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InTelevision Reviews

Zone Fighter Episode 01 – Kyoujuu Misairu Bakuhase-yo!

April 3, 2011By

Zone Fighter Episode 01 – Kyoujuu Misairu Bakuhase-yo!

aka Destroy the Terror-Beast Missile!

1973

Written and Directed by Jun Fukuda

Zone Fighter is probably Toho’s most famous tokusatsu series from the early years, largely due to the fact various Godzillaverse monsters showed up. And we’re gonna review episodes of Zone Fighter for March of Godzilla 2011, and probably beyond after that, as there are 26 episodes, so expect long breaks until we get back to the series. Heck, we’ve been stuck with only the first six episodes of Ultra Q for years, but lately that’s due to the disks being in storage for over two years.

Zone Fighter follows the standard Ultraman format, except with a family setting instead of the Science Patrol. Each week, Zone Fighter fights a new monster (sometimes two, and occasional a whole crop of them, who will be returning monsters in order to get the most use out of the suits.) Every once in a while, Godzilla will show up and help out Zone Fighter. Why Godzilla helps Zone Fighter is not really explained except that Godzilla is a Monster of Justice or some crap. Basically, Godzilla at this point was the kid friendly defender of Earth Godzilla who was palling around with Jet Jaguar beating up Megalon and Gigan, so the Official TarsTarkas.NET theory is that Godzilla has aged enough he’s beginning to suffer from dementia, and thinks that Zone Fighter is his pal Jet Jaguar. Godzilla living in a cave and brutally murdering monsters is more proof that he is now a few cards short of a full deck. But Godzilla won’t be around until episode 4, so for now you have to suffer with a few Godzilla-free episodes.

For more information on Zone Fighter, please see the Zone Fighter splash page, detailing the actors, monsters, and gadgets that will pop up in the various episodes. It also saves me time relisting the cast every episode.

As in the beginning of ever episode, a narrator explains to us the secret history of the Zone Family, Who their home planet of Peaceland was destroyed by the evil Garogas, the Zones subsequent flight to Earth, their hiding out under the name Sakimori, and the Garogas following them and now Earth is in peril. Thanks a lot, Zones!

Godzilla’s roar is heard in the first segment, showing he’s meant to be an integral part of the show from the beginning. Or they just used a stock monster sound effect to represent the monsters.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Destroy All Monsters (Review)

March 18, 2011By

Destroy All Monsters

aka Attack of the Marching Monsters aka Kaiju soshingeki

1968

Directed by Ishiro Honda

Godzilla before that first morning coffee.

When I was but a wee lad first learning about the Godzilla experience, catching Super Scary Saturday showings of G-flicks, buying Godzilla films on VHS that weren’t showing up on tv, recording films airing on the local UHF station, I was also reading up on every monster movie related book I could read. My favorites were by a guy named Daniel Cohen*, who wrote such books as Super-Monsters and Science Fiction’s Greatest Monsters, well-read copies of which still lie somewhere in my mom’s attic. There was also another set of books at the library that were neon orange with a book each for Dracula, the Mummy, King Kong, Godzilla, and a few other monsters. The thing was, every library in the area did NOT have the Godzilla book! I was so angry! Imagine 8 year old Tars so mad he purposefully murdered his entire Oregon Trail travel party. Some say I went too far, but they say so only via their gravestone markers…

Manda and Godzilla set up their slot car racers!

But is there a point to that rambling first paragraph? Yes! You see, of the Godzilla flicks and lore of Godzilla flicks, knowledge of a movie containing all sorts of Toho monsters was spread. This mythical, magical movie, had like all sorts of monsters, including monsters I had never heard of, beat the tar out of each other and aliens attack. It was Destroy All Monsters. And it never aired on TV anywhere near me. So sad! It also wasn’t at any video store. Destroy All Monsters became a mocking ghost, forever out of reach. Until one day in college suddenly it was on VHS tape. I was like “HELL YEAH!” and bought me some Destroy All Monsters, watched it, loved it, and now don’t know where the tape is because a DVD version was released shortly thereafter. So yeah. And now I have this cool version, which has the AIP dub merged with a widescreen format custom made by some guy on the internet. Because I’m awesome like that.

Check out this curve, ladies!

Was Destroy All Monsters worth the 14 years of questing to find? Damn straight it was! Though it isn’t perfect, it is entertaining. It’s got alien invasions, an awesome monster fight finale, Akira Kubo, alien chicks in silver hoodies and capes, 1960s astromen costumes in bright primary colors, attempts to make rocket propulsion scientifically accurate, lasers, and Minya! The only thing missing from this film is Don Frye, but he pops up in another flick years later to make it all right.

Gah this water’s too cold! Back to the blanket for me!

Captain Katsuo Yamabe (Akira Kubo) – Captain of the Moonlight SY-3 spaceship along with first officer Okata. Is the designated hero of planet Earth, because he saves the day again and again and again. His sister is Kyoko.
Kyoko Yamabe (Yukiko Kobayashi) – Katsuo’s sister who has just started her new job on Monsterland the day it is invaded by aliens. What awful timing. Spends most of the film under alien control via earrings. Yukiko Kobayashi is an artist now, if I’m using Google correctly and it isn’t a different Yukiko Kobayashi.
Dr. Yoshita (Jun Tazaki) –The old UN science guy who seems to be in charge of the entire world, as he takes command of everything when the aliens invade. Jun Tazaki is in such G films as King Kong vs. Godzilla, Atragon, Godzilla vs. the Thing, Frankenstein Conquers the World, War of the Gargantuas, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster.
Kilaak Queen (Kyoko Ai) – The Queen of the Kilaaks and the Queen of Fashion. This Space Lady wants to conquer the Earth and make all humans part of the Kilaak tribe. Why? Because!
Dr. Otani (Yoshio Tsuchiya) – Dr. Otani is head of research at Monsterland and is a cool guy. Until he’s mind controlled by the Kilaaks and turns evil! Then he goes all Peter Pan out a window, except he doesn’t have magic fairy dust, so he has a tragic ending. Yoshio Tsuchiya has been seen here before in Son of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and Gigantis the Fire Monster.
I save the whales….for dessert!

Monster Roll Call!

Godzilla – Godzilla rules monster island, and is then brain controlled and sent to destroy New York. After being set free, Godzilla figures out who the real bad guys are and blows up the alien base.
Minya – Godzilla’s son is here, proving once again why he is the awesome son. He even delivers the finishing blow to King Ghidorah. How many monsters can claim that?
Mothra – Mothra is only in larva form for Destroy All Monsters, probably because the rotting Mothra moth costume last seen in Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster had deteriorated into a big pile of moth goo.
Rodan – Rodan is a flying jerk who thinks the best way to save the whales is to save them for supper! Oh, and he helps save the Earth after he’s not mind controlled.
Anguirus – Anguirus shows how brave he is here by charging in full speed ahead to take on King Ghidorah. Hooray for Anguirus!
Manda – Manda takes a break from the land of Mu to hang out on Monsterland for a while. See this Manda in Ultra Q as well
Baragon – Baragon is around. Yep. It’s surprising Baragon is in this movie, as the suit was currently being hacked to pieces for use in Ultraman. But they managed to glue him back together for a small cameo.
Gorosaurus – Gorosaurus isn’t just a background monster, he trashes France and does some butt-kicking of King Ghidorah himself! A refugee from King Kong Escapes, Gorosaurus would disappear (except for stock footage) until showing up with a badly decaying monster suit on Ike! Godman, and then on Godzilla Island.
Speiga/Kumonga – Speiga has returned from the dead to be a spider and spit some web. So don’t be hatin’ this spider jerk, because for once he’s sort of good. But he still sucks, so screw ’em!
Varan – Varan flies around in the background of the big fight, then suddenly gets a huge closeup during the final flyby of the film. Oh, Varan, why are you so unbelievable? Varan’s solo other movie appearance has three different versions (Japanese, English, Japanese TV) so it’s like Varan was in four films!
King Ghidorah – King Ghidorah returns, once again under control of some crazy alien race, this time the Kilaaks. Oh, King Ghidorah, why do you keep whoring yourself out to the highest bidder? Have some respect for yourself, you’re a “king” for goodness sakes!
Fire Dragon – Hey, you ain’t a real monster! I want my money back…
Moonbase Mission Control stole it’s color scheme from TarsTarkas.NET!
InMovie News

Rina Takeda is Kunoichi

March 3, 2011By

Rina Takeda has been cast in Alien vs. Ninja director Seiji Chiba’s upcoming ninja film Kunoichi.

UPDATE: Read the review of Kunoichi!

NipponCinema sez:
Takeda will play a female ninja named Kisaragi who attempts to rescue a group of women being held captive. It’s set sometime in the Sengoku period, during a time of fierce fighting between the Koga and Iga ninja clans.

Here is a kicking people in the head trailer also thanks to NipponCinema, who you should probably follow on Twitter to get news first, or wait a day until it shows up on everyone else’s website.

In addition, I’ve gotten a few episodes of the Ancient Dogoo Girls series with Rina Takeda in it and….my God. Japan is on crack!

Kunoichi

InBad, Movie Reviews

Mutant Girls Squad (Review)

February 12, 2011By

Mutant Girls Squad

aka Sento shojo: Chi no tekkamen densetsu

2010
Directed by Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, and Tak Sakaguchi

Is that all you got, movie?

So I’ll just copy the background of this pretty much directly from the ad material: Tak Sakaguichi (star of Versus), Noboru Iguchi (director of The Machine Girl and Robogeisha), and Yoshihiro Nishimura (tons of effects work and director on Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and Tokyo Gore Police) got together in 2009’s New York Asian Film Festival, got drunk, and vowed to combine their efforts Voltron-style into one super movie. And here is the fruits of their blood-splattered loins. As those three are masters of the hip new subgenre of Japanese Ultragore, one expects this X-Men-ish flick to be the reddest thing under the sun. Imagine the worst oil spills known to man, only the black crude is instead red goo, and you know what to expect. And Mutant Girls Squad delivers on that effect.

But besides the blood spurting out like the lawn sprinklers at the local driving range, does Mutant Girls Squad deliver on the one thing I want, which is an entertaining film. And I declare that yes, Mutant Girls Squad is entertaining! I actually like it the most of all the gore flicks I have seen so far save The Machine Girl. The characters are more developed than usual, the storyline is a bit more detailed, and it looks like the three directors decided to try to outdo each other with fancier, technical shots.

Trumpy, you can do magic!

At this point having seen movies with girls with machine gun arms, girls with machine gun butts, swords coming out from butts, missing limbs being used as boomerangs, characters turning into mechanical monstrosities, every adult male being insanely perverted, and side characters being simply yelling people in wacky costumes, it takes a little more to make me take notice. Sure, you have a chainsaw coming out of your butt, but as you aren’t fighting a woman with flamethrower breasts I am not jumping for joy. Some of the characters are imaginative, including the girl with a weird mutant head best friend (which is sadly barely touched on) and the not-so secret final form of the Astro-Mutant.

There will be spoilers below, but we’ll not reveal every little detail, though probably enough that if you care you should hold off. We’re not going to point out every cameo and reused actor and actress from previous outings by these directors, as not only would that double the length of this review, it would be embarrassing when I missed like 4 or 5 of them. So we’ll only point out the highlights and let you know now there is plenty of interesting things to see if you pay attention.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all gone through that phase of life where we have a giant cannon arm and was turned into a robot.

Rin (Yumi Sugimoto) – Our heroine is just a girl who a mutant arm who slaughters dozens of people because normal humans hate and despise her. Then she gets involved with the Mutant Underground and has to fight them as well. Yumi Sugimoto is a model, singer, and actress in such work as the tokusatsu series Engine Sentai Go-onger
Rei (Yuko Takayama) – Rei was sold to a freakshow as a child, and a boy loved her, but he was killed. She can grow a bird carapace and is a good fighter and tough girl. Yuko Takayama is a model and actress who also has a part in the tokusatsu movie Masked Rider Den-o Trilogy The Movie Episode Blue
Yoshie (Suzuka Morita) – The sweet member of the Mutant Girls Squad who breaks out the tentacles when duty calls. Usually dressed as a nurse. Why? Why not! Suzuka Morita has also gone tokusatsu in the series Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. It must be a requirement to be on a tokusatsu show if you’re a model.
Kisaragi (Tak Sakaguchi) – Kisaragi is the Hiruko (mutant) leader who cross-dresses (or is supposed to be a girl, I am not sure) and worships almighty Izanami. Mr. Director! How do all you Versus fanboys like this? I’m not sure this character could get any creepier. Actually, he could if he was a member of Fred Phelps’ church…
Astro-Mutant (Maki Mizui) – Maki Mizui is an AV star and has been Noboru Iguchi’s assistant since at lease The Machine Girl. Fanatical member of the Hiruko group who supports her leader. Miki Mizui’s AV films are some sort of disturbing genre that I don’t know the name of, but since it’s Japanese you can be assured it is both incredibly gross and a result of deep cultural repression.
Okay, movie, you have redeemed yourself!
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Robogeisha (Review)

February 5, 2011By

RoboGeisha


2009
Written and Directed by Noboru Iguchi

Robogeisha is exactly what you would expect from a movie with that title. Needless to say, that means it gets approval here on TarsTarkas.NET. We got geisha, robots, robot geisha, dudes getting killed by geisha, women with various weapons built into their body, fake blood spraying everywhere, and women kicking butt.


Now, Robogeisha sounds like the kind of film that doesn’t have some sort of commentary on culture of Japan or the world, and you would be right to think so, except for the fact that you are wrong. The thing is, Robogeisha is unaware that is has such comments, so we’re really grasping at straws here. Giant, obvious straws.


The plot sort of follows the basic lines of Memoirs of a Geisha for a few minutes before veering off into insane territory. But we have the similarities with the sisters being rivals (substituting the Sayuri/Pumpkin rivalry) and the steel industry tycoon. I’m not saying Memoirs of a Geisha would have been a better film had it had robot geisha fighting a walking building, but it probably would have.


But first the cast…

Yoshie Kagusa (Aya Kiguchi) – Yoshie is just your average sister of a geisha who has supressed rage powers to kill kill kill. There seems to be a girl named Yoshie in almost every Noboru Iguchi film. Weird. Aya Kiguchi is a gravure model/actress, and we set up a gallery post as those are always popular.
Kikue Kagusa (Hitomi Hasebe) – Yoshie’s older, graceful, prettier, spoiled sister. Because jealous when her sister is a better killer than her, so endeavors to once again be the best and get all the attention.
Hikaru Kageno (Takumi Saito) – The long haired Hikaru Kageno is the president of Kageno Steel along with his father, and is the object of desire of the two Kagusa sisters. He also works with his father in a horrible plan to kidnap and brainwash women into killers, and eventually blow up a volcano. Takumi Saito was also in Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl.
Onna Tengu 1 (Asami Sugiura as Asami) – One of the two masked Tengu henchwomen who do the bidding of the Kagenos. Onna Tengu 1 was previously a girl named Yasuko before she was brainwashed. Asami is an AV actress who also appears in a lot of ultragore films, such as The Machine Girl and Mutant Girls Squad.
Onna Tengu 2 (Cay Izumi) – Cay Izumi is a choreographer, model, actress, and pole dancer and the leader of the gothic lolita ensemble performance team Tokyo DOLORES. And yes, they figure out a way to get her on a pole briefly during a fight sequence. Cay Izumi pops up as well in Mutant Girls Squad, Tokyo Gore Police, and was a Ganguro Girl in Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl.
RoboCastle (???) – He’s a castle, he’s a robot! He’s both these things, and he keeps his samurai armor sensibility!

psycho shark
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Psycho Shark (Review)

January 17, 2011By

Psycho Shark

aka Jaws in Japan

2009
Directed by John Hijiri
Written by Yasutoshi Murakawa

Psycho Shark is the worst thing to come from Japan since shotacon. Don’t Google that at work. Or ever. And don’t watch Psycho Shark ever, because it frakking sucks. It sucks even at 2.5x speed, and the same amount of things happen, which is nothing. Since large portions of the film is one character watching other characters on video and fast forwarding, perhaps the film is telling us what needs to be done. I answered the call, but I still had to watch Psycho Shark, so the effort was for naught.

That shark sure is psycho! This is the movie where the shark stabs someone in the shower.

Okay, that’s the easy jokes, neither of which are true, so let’s get to the actual review of this plotless piece of shark dung. Originally called Jaws in Japan, the title was changed to Psycho Shark to cash in on the lucrative psycho demographics. Or something. Maybe the distributors thought people would avoid the film because it was Japanese, and took the foreign name out of the title Except the Japanese bikini babes are the main non-shark selling point, so that makes little sense. I’ll give this as much thought as to why they changed the name as the producers of Psycho Shark took in making Psycho Shark a good film: none!

What we have here is a found footage mess masquerading as a shark attack film with lots of attractive Japanese chicks in bikinis. How unique, as it is almost impossible to find Japanese chicks in bikinis anywhere in this day and age of the internet.

Miki (Nonami Takizawa) – The member of the friends duo who isn’t stupid, and enjoys spying on people who are taped. Eat your heart out, reality tv! Miki figures out something is wrong, but then a big bad shark shows up and ruins everything. Except the film, that was already ruined. Nonami Takizawa is a gravure idol and we threw up a gallery to get cheap web traffic. So click on it so I can act all smug and stuff.
Mai (Airi Nakajima) – The member of the duo who isn’t interested in spying on people and is totally interested in dating creepy guys. Also can be a jerk.
Kenji (???) – A creepy guy who works at the hotel and gives out free rooms to hot chicks. This somehow makes him a babe magnet, because women love guys who make minimum wage at a hotel. He’s so creepy he should be in Creepies. Or Creepies 2.
Creepy Girl (???) – She is possibly Miki, but it is dark and I don’t care so I’ll never know who she is. Nor do I care. A framing device that’s not needed. I should call her Appendix Girl.
Psycho Shark (CGI from your old Vic-20) – This giant shark shows up too late and too cheap for me to care about him. And just how is he psycho? Or is he just at a motel where people get killed like in Psycho? The world will never know, because I don’t care enough to ask Mr. Owl the answer to that question. So let’s just go with “Three”, that’s a good answer!

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