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Godzilla Island Story Arc 5
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 5

April 19, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 5


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godzilla Island Story Arc 2
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 2

April 7, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 2


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

The action is brought to life with toys. It is toymation at it’s finest, almost a decade before Robot Chicken. This allows for lots of monsters to be in lots of shows, lots of monster fights that we would never see otherwise, and lots of new versions of monsters. Plus the fact they had a deal with Bandai Toys to produce lots of exclusive toys for the show didn’t hurt. Come to think of it this is more of a blatant commercial for toys than the He-Man cartoon! But first let’s meet the human actors who will be appearing in most of the episodes:

Godzilla island story arc 1
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 1

April 5, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 1


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

The action is brought to life with toys. It is toymation at it’s finest, almost a decade before Robot Chicken. This allows for lots of monsters to be in lots of shows, lots of monster fights that we would never see otherwise, and lots of new versions of monsters. Plus the fact they had a deal with Bandai Toys to produce lots of exclusive toys for the show didn’t hurt. Come to think of it this is more of a blatant commercial for toys than the He-Man cartoon! But first let’s meet the human actors who will be appearing in most of the episodes:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Ultra Q Manda
InTelevision Reviews

Ultra Q – Episodes 5 and 6 (Review)

July 20, 2007By

Ultra Q Episodes 5 and 6

Pegila Has Come! and Grow! Turtle

1966
Episode 5 Pegila Has Come! directed by Samaji Nonagase
Episode 6 Grow! Turtle directed by Harunosuke Nakagawa

Once again we dip into the world of Ultra Q, the Japanese TV series. A precursor to the Ultraman series, Ultra Q features many giant monsters that our plucky heroes have to deal with. Previously we have gone over Episodes 1 and 2, and then Episodes 3 and 4. Now we tackle the next two episodes! In addition to the 28 episodes of Ultra Q, a movie was produced in 1990 titledUltra Q: Star of Legend. A follow up series aired in 2004 entitled Ultra Q: Dark Fantasy as well as a radio drama called Ultra Q club (episode guide here.)

Tsuburaya Productions Co. created the TV series, which started to air in 1966. Before it became Ultra Q, however, it was known as Unbalance. As it became less Twilight Zone and more monsters, the name turned out to be a problem, but luckily a sports move called the Ultra C was gaining popularity, and thus Ultra Q was coined. Several artifacts of the original concept remain, including the very Twilight Zone-ish main title theme, as well as a narrator (but one used less frequently.) Several episodes would be somewhat independent stories that barely featured the main characters, and still other episodes would have ambiguous endings.

Thanks to recent Region 2 DVD release, these shows are now available to a whole new generation. However, they aren’t available to me in their entirety, as there are no English subtitles! But that’s where making up what we don’t understand comes in. Plot synopses and visual clues help us get the gist of the episodes, but the subtle parts we are just winging. That actually makes the show a bit better, as if we found out something was lamer than we though we might not like it as much. We don’t need no stinking subtitles!


Main Characters:

Jun Manjome (Kenji Sahara) – A pilot for Hoshikawa Aviation and an avid science fiction fan/writer, which causes him to investigate monsters and discover most of the beasts on the show. Actor Kenji Sahara had a marvelous kaiju career dating from the original Gojira all the way to Godzilla Final Wars.
Yuriko Edogawa (Hiroko Sakurai) – Female Newspaper Photographer for the Daily News who takes photos of all the horrible monsters that Jun managed to encounter. Hiroko Sakurai went on to star in the sequel series, Ultraman, as Akiko Fuji, as well as many other Ultraman series as various characters.
Ippei Togawa (Yasuhiko Saijo) – Assistant pilot for Hoshikawa Aviation with Jun, and the show’s comic relief. According to the Internet, actor Yasuhiko Saijo used to own a coffee shop in Kagurazaka. He had roles in Gorath, in Son of Godzilla as Suzuki, and in Godzilla vs. Gigan as a henchman.
Daily News Editor Seki (Yoshifumi Tajima) – Yuriko’s boss, sends her on the assignments to photograph monsters, but is not adverse to getting the scoop on his own. Not in either of these episodes.
Dr Ichinotani (Ureo Egawa) – After not being in the first two episodes, Dr. Ichinotani makes his first appearances here. Originally he was to serve as the Rod Sterling-type narrator, but when the show was refocused to be less Twilight Zone he became the wizened Professor who helps the heroes deal with the random rampaging monsters. Looks like a Japanese Wilford Brimley. Not in either of these episodes.

Astroboy Fuhrer ZZZ
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Astro Boy – Fuhrer ZZZ (Review)

July 9, 2007By

Astro Boy – Fuhrer ZZZ


1962

Astro Boy is a Japanese manga/anime created by Osamu Tezuka in Japan in 1951. He is one of the most recognizable faces in cartoons, not just manga. A string of projects have been created over the years, including the popular 1960’s cartoons that spread Astro Boy throughout the world. What is of most interest to us now is the 1958-59 live action TV series on Japan TV developed by MBS. In 1962 they released either a continuation movie or a string of TV episodes that follow the Fuhrer ZZZ story in the manga as a movie, which still circulates today in bootleg format. Thus, we got blurry scenes, no subtitles for the Japanese, and little or no information about the film or any of the actors. We don’t even have an accurate array of the character names, especially since the Peg Leg guy doesn’t even get a name in the manga this is based on! But it is a good window into Japanese TV of the late ’50s and how it was turning into the groovy 60s with superheroes and other fun effects. And where else are you going to see a kid dressed up as Astro Boy fighting villains? Certainly not on Cnn.com!

As stated before, the film has no subtitles, so certain things are inferred by actions or deduction. There is precious little information about this film anywhere. There isn’t even a definite explanation on where it came from, if it is some TV episodes strung together or a movie sequel to the TV series. The series dates from 1958-59, but the few sources date this film as 1962. That could be an error, or a movie could have been strung together from episodes a few years later to capitalize on the cartoon series. Or maybe a sequel movie was greenlit. What is important is we don’t know.

In addition, I am not that familiar with Astro Boy the cartoon, so many of the characters I had to look up their back stories. It also matters that this TV adaptation doesn’t have some of the main characters from the comic, and uses its own versions of some main characters as well. So the Roll Call is as accurate as possible, but TarsTarkas.NET does not guarantee accuracy. But we did the best we could, and this should be the best review of the Astro Boy Movie to ever hit the net. We can’t even locate an imdb.com entry (but that is not unusual for a film here.)

Hidden 2002
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Hidden 2002 (Review)

June 11, 2007By

Hidden 2002

aka แอบ 2002

2002

TarsTarkas.NET is not a website to shy away from new and bizarre film experiences. We are also not one to shy away from bizarre softcore porn from various countries of the world. As we’ve seen odd examples from Hong Kong, the US, and India; we continue the globe-trotting and cart out an example from Thailand. Thailand has gotten somewhat big in the movie-making world due to the popularity of Tony Jaa, and has been seen here before with Brutal River. This time the only brutal thing is the plot, what little plot there is. Even though there are no subtitles, there isn’t enough going on for us to even bother caring about them. What is bizarre is most films have some sort of climax where lessons are learned or revenge is enacted following the weak storyline, in this case the story just wanders off and never resolves. That is one of the two big “Huh?” factors, the other is the life-size statue of Colonel Sanders that makes an appearance. I believe that is what we call some extra-crispy sex.

The problem with the production, aside from the lack of subtitles, is also the lack of clear pictures. Either shot with a very cheap camcorder (which I wouldn’t doubt) or transferred to VCD as cheaply as possible (which I also wouldn’t doubt) the picture quality is horrible. It is hard to get a clear view of the actors during the wide shots. Even many of the close-ups are out of focus or just blurry overall. Another fun aspect is the fact the film has many scenes shot in the street or public places, and you can clearly see people in the background staring at the camera, or watching the actors go about their business. This adds some unintentional hilarity to some of the scenes, and provides a nice distraction while waiting for the people to drop trough and start bumping uglies. It’s not like I know Thai and have any idea what they are talking about. There is some parts of the movie I do understand. That is the songs by Green Day, which are constantly playing in the background during all the outside scenes. As all the sound is dubbed in during post production, they just added Green Day songs for the times they are in downtown Bangkok or wherever they are. That way, you will associate Green Day with Thailand. Because. It is unknown what recent the recent coup in Thailand will do to the adult VCD industry, and from what little information I could find on these girls, it looks like some of them can be found in more adult fare. This seems to be pretty tame for an adult film, actually, so maybe they couldn’t even afford to pay the girls to show off more, or wanted to make their video still accessible to most video renters without them going into the back room (which doesn’t seem to have happened.)

But first the cast. All of the character names are guesses, and we are not sure of who the actors are. Based on one single website listing four cast members in English, and checking other films where those actresses are present, we have some guesses as to who is who, but it is not 100% accurate. Though it is unlikely most of the people reading this will be familiar enough with Thai softcore porn actresses to know if I am right or not, someone has to be far more well versed, and any input is appreciated. We do get some people from Thailand who stop by from time to time if the visitor logs are to be believed.

Leemae (Nong Tik?) – Has a star-design tattoo on her right shoulder, and enjoys some lesbian sex in addition to her normal sex with whatever is walking around at the time. She appears to be played by an actress named Nong Tik. Nong Tak and Nong Toe were unavailable.
Meifa (Nong Cat?) – Has a flower tattoo on her left breast, a design across the top of her back, and another design lower that looks like it is a quote or something (but between it being in Thai and the bad resolution it is illegible.) She appears to be played by an actress named Nong Cat.
Hanout (Nong Jenjira?) – Has a tattoo on her upper left arm, as well as another on her belly. Her character name is the biggest guess, because it doesn’t even look like a name, and has hardly any Google matches except for a spice. She appears to be played by an actress named Nong Jenjira.
Doorman (?????) – Possibly named Lumei, but the Doorman of the hotel is constantly looking at smut, constantly chatting up the patrons of his hotel, constantly peeping on the guests, and even able to slime his way into some of their panties. Yes, that’s right, you get to see this disgusting man have sex. No, this isn’t a horror film. No idea who the actor is.
Hong (?????) – Guy in the room next to the three girls, spends most of the movie video taping them in secrecy. Then he has sex with one of them. Law & Order: SVU would be all over this guy! No idea who the actor is.
Kung (?????) – Associate of Hong, usually wearing a suit and tie. Purchases most of the video tapes from Hong, but also seduces Meifa as well thanks to the power of Kentucky Fried Chicken. No idea who the actor is.

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