Reflector toy as a lad, it was sort of fun watching him stomp around before he was defeated by a fat guy and an annoying robot. My toy would never suffer such indignity!
Said fat guy is named Dung-dung (I’ve found a few names for characters who went nameless back when I reviewed the sequel), and he enjoys chewing gum and stealing food. He lives with a scientist and his misfit family, which consists of bratty children and a grown daughter named Su-Ji. There is also a robot (a guy in suit robot!) named Robokong, who is tolerable only because Dung-dung is so intolerable. Giving and taking, that’s what Korean children’s cinema does. You give your time and it takes your life…
As usual for obscure gems like these, the synopsis portion of Robotstar Jjanga is much larger, to better accommodate people who don’t want to sift through terribly designed Korean blogs to find the streaming videos of these old school films dubbed from VHS tapes. I really, really hate Naver. Hate. Hate Naver. HATE! But not as much as I hate Dung-dung.
Robotstar Jjanga is written and directed by Kim Yeong-han, the very same maniac who brought us Super Batman & Mazinger V and Hwarang-V Trio! Clearly Kim Yeong-han is a cinematic monster who needs to answer to his crimes. But unfortunately anyone who goes up against him will be forced to turn into a cartoon character and battle giant robots. This is sadly becoming a trend among terrible directors, protected by guardian robots in the realm of animation. Time to bring back Judge Doom so we can get enough Dip to save cinema!

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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: cool robots, creepy childrens film, Kim Hyeong-gon, Kim Yeong-han, Korea, Korean Kids Movies, Lee Seong-min