I’ve been enjoying August Ragone’s writing on Japanese cinema for many many years. I first discovered his work thanks to a terrific zine he first produced in the 80s’ called Markalite: The Magazine of Japanese Fantasy and since then I’ve read numerous articles he’s written for magazines such as G-Fan and Asian Cult Cinema over the years. Most recently he wrote the wonderful book Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters, which was published in association with Chronicle Books.

August Ragone has also just started his own blog called The Good, the Bad, and Godzilla and if you’re a fan of Japanese fantasy and science fiction films I highly recommend giving his new blog a look. You’ll finds news and information about his upcoming book signings and various events there as well as interesting bits and pieces about Japanese cinema.

The third clip in Cinebeats’ ongoing Battle Sequence Series is from Condorman : Symbol of Justice (Seigi no shinboru Kondoruman). Condorman was an entertaining action-packed tokuatsu series created by the great Kôhan Kawauchi (aka Yasunori Kawauchi), which aired on Japanese television in 1975. Kawauchi is responsible for creating the first Japanese superhero television show in 1958 known as Moonlight Mask (Gekko Kamen), which shares some obvious similarities with Condorman. The heroes of Kawauchi’s shows have a similar look and episodes often featured cliffhanger endings. They also both drove their own groovy vehicles. Moonlight Mask had a motorcycle and Condorman had his own special car called the Mach Condor.

Condorman starred a little known Japanese actor by the name of Hitoshi Sato who was a former race car driver. His driving skills gave him the ability to handle driving the Mach Condor on the show. As Condorman, Hitoshi Sato would fight evil monsters who disguised themselves as humans and were out to pollute planet earth’s water and air supply, among other things. Condorman was able to see through the monster’s human disguises with his “Condor Eye” and he used many special powers such as “Condor Thunder” and “Condor Hurricane” to stop them. Besides all the various monsters, Condorman also had to deal with their numerous henchmen who all looked like Nazis wearing Lucha Libre masks.

Just a small sampling of the strange monsters Condorman had to fight.

In some ways the important messages in Condorman that warned viewers about the negative effects of pollution, inflation and other ills made the show ahead of its time. Condorman also featured some spectacular action sequences, as well as colorful costumes and prop designs. The monsters he fought were often very unusual and included a sombrero wearing smog creature, a giant cockroach, a green-haired batgirl and strange robots.

Unfortunately Condorman never really caught on with kids or adults and the show stopped airing after only one season. Some episodes of the series were released on video in Japan and I believe the series was also made available on Laser Disc, but it has never been released on DVD. Information about the series is scarce and the show has never been subtitled, but I think some English dubbed episodes of Condorman aired on Hawaiian television in the late seventies.

The clip below features Condorman battling a robot-like monster called Sadora (aka Sadler), who was played by the Japanese actor and playwright Toshiaki Nishizawa. Sadora has help from his evil henchmen, but fortunately for Condorman, Sadora ends up killing many of his own men in the chaos that follows.

Fireman (aka Faiyâman/Magma Man) is an interesting tokusatsu series featuring a kyodai hero (giant hero) that aired in Japan on Nippon Television in 1973. It was made by Tsuburaya Productions, who was also responsible for the popular Ultraman series and Fireman had many things in common with that show.

In the series, the handsome Japanese actor Naoya Makoto (Goranger, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, etc.) plays the powerful hero Fireman. Fireman belongs to a race of unusual beings that live deep inside the earth. When earth is attacked by giant monster-like aliens (kaiju), Fireman rises to the surface, takes a human form and joins Japan’s Scientific Attack Force (S.A.F.) so he can help defeat the evil invaders. Much like Ultraman, Fireman is able to grow and become giant size in order to fight the various kaiju monsters he encounters. He also has many special powers and weapons.

Fireman was directed by Jun Oki and written by Bunkou Wakatsuki. Jun Oki had previously worked on various science fiction shows for Tsuburaya Productions such as Ultraseven (Urutora sebun, 1967), Ultraman Returns (Kaettekita Urutoraman, 1971) and the wonderful mystery/horror series Operation: Mystery! (Kaiki daisakusen, 1968), which I hope to write about in more detail soon. With Fireman, Oki was in control of the direction of the series as well as the special effects, which were often very impressive. Like Silver Kamen which I briefly reviewed here earlier, Fireman was a bit more adult than other similar shows that were airing in Japan at the time. The series often contained more mature stories and some unpredictable twists that were rather unusual for a show typically aimed at a young audience.

Fireman ran for 30 episodes and features a great soundtrack by Toru Fuyuki that was undoubtedly one of the Japanese composer’s best efforts. In the “Battle Sequence” featured in the clip below you can hear some of the terrific music that Toru Fuyuki composed for the series while Fireman fights a kaiju monster called Dorigoras. You’ll cheer, you’ll laugh, and you might even cry, but whatever your expectations are, few things can prepare for you for the action-packed wonder that is Fireman!

What do you get when you mix a plot that seems borrowed from Jules Verne with comic book style heroes and villains that would make Batman envious, costume designs that could be right out of Mario Bava’s Diabolik, combined with a mad dash of James Bond and pulp style adventure? You get the terrifically fun and entertaining Japanese science fiction and fantasy film Latitude Zero (Ido zero daisakusen, 1969) directed by Ishiro Honda!

Honda’s name should be recognizable to most fans of Japanese science fiction films since he’s responsible for the original Godzilla (Gojira, 1954) and many other terrific movies including Rodan (Sora no daikaijû Radon, 1956), The Mysterians (Chikyu Boeigun, 1957), Mothra (Mosura, 1961), Attack of the Mushroom People (Matango, 1963) and Frankenstein Conquers the World (Furankenshutain tai chitei kaijû Baragon, 1965).

Latitude Zero is an often-overlooked film in Honda’s impressive body of work and considered a lesser science fiction effort from Toho Studios. The movie definitely has its flaws, including some of the most shoddy looking movie monsters you’re likely to ever see. But the entertainment value, great cast and amazing look of the sets more than make up for the film’s flaws. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that they sort of add to the film’s unusual charm. Thankfully a new audience of science fiction fans will be able to discover Latitude Zero and make up their own minds about the movie since Media Blasters has recently released a spectacular two disc DVD presentation of the film with lots of terrific bonus materials including two versions of Latitude Zero (the original Japanese release with English subtitles and the original American release in English), interviews with the Japanese film crew and an image gallery.

In 1969 Ishiro Honda made Latitude Zero at Toho Studios with a Japanese crew and American producers and writers. One of these producers was fellow director Don Sharp. Although Sharp is only credited with producing Latitude Zero, the movie often seems more like a collaborative effort between both men since it differs from Honda’s previous films in various ways. Don Sharp made many entertaining genre movies during the sixties such as Curse of the Fly (1965), The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), Our Man in Marrakesh (1966), Rocket to the Moon (1967) and Psychomania (1971). He also made two good films for Hammer Studios (The Kiss of the Vampire, 1963 and Rasputin: The Mad Monk, 1966) and directed episodes of terrific television shows like The Avengers and The Champions. Sharp’s creative influence on Latitude Zero seems rather hard to miss and he may have contributed some of his own ideas to the film.

These are just assumptions on my part and the interviews with the Japanese crew members that appear on the new DVD don’t confirm my suspicions. They do make it clear that the American and Japanese film crews had trouble working together. In the interviews that appear on the DVD the Japanese crew complains a lot about the way Hollywood was making films in the sixties. Compared to Japan where directors were often given full control of the movies they made, American producers were used to having control and making creative decisions. Producers clearly flexed their financial muscles on the set of Latitude Zero and this clash of basic movie-making sensibilities obviously caused a lot of tension between the international cast and crew. I only wish Media Blasters had included some interviews with the American crew on the new DVD so viewers could hear their side of the fascinating behind-the-scene action on the Latitude Zero set.

Latitude Zero begins when a couple of scientists (Akira Takarada and Masumi Okada) and one American reporter (Richard Jaeckel) find themselves lost at sea after an underwater explosion and are rescued by a submarine run by Captain Craig McKenzie (Jospeh Cotten) along with his beautiful assistant Dr. Anne Barton (Linda Haynes) and tough henchman (Susumu Kurobe). Captain McKenzie takes the three men to a mysterious underwater world known as Latitude Zero where scientists and artists have secretly gathered together to create an international utopian society without government interference. Of course, all is not well in Latitude Zero and the men soon find out that the utopian city is under constant attack from an evil genius known as Malic (Cesar Romero) and his two wicked mistresses Lucretia (Patricia Medina) and Kroger (Hikaru Kuroki). After Malic kidnaps another Japanese scientist and his daughter who are making their way to Latitude Zero, Captain McKenzie invites the three men to strap on some jet packs and head out on a mission to save the scientist and his daughter with the hope of putting an end to Malic’s reign of terror. As the adventure unfolds the men are forced to fight off giant bloodthirsty rats, man-like bat creatures and finally a strange giant size beast that is part lion and part vulture.

The film takes a somewhat unusual anti-war stance that is probably due to the times in which it was made. In 1969 the American war in Vietnam was raging and parts of Japan were still under American occupation. Students in both countries were often involved in protests against the war. In the film, the citizens of Latitude Zero don’t use violence against their enemies. Instead of aggressively attacking them, they mostly use protective measures and the idea of a peaceful utopian culture that is home to multiple people from various nations must have seemed extremely appealing at the time.

As I mentioned above, the film brings together a wonderful international cast that includes many popular Japanese actors who appeared in countless science fiction and fantasy films, as well as the great American actor Jospeh Cotten and his real-life wife, the talented actress Patricia Medina. Cotten is one of my favorite actors and I love watching him in anything, so I really enjoyed him as Captain Craig McKenzie even if he’s obviously a little too old for the role. Patricia Medina manages to steal just about every scene she’s in with Cesar Romero and both actors seem to really be enjoying themselves on the set. Supposedly Cotton and Medina decided to appear in the film so they could work together and spend time in Japan, but unfortunately they only have one scene together in the movie.

The amazing Eiji Tsuburaya was responsible for the special effects in Latitude Zero and he did a great job on many of the miniatures and set designs, but much of the film’s backdrops are made up of impressive matte paintings. The creature designs on the other hand leave a lot to be desired. Most of the monsters featured in the movie are obviously men wearing rather shabby costumes or poorly constructed puppets. The climactic battle at the end of the film is somewhat marred by a lion with vulture wings that looks like it belongs on the Island of Misfit Toys created by Rankin/Bass for their Christmas special Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964).

Even with its obvious flaws, muddled script and ridiculous plot-twists, Latitude Zero has a lot to offer adventurous viewers and I’m really glad that Media Blasters has made the effort to release the film in a lavish two disc collection DVD package. The new Media Blasters DVD marks the first time that this film has been made available to American audiences in any format and it’s easily one of my favorite DVD releases of the year. The restored widescreen print of the film looks fantastic and I was also impressed with their choice to use the original Japanese poster art for the DVD case. If you’re a fan of Japanese Tokusatsu films or just want to see an entertaining science fiction and fantasy movie with a good cast, then I highly recommend giving the movie a look. Latitude Zero is currently available from Amazon for only $14.99 (it normally retails for $19.95).

If you’d like to see more screen shots from the film please visit my Latitude Zero Flickr Gallery. The movie contains so much fabulous eye-candy that I hard time selecting which images to share.

Begining this week, I’ll be welcoming a new regular contributor to Cinebeats who calls himself T3rtiumQuid. T3rtiumQuid will be sharing short “Battle Sequence” clips from rare and hard-to-see Japanese tokusatsu television shows and films produced during the ’60s and ’70s, and I’ll be writing about them. Most of the shows and movies featured in these clips are not available outside of Japan and should appeal to anyone who enjoys vintage Japanese science fiction and fantasy.

The first Battle Sequence is taken from the Sun-Hong/TBS produced superhero series Silver Kamen (or Shiruba Kamen / Silver Mask) which aired in Japan from November 1971 to May 1972. There is basically no English information readily available about the show that I’m aware of, but I can tell you that early episodes of Silver Kamen are credited to the acclaimed Japanese director Akio Jissoji and his cinematographer Masao Nakabori. Akio Jissoji passed away in 2006 and his last film was a modern remake of Silver Kamen that was released in Japan a month after he died.

In many ways the original Silver Kamen series is typical of lots of other Japanese superhero shows. It featured a masked hero who does battle with various evil kaijin (monsters or space aliens) in an effort to save humanity and he has many unusual powers and gadgets. The difference between Silver Kamen and other superhero shows that were airing in Japan at the time, such as Ultraman and Mirrorman (or Mirror Mask), was the dark edge that the show had. The early episodes of Silver Kamen were also creatively shot and in some ways more adult then a lot of similar shows that were airing on Japanese television at the time. After 11 episodes, Silver Kamen started to loose it’s edge and it took a new and more “positive” direction. The Silver Kamen series was transformed into Silver Kamen Giant, but it still didn’t really find an audience and the series finally came to an end after 26 epsiodes.

In the following clip, the original Silver Kamen (played by Toshio Shiba) fights it out with a nasty kaijin called Tigris. If you pay attention to the clip, you’ll notice that Tigris’ costume catches on fire during the battle. I’m unclear on all the details, but it seems that Tigris’ costume caught fire prematurely and the actor playing Tigris was almost seriously burned during the fight. Thankfully for viewers the show must go on, and it did!