The Super Inframan

The Super Inframan (Zhong Guo Chao Ren) (1975)

Runtime: 84 glorious minutes

Directed by: Shan Hua

Starring: Danny Lee, Terry Liu, Hsieh Wang, Man-Tzu Yuan, Dana

From: Shaw Brothers

I saw nothing on Sunday and this afternoon I revisited an old favorite... Commando! It's as glorious as ever. Saturday night was another wacky OOT action movie of another flavor:

Somehow, a movie I’d never seen until (Saturday) night. This is despite knowing for years this is a campy classic and having seen a few dozen Shaw Brothers films over the years. The reason why I finally pulled the trigger: a 4K upscale of the movie was found on a YouTube channel full of Shaw Brothers films. To use the platform’s nomenclature, such a channel could be terminated at any moment so I couldn’t put this off for another day.

Another detail to note is that neither Ultraman nor Kamen Rider have ever been tackled by me. Perhaps I now should… it wouldn’t be to try and capture some of that Japanese tokosatsu money like Shaw was doing here w/ what I understand to be blatant copies of same. The YouTube copy had hardcoded subs in both its native language & English. Thus, the villain was correctly named Demon Princess Elzebub instead of the English dub’s infamous name: PRINCESS DRAGON MOM. 

It is funnier so I’ll refer to her-of course, portrayed by a young attractive woman-as Dragon Mom. Dragon Mom wishes to rule the world w/ her bizarre human-sized bipedal creatures; they are unstoppable so a professor creates a bionic superman, a costumed hero who (according to Wiki) has several powers ripped off from similar Japanese heroes.

The plot is not much more complicated than that. Inframan is a movie that could be nitpicked if so desired. This is not the tact I’ll take. For the cheesy nonsense it is, the picture is-for me-a lot of fun. There’s plenty of action, martial arts involving those creatures-my favorite being the insect/crustacean combo, OOT moments done in earnest, funky music, elaborate sets, awesome 70’s takes on what the far-flung future of 2015 would look like, and low-budget yet charming effects. Inframan also somersaults and does backflips even more often than a typical AEW wrestler!

My esoteric tastes play a role in this belief, but I would MUCH rather check out The Super Inframan again than see most 21st century superhero movies for the first time. Getting to see Danny Lee of The Killer fame as the hero is only the icing on the cake for me.