Message From Space

Message from Space (Uchu Kara No Messeji) (1978)

Runtime: 106 minutes

Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku

Starring: Vic Morrow, Sonny Chiba (RIP), Philip Casnoff, Peggy Lee Brennan, Etsuko Shihomi

From: Toei

RIP Shin'ichi “Sonny” Chiba; if only I had picked a better film as a tribute...

Presumably many are familiar with Mr. Chiba's background, whether it be his 6 black belts in various martial arts, all the films he did in Japan or his appearance in Kill Bill. I won't dwell on that and note that instead I've seen him in a handful of pictures. The first two movies in the Street Fighter series are over the top goodness, and even better is Wolfguy-or to use its literal translated title: WOLFGUY: ENRAGED LYCANTHROPE-a bonkers tale where it's not really “Sonny Chiba plays a werewolf”--rather, it's “Sonny Chiba plays Wolverine”, which is still as awesome as it sounds. Among the choices I had (more on that at the end) I picked one that is available in VHS quality on YouTube; I was hoping for something that was at least campy... regrettably, it did not give me much aside from some laughs.

It may sound awesome to hear that RADIOACTIVE WALNUTS was the method which brought together all our heroes (OK, they were “space seeds” that were dispatched to find a bunch of random people but they were walnuts), that it was more than just the Earthlings who wore 70's clothes, that a space ship looked like a nautical vessel from the 1600's (?!) complete w/ sails, that someone had a laser whip, and that someone wore a Cutty Sark chef's robe... it's not a lot of fun when I've seen the story described as “soul-sucking”-it is not as thrilling as it sounds-the characters typically range from lame to intolerable, the effects for the most part look pretty bad, the white actors aside from Vic Morrow deliver rather lousy performances, and the story is just nonsense.

Worst of all in this case, despite his high billing Chiba doesn't even show up until more than an hour into this 106 minute picture. Starcrash is even worse than this overall, although I recall it being more fun... this is best not worth seeing unless you want to shake your head at some of the effects or note that it has a Superman IV level of understanding when it comes to someone flying through space outside a ship without a suit on. At least in the near future I'll start up my subscription again to Arrow's streaming service plus there are some Chiba obscurities I have on DVD--thus sometime in the near future I'll pay better tribute to Sonny.