Buddha’s Palm (Part 1)

February 13, 2013ByTars Tarkas

Buddha’s Palm (Part 1)

aka 如來神掌(上集) aka The Young Swordsman Lung Kim-fei Part 1

1964HKMDB Link
Written by Sze-To On
Story by Shangguan Hong
Directed by Ling Yun

In Kung Fu Hustle, Bruce Leung’s The Beast character’s name translates to Dark God of the Fire Clouds. While that name is awesome in it’s own right, it’s also borrowed from Buddha’s Palm (and the pulp wuxia serials that Buddha’s Palm is based on.) That is an example of the lasting influence the Buddha’s Palm films have had on Hong Kong entertainment, particularly wuxia and martial arts cinema.

Though far far far from the first wuxia pian tale to be translated to the screen, the Buddha’s Palm series heavily influenced later films with the fantasy effects and memorable tales. Having seen about a dozen of the old black and white Cantonese wuxia films, I can say that the Buddha’s Palm series just feels bigger than the others. It’s like Star Wars compared to one of the cash in scifi flicks that finished out the 70s. Though some of the later wuxia films attempted to be as creative, they didn’t have the resources available to compete, and soon the whole deal was eclipsed by Shaw.

For some of this background information, I am handicapped by the lack of information in English about wuxia tales and their authors. So some of this is conjecture, and may be inaccurate. Feel free to drop some knowledge on me if things are wrong. That’s how we all learn.

The tale is largely taken from two sources – Taiwanese author Liu Canyang’s Heavenly Buddha Palm (天佛掌) and Cantonese author Shangguan Hong’s Thousand Buddhas’ Fist. The general plot seems borrowed from Liu’s tale, while the characters are from Shangguan Hong’s stories (and he is the name listed in the credits.) Thousand Buddhas’ Fist was serialized in Ming Pao Daily, which was the place to be a serialized wuxia tale. It was founded by Louis Cha Leung-yung, better known to wuxia story lovers as Jin Yong (the author of the Condor Trilogy) How much the movies’ “borrowing” from Liu was legitimate, I cannot say, as there do not seem to be translations of the stories available. Some of the original stories have been adapted into comic novels.

The Buddha’s Palm films work because they are a grand adventure. There are battles, but there are also a enormous amount of special effects. One of the memorable features are the hand-drawn effects as characters blast away at each other, or control rings and chains and beams that battle in the air. Art director Lo Ki-Ping was the man responsible for the look of the series and most of the hand-painted effects. He also designed the various monster costumes that help spice up Buddha’s Palm. While obviously men in suits, they have a level of B-movie appeal that lame CGI creatures will never match. The effects action enhances the choreography done by action director Simon Yuen Siu-Tin.

Series director Ling Yun went on to direct the three followups The Furious Buddha’s Palm (1965), Buddhist Spiritual Palm (1968), and Buddhist Spiritual Palm Returned (1968). The latter two feature a largely new cast. The Buddha’s Palm franchise was updated in 1982 with Shaw Brother’s Buddha’s Palm, and there has been at least two television series based on the stories. Kung Fu vs. Acrobatic was also a detailed love letter to this series and similar films. With the current trend of remaking everything, I would not be surprised if someone dusted off the Buddha’s Palm tales to bring back to the big screen.

The wonderful DVD set comes complete with no English subtitles. But here at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles! Some character names I used are taken from synopses that may or may not be a good translation. But that just adds to the fun!

	Lung Kim-fei (Walter Tso Tat-Wah) – A scarred loser largely abandoned and mocked by his former master and fellow martial arts students. Until one day he’s rescued and trained by Master Ku to learn the Buddha’s Palm technique! Now this zero has become a hero!
	Kau Yuk-wah (Yu So-Chau) – Kung fu sister who gets involved in the intrigue with Lung Kim-fei and his Master. She soon is also getting involved romantically with Lung Kim-fei. But first he has to save her and her sister a few times.
	Kau Yuk-kuen (Patricia Lam Fung) – Kau Yuk-wah’s younger sister who often does more brash and brave deeds, partially because she’s just a more do-it-yourself person and partially to help her sister.
	Master Ku Hon-wan (Ling Mung) – The Wicked God of Fiery Cloud who lives high in the mountains. Long ago, Master Ku slaughtered the heads of many martial arts schools during a sparring match, and has since lived in seclusion with his loyal servant, Condor. He was blinded in a duel with Suen Bik-ling long ago. Trains Lung Kim-fei in the Buddha’s Palm technique after Condor saves him.
	Condor (Man in suit) – Master Ku Hon-wan’s magic condor that you can ride and knows kung fu.
	But Ku (Ko Lo-Chuen) – The helmsman of the Cheung Lei Sect. Always announces himself via incredibly loud offscreen yelling. He teaches Lung the invincible Seven Spinning Gash after the two become friends via randomly encountering each other in the forest.
	Luk Yu (Kwan Hoi-San) – A guy who gets kidnapped a lot and Kau Yuk-kuen and Lung Kim-fei keeps saving. He’s not really introduced, he’s just suddenly a main character after Kau Yuk-kuen stumbles across the first of his many kidnappings.
	Suen Bik-ling (Yung Yuk-Yi) – Matriarch of the Kau’s clan and the grandmother to the sisters. Is called the Capricious Flying Ring. Was blinded in duel with Ku Hon-wan long ago. Wears a mask to hide her disfigured face. Is full of rage and thirst for vengeance.
	Auyeung Ho (Siu Chung-Kwan) – A jerk guy who bullies Lung. He’s married to the woman who scarred Lung’s face.
	Auyeung Ho’s wife (???) – Auyeung Ho’s wife, a kung fu student who scarred Lung’s face and then joins in on the mocking of him.

InBad, Movie Reviews

I Married a Monster From Outer Space

February 5, 2013ByTars Tarkas

I Married a Monster From Outer Space

1958
Written by Louis Vittes
Directed by Gene Fowler Jr.

All this fuss over Cabbage Patch Kids??

Holy cats, it’s Commander USA! And a chick who married a monster from outer space! Thus, this is a hybrid review because it is a Horror Host review! Not only are we watching I Married a Monster From Outer Space, a movie far far better than its ridiculous title suggests, but we’re watching it with the one and only Commander USA! Yes, that’s right, someone taped this episode of Commander USA’s Groovy Movies and now I possess a copy thanks to a world where people trade tapes of horror hosts like baseball cards. I do not own this film on the recent remastered DVD super mega collectors BluRay HD 3D edition, so don’t expect the film screencaps to look like DVD screenshots. In fact, don’t expect them to look pretty good at all. If you don’t like it, break out your own BluRay Commander USA rips. You can still tell what is going on with the screencaps and that is what counts.

In the grand tradition of TarsTarkas.NET over explaining everything, we’ll over-explain the film, but especially over-explain the Commander USA bumpers, because those are the flavor of this version. Before that, we’re going to do some analysis of I Married a Monster From Outer Space, because it just flows better that way, and lets the Commander USA parts stand on their own. Everyone should love Commander USA like he is their own father. In fact, this DNA test I have says Commander USA is your father. So you should pay attention to what goes on here.

Our skits have something to do with the film, huzzah!

Commander USA’s Groovy Movies premiered on January 5, 1985, and ran through 1989. Jim Hendricks is Commander USA (Soaring super hero! Legion of Decency – Retired) and the Commander lead us through a whole host of films over the years. Usually, wacky characters would wander in, tangentially related to the film. We also got regular features of Commander USA cooking some ridiculous snack or chatting with Lefty, who is a face drawn with cigar ash on Commander USA’s right hand. Commander USA would also read mail from his viewers, usually children, as well as crack jokes and complain about his ex-wife. It was all good fun. Commander USA details will be in BLUE FONT.

I Married a Monster From Outer Space is a thinking man’s scifi movie. Sure, there are monsters and possessions and people being blasted and people turning into goo, but it all means something. It is bigger than the box it is put in. The video box! Ha! Seriously, there are some underlying themes at work, some things that aren’t easily said in a straight-forward film, especially in the 1950s.

I’ll try to cover some of those themes. This is the type of film you could write a long dissertation about, and still not cover 1/10th of what was going on. Buried just beneath the surface in plain sight are so many things. Science Fiction has a long history of being used to make statements that go above the heads of whatever censors are causing problems at the time, both before this and afterwards (this concept was probably best used on The Twilight Zone and on Star Trek), and I Married a Monster From Outer Space is a wonderful addition to that history.

I Married a Monster From Outer Space is a gauntlet commentary of manhood. Rather, of those that don’t have the traditional stoic father manly 1950s manhood. There are issues of impotency and homosexuality, and a constant theme of marriage is death. The aliens are not just aliens from Earth, but aliens from that 1950s masculinity. The classic Father Knows Best archetypes, patriarchs of the family and emblems of unequaled respect. The father wears a shirt and tie at all hours, mom stays home, the children aren’t unruly, and no problems ever exist. But that reality was just as fictional in the 1950s as it is now.

We come from a planet that’s evolved beyond sharp images!

Most of the male characters of I Married a Monster From Outer Space treat marriage as equal to death. This would later gain more traction with darker comedies like Married With Children, but in the 1950s it seemed more fresher, a staple not done to death. From the opening sequence in the bar where the impending marriage of Bill is treated as a death sentence from his fellow married buddies, there is little joy in the film at all with regards to spouses, especially by the characters who are replaced by aliens. It is especially interesting that one of the few instanced of actual happiness – the birth of a child – is what exposes the real men from the impostors.

The women are contrasted as more emotional, Marge so blinded by love for her man she doesn’t immediately recognize that he’s acting off. On the wedding day itself, when the alien kidnapped Bill is late to his own nuptials. Marge is there, panicking, enduring the snipes of her mother and the useless bumbling of Bill’s friends, who got far drunker than good ol’ Bill ever did but managed to show up hours before Bill does. Bill arrives as the imposter Bill, slightly off and seemingly confused. Marge doesn’t even notice, relieved that he showed, young love blinding her to the danger brewing.

The best descriptive scene in the film for the aliens is when the alien is gazing longingly at the child’s doll in the store window. He then murders a human woman who witnesses him. The longing to save their species, the loss of what they can’t have and what the humans they are among seemingly hold over their heads.

The aliens and their emotionless ways, their killing of those who get in their way, threaten them, or who are defenseless animals (who can detect the aliens and attack) contrasts with what happens to their human hosts. The aliens begin to display enhanced versions of some of the feelings of their human hosts. Thus they act even more bizarre, instead of stoic, they become almost emotionally disturbed. Enhanced versions of emotions, which makes them stand out more as they have no real experience in quelling them and covering as humans. Fake Bill develops feelings for Marge. Fake Sam becomes almost a hedonist. The aliens’ inability to procreate is their entire reason for coming to Earth, to save their species. But they’re losing their own alienness in order to save what they were. The aliens are becoming aliens to themselves, as human emotions and failed reproductive attempts swirl in their heads.

It doesn’t matter, because the Earthlings want their humans back, want their men back. Marge wants her husband back, the husband the aliens took from her, the married life with a husband and kids in the suburbs she was robbed of. She’s not about to put up with an alien doppelganger no matter what feelings he may or may not be developing for her. It’s not her Bill.

The humans counter by gathering up men who have produced children, the doctor realizing this is the key fact distinguishing friend from foe. Together, these dads assault the alien ship. The scenes where the real men take down the aliens is graphic and brutal. Real men who fathered babies take down the fake men who can’t reproduce, hack it as 1950s men, or even have sex properly. This version of masculinity destroying the unmasculine. Even more odd, the humans would have failed, except when dogs are released and the aliens can’t deal with them. Man’s best friend saves real men. Lassie’s greatest legacy. Soon the real men are rescued and restored, and will soon get back to making human babies with their wives, assuming none of those wives die young from constantly being inseminated by radiated alien sperm.

Help! The Last Dragon’s here, and he’s got the glow!

There is an extra layer of confusion and identity crisis, though that’s more on my end. Many of the characters look similar, complete to the same style of dress and hair color. Add that the film is black and white and it becomes hard to distinguish which bland side character is which at times. Luckily there is enough flavor

Director Gene Fowler Jr. also directed I Was a Teenage Werewolf, was an editor on the classic Skatetown, U.S.A. and It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (which got him an Oscar nomination) among many other films. He won an Emmy for editing on The Blue Knight TV show, which I think was about Smurf Batman.

	Marge Bradley Farrell (Gloria Talbott) – Just your normal 1950s housewife who discovers the man she married isn’t the man she thought she married, and thus the plot is set in motion. Gloria Talbott had a long career as an actress, but is probably best known now for being a scream queen with roles in films like The Leech Woman, The Cyclops, and Daughter of Dr. Jekyll.
	Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon) – Man…or replaced Space Man? You make the call! Of course he’s replaced for most of the film, otherwise it wouldn’t live up to its title, the greatest sin of all… Tom Tryon later quit acting and became a novelist.
	Sam Benson (Alan Dexter) – Bill’s friend who enjoys being replaced by an alien, having sex with his non-alien wife, falling off of boats, and drowning in pure oxygen.
	Harry Phillips (Robert Ivers) – Bill’s friend who is replaced by aliens and somehow gets even more angry. He’s very very angry.
	Ted Hanks (Chuck Wassil) – This stud is 100% human man, and we know that because he can have a baby, proof he had sex…with a girl! Take that, aliens who are metaphors for all sorts of things. Besides that, Ted is a blank slate of uninteresting.
	Aliens (man in suit) – These dastardly aliens, coming here and sexing up our women with their alien alienness! It’s so alien! Go back to the Andromeda Constellation!

Wait a minute…Lefty is his right hand!

InBad, Movie Reviews

Dredd (Review)

January 20, 2013ByTars Tarkas

Dredd

2012
Written by Alex Garland
Based on characters created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
Directed by Pete Travis

If I hadn’t seen Eega, Dredd would be my favorite flick of 2012. Which not only surprised me, but surprised everyone who saw Dredd, from the small amount of people who saw it in theaters, to the increasingly loud amount of people just now discovering it on DVD. Dredd is awesome, a solid action vehicle that builds a believable world without drowning you in lots of back story.

It’s sad that I knew Dredd would fail at the box office before it was even released, the scars of Stallone’s Judge Dredd is still too fresh in the minds of the American public, a public that has zero knowledge of the comic inspiration. But Dredd is having a second life, bolstered by loud supporters and a shocked new audience that is keeping Dredd on the top of the rental and sales charts.

Dredd succeeds because of many reasons. By keeping the action largely confined to a single mega-block, it allows for saving on huge set costs and makes the action close and personal. The fighting becomes desperate as the characters are trapped. Dredd‘s score by Paul Leonard-Morgan is among my favorite scores, and is the first film album I’ve gotten in years. The operatic Slo-Mo segments based on a slowed down Justin Bieber song contrast wonderfully with the heavy-synth action tracks.

The integration of bullet-time 3D via the drug Slo-Mo is a creative way to put Matrix action into a film and make it feel natural, the first time since the Matrix movies where the slow-motion feels like it belongs and isn’t shoehorned in because some producer wanted to ape the Wachowskis.

Olivia Thirlby’s Anderson is not your typical female action sidekick. Though in training, she’s an equal partner. Even though at some point she’s taken prisoner, she doesn’t just sit back and wait for Dredd to rescue her. She’s in control, she rescues herself, and she even saves Dredd. Anderson stays in power while going through the minds of awful people who think awful things, getting what she wants while not leaving any marks (well, not marks you can see.) It’s an equality seldom seen in today’s action epics, and painfully missed. Even Rakie Ayola’s Chief Judge seems natural, she has a respect for Dredd as the best street judge, but also firmly gives him orders.

	Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) – The best judge in Mega-City One and a man who never needs backup. His pursuit of justice and punishment for those that break the law is his driving force and life. A lot of chin acting going on for Karl here.
	Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) – New judge on her first day for evaluation. Due to her psychic ability, has a special dispensation to become a judge despite failing her exams. A mutant who doesn’t wear a helmet so her abilities aren’t interfered with.
	Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) – Former bad girl gone badder, with a thing for ultra-violence. Brutally takes over Peach Trees with a pile of dead bodies and spend bullets.
	Kay (Wood Harris) – Drug pusher whose attempts to be cruel to his competition cause the Judges’ interest in Peach Trees and the eventual trouble that ensues when he’s captured.
	Clan Techie (Domhnall Gleeson) – He doesn’t even get a name, but this Seth Green on meth guy with bionic eyes is Ma-Ma’s best helper, realizing her control over the systems of Peach Trees all while narrowly avoiding her doing horrible harm to his body.

InBad, Movie Reviews

The Man From Nowhere

January 18, 2013ByTars Tarkas

The Man From Nowhere

aka 아저씨 aka Ajeossi

2010
Written and directed by Lee Jeong-beom

Korea embarks on a tale of kidnapping and revenge, as a former special ops officer hunts down the men who kidnapped his young neighbor, the only person left he has a connection with. The travel embarks on a quest through the Korean underworld, dealing with organ trafficking, child slave labor, drug dealing, and identity theft. In the grand Korean tradition, things are non-compromising, with a bleak and desperate situation getting increasingly both as time goes on.

The Man From Nowhere is a good film to throw on for everyone disappointed with Taken 2. It takes the similar style of the original Taken (and also Man on Fire) and ramps it up. Cha Tae-sik becomes mixed up not only in the kidnapping, but with a turf war between different gangsters and the police who are trying to take everyone down. While the police often get in the way, they realize quicker than the arrogant gangsters that Cha Tae-sik is someone more dangerous than he appears.

The fights become increasingly more awesome and brutal. At first, all you see is breaking windows and an unconscious goon. Then you begin to see Tae-sik beating up small numbers of people. By the end, there is one of the best knife fights I have ever seen in a movie, and Tae-sik becomes a savage force of nature carving his way through the criminal empire.

	Cha Tae-sik (Won Bin) – A former black ops officer who retired and runs a small pawn shop after the murder of his pregnant wife. Cha Tae-sik is withdrawn from society, his only real connection is So-mi, who practically inserts herself into his life due to her unfortunate home situation. When she’s kidnapped, Tae-sik stops at nothing to get her back.
	So-mi (Kim Sae-ron) – Young outcast child who spends her free time around neighbor Cha Tae-sik because she has no friends and an absentee parent. Her mother is a heroin addict whose theft of drugs sets off the whole kidnapping situation. So-mi longs to do nail art, but she is too poor to afford most of the supplies, resorting to stealing it.
	Man-seok (Kim Hee-won) – The de facto leader of a gang that includes his brother, they carve out their own criminal empire by double-crossing their former partners. Organizes all the horrible deeds done and sets up the bigger deals.
	Jong-seok (Kim Sung-oh) – The most arrogant of the two brothers, is often wearing flashy clothes and is more likely to try to make a big show of how awesome he is. Is involved in more of the day to day operations than his brother. Kim Sung-oh is also in She is on Duty.
	Ramrowan (Thanayong Wongtrakul) – Ramrowan is awesome, Western educated Thai gangster who is working for the Koreans for reasons unknown, who only speaks English for reasons unknown. He’s a great killer, cold and calculating, but has an honor code that is his and his alone instantly pics up that Cha Tae-sik is more than a simple pawn shop owner You get the feeling that Ramrowan could easily take over and be a boss, but he’d rather be an enforcer because he loves the job so much.

InBad, Movie Reviews

The Raid: Redemption

January 13, 2013ByTars Tarkas

The Raid: Redemption

aka Serbuan maut

2011
Written and directed by Gareth Evans

One man, one building, hundreds of potential opponents. A police raid gone wrong, way wrong, sets up The Raid: Redemption, as the cops are wasted, leaving only a few stragglers to be slowly picked off. There will be no rescue, no backup, thanks to layers of corruption so thick they have to make the sequel about them. But no one counted on Rama being the best fighter in the universe.

The Raid was hyped as the most actiony action film that ever actioned, and then it actions some more. Well, I don’t know about all that, but it was pretty actiony. The fighting is intense and hardhanded, and quickly devolves to hand to hand combat. As the surviving cops’ numbers shrink and they are slowly hunted, the tension mounts up, keeping pace with the action.

The biggest problem with The Raid is the lack of good character development. The rudimentary structures are there, but aside from falling into some templates, the characters aren’t that rounded out. Rama is the good cop and son because he just is. Andi says he was a disappointment and is better at being a criminal…because he says so. If anything, only Mad Dog and the corrupt Wahyu have any sort of build beyond their templates. And while we don’t really need everyone to be fully nuanced, it’s nice to have some depth occasionally.

But still, the fighting is furious, the action is intense, and The Raid is one martial arts film you will watch again.

	Rama (Iko Uwais) – Good cop and new member of the SWAT force enlisted to raid Tama’s building. Will do the right thing even if his supervisors disagree. Is also secretly searching for his brother Andi to take him back home.
	Andi (Donny Alamsyah) – Rama’s older brother, who was a disappointment to his father and ran off to become a criminal boss. Is one of Tama’s chief lieutenants and handles the business aspects of the operations. No one besides Andi and Rama knows they are related, because it could be bad for both of them.
	Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian) – Tama’s brutal enforcer who lives to fight and kill. Gets pleasure from ending the lives of others. Fiercely loyal to his boss. Both Andi and Mad Dog rightfully see each other as threats.
	Tama (Ray Sahetapy) – The big baddie who controls the entire building and runs his drug operations through the city from there. Ruthless and demanding of loyalty to him above all others. Is also deeply invested in the corrupt police force and knows more about what is going on that actual police.
	Jaka (Joe Taslim) – The Sergeant of the team that’s sent in to raid the building, he quickly realizes things are not what they seem and desperately tries to get as many of his men out alive as he can.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Yatterman

January 6, 2013ByTars Tarkas

Yatterman

aka ヤッターマン aka Yattāman

2009
Screenplay by Masashi Sogo
Story by Tatsuo Yoshida
Directed by Takashi Miike

It’s posin’ time!

Yatterman is a big pile of dumb fun. Based on a cartoon show from back in the day (back in the Japan day) of 1977. Smart people (or people who know how to quickly Google things) will know that Yatterman was the second show in the Time Bokan Series, which is a group of cartoons from Tatsunoko Productions. The cartoons evolve and feature similar groups of heroes and villains. Yatterman was the longest running series, and has even sported a revival cartoon in 2008.

Yatterman is about two super-heroes who fight a variety of monsters/giant robots that are the work of the Doronbo Gang, baddies attempting to get the pieces of the Skull Stone together to awful things will happen…and also the Doronbo Gang gets rich. The hero is the teenage son of a toy store owner who has modified his dad’s toys into weapons to fight evil, and does so with his girlfriend. Yes, the concept is nuts, and that’s why we love it.

Subtext? What’s that?

Genre fans of Takashi Miike might be disappointed that there is no slicing of nipples, piano wire, or transexuals firing darts from their vaginas. But then, if that’s still all you expect from Miike by now, you really need to get out more. This isn’t 2001, people. Miike brings his usual over-the-top exuberance to Yatterman, this time translating it into the cartoony style that fits perfectly with the universe.

The Yatterman world is a ridiculous one, but also full of whimsy and wonder. Evil villains scheme and build giant robot machines, but are easily defeated. Characters are both stereotypical archetypes but also complex and developed personalities underneath.

The extra Ds are for a double dose of Doronbo!

Like all the best films, the villains are a thousand times more interesting than the heroes. Lady Doronjo is the hot girl who is evil, yet also hopelessly in love with her biggest nemesis. Tonzura aspires to be a wrestling champion and barely seems evil, while Boyacky is that guy who’s leering at you the entire bus ride. He’s also a mechanical genius and hopelessly in love with Lady Doronjo.

The entire film is packed with sexual innuendo. By innuendo, I mean totally blatant. Giant robots have breasts or what looks suspiciously like a giant wang (and all of these things fire things out of them) and there is a disturbing scene involving robot ants. Yatterman is one big pervert’s paradise.

Throughout the film, The Doronbo Gang embarks in a series of scams to acquire a large amount of money to build their mechanical creations in order to battle the Yatterman squad. Their methods are often genius, and all three of them could easily find legitimate employment and make buckets full of money, but they love the freedom of being able to do whatever they want, and also the dream of getting even richer and more powerful.

This is the best movie ever.

Because this film is weirdtacular and strange, it must be thoroughly examined and gets a full scale breakdown. Yatterman style!

	Takada Gan/Gan-chan/Yatterman No. 1 (Sho Sakurai) – Takada Gan is the son of a toy store owner who builds his own mecha out of his father’s toys. Dresses up as Yatterman No. 1 to battle evil, and ropes his girlfriend along with him. Sho Sakurai is part of the male singing group Arashi
	Kaminari Ai/Ai-chan/Yatterman No. 2 (Saki Fukuda) – Gan-chan’s girlfriend who goes and plays Yatterman with him as Yatterman No. 2. Becomes rather jealous of Takada Gan as other women begin to show interest in him.
	Lady Doronjo (Kyoko Fukada) – Leader of the Doronbo Gang and sexy woman of desire of more than one main character. Wants to be rich, but also wants to settle down and get married. Leads her group’s search of the Skull Stones.
	Boyacky (Katsuhisa Namase) – Doronbo Gang member who wears a big nose with big rabbit teeth. He builds all the mecha for the group. Is also a gigantic perv, probably the biggest pervert on the planet. Katsuhisa Namase specializes in playing characters who wear comical wigs, which I didn’t know was a thing.
	Tonzura (Kendo Kobayashi) – Tough guy of the Doronbo Gang who wears a pig nose, because wearing animal noses are where it’s at these days. Dreams of becoming an amazing wrestler.

If you count all the skulls in this movie, you will unlock the secret number from the movie Pi!

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