Own the rights?
11 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Filled with rich, extra cheesy goodness!, 13 February 2004 Author: blazing_l from Queens, NY
This is a hoot and a half; a Shaw Brothers' gem. Add in a manga based story, the Shaw Bros. studio lot, sci-fi, and lots of amazing, kampy fighting surpassing even the staged corny fighting by the Bat in blue tights Adam West, and that's Super Inframan in a nutshell. According to production notes, Danny Lee did don the Inframan suit on and I loved the transformation sequences with really 70ish sound effects! There's 70s written throughout this one. I never knew a Demon Princess could dress and look so funky psychedelic! I thought she stopped by a Viking convention. Plus, best use of motorcycle helmets goes to the numerous black-clad skull minions who take turns getting an Inframan-ish beating and lots of well-timed body flips. This film is a very good homage to Japan's Kaiju. Please ignore the fact that the monsters are human-sized rather than several stories tall. The Super Inframan and the Mighty Peking Man should be shown back-to-back at Subway Cinema 2004 at the Film Forum in NYC!
9 out of 10 people found the following review useful: A Camp Classic..., 3 September 1998 Author: Gislef from Iowa City, IA
...that you'll want to watch over and over again. A weird, psychedelic mixture of martial arts movies, Japanese giant monster movies, spy adventures, and just plain goofiness. The plot makes no senses, the characters are thinnest cardboard, and the monsters are truly hilarious. If you wonder where they came up with Power Rangers, look no further than here.
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Chinese Ultraman has some class, 15 October 2002 Author: funkyfry from Oakland CA
Hard to rate a movie as bad as this that's so much fun! The key to this one is kung-fu fighting monsters, "thunderball fists", and of course, Princess Dragon Mom! Wielding a very long whip she plots to rule the earth and unfortunately only Inframan tries to stop her. Dig the fact that everybody in the film drives VWs. Shaw Bros' do Ultraman, and it's a pretty bizarre affair. Best scene -- Professor and the monsters on the motorboat going to monkey-skull island. Truly strange.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Inframan Rocks!, 11 October 2000 Author: mercuryix from Los Angeles
For anyone who has a soft spot for cheesy Asian action pictures, this one has it all; pseudo-sci-fi, kungfu heroes, kungfu villains, Skull Warriors by the thousand, and a villain with one of the most classic names in movie history: the dreaded. Princess DRAGONMOM! Stationed at the earth's core, she wakes up after a ten million year sleep (with her superscience still on the cutting edge and her minions still hanging around waiting for her to wake up), and becomes alarmed at the surface world's progress. She attacks with her massive resources and threatens a stunned world.Naturally, the answer to this threat of millions of soldiers emerging from the center of the earth is to combat them with a handful of kungfu cops and their one leader, Inframan, a sort of early Cyborg created from a brave volunteer.Clad in a (very) tight outfit, Princess Dragonmom makes demands to the world's leaders to serve under her. Frankly, I don't see how they could refuse. (Imagine seriously for a moment, the world's leaders having to go on t.v. and announce with a straight face that our world is in danger from.Princess DRAGONMOM!)Princess Dragonmom has her own special henchmen, in the form of a half dozen of the oddest-looking rubber creatures ever created; one has tentacles for hands and speaks (I swear) in a tough New York accent (remember, this is dubbed); another has a drill-bit for a hand. How do they fight the kungfu cops? With kungfu, of course! The sight of a guy with tentacles doing kungfu blocks and chops (complete with loud THWACKS and POWS) is something I can't quite describe. I found myself rooting for the rubber monsters all the way through the movie.I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The kungfu goodguys are in there kicking (literally), doing continual blackflips, frontflips and somersaults throughout the entire movie, the skull warriors outnumber the Stormtroopers from Star Wars (oddly, both are dressed in white) and are even worse shots (I think it's the glare from those white helmets), and Inframan kicks anyone's butt he comes up against, which in a way is a little anticlimactic. He's strange-looking and a walking special effect, but not really that interesting a character as say, a Chinese babe with an attitude.By the end of the movie you may find yourself wishing that Dragonmom had won.Seven stars.
6 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Danny Lee's my hero!, 17 January 2004 Author: Captain_Couth (sirjosephu@aol.com) from Sacramento, CA
Super Infra-man (1975) was the Shaw Brothers attempt to try and start a franchise super hero like Ultraman. Filmed in Shawscope (panavision) Super Infra-man is an enjoyable action film filled with cheesy over the top bad guys and a whole lot of sci-fi mumbo jumbo. Danny Lee is chosen to become Infra-man when Earth is threatened by a race of interstellar demons. To sum up the movie, just imagine an episode of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that was action-directed by Bruce Lee! That's because one of the Dragon's protégés was involved with directing the fight scenes. The whole cast seems to be in on the joke and no one takes it too seriously. Harmless family fun.Highly recommended!Factoid: For some reason, the Shaw Brothers like to recycle stock footage from their other films and reuse certain scenes over and over.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: best super hero movie, ever!, 6 June 2001 Author: xenorama from Monster Island
This is the most exciting movie about a superhero ever made. It is non stop action, and you have babes and monsters as well. Add to that kung fu and laser rays, and there you have it, the ultimate super hero flick. It is also well dubbed, written by Speed Racer himself, Peter Fernandez. A true masterwork, not to be missed. Forget all that cgi nonsense and wire floating "fighting" of CROUCHING TIGER. This is the film you want to see.
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: I can't deny it - I love this movie!, 27 July 2000 Author: MightyGorga
Time to own up: Inframan is one of my favorite movies. This film is nothing less than an hour and a half of ferocious martial arts, monsters in costumes cheaper than you can imagine, and the fearsome pronouncements of Princess Dragon Mom - and it's a blast. I rent this movie at least once every couple of months just to remind myself how much fun a low-budget film can be. After all, how can you not love a movie whose villainess has her lair decorated with what appears to be Saran Wrap, and whose hero has to free himself from "liquid ice"?
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Just like old times..., 20 August 2006 Author: dee.reid from United States
If only I were alive in 1975 to enjoy classic grind-house cinema like "Infra-Man." Quentin Tarantino has yet to serve up the goods, if any, on this classic martial arts/superhero epic. I remember "Infra-Man" quite fondly, if not a little blankly, from my childhood growing up during the early 1990s. I was heavily into my phase of "Bang, bang, shoot-'em-up, G.I. Joe, martial arts, comic books, and outer-space monsters" at that time. "Infra-Man" and Godzilla were probably the cornerstone of my childhood at that point. "Infra-Man" is the Chinese answer to "Ultraman"; an A.D.D. fusion of that Japanese "Ultraman," Hong Kong kick-'em-up, Bruceploitation and straight-up Shaw Brothers-style kung-fu, the evil Princess Dragon Mom (Terry Liu) awakens from a billion-year slumber to conquer the world. She reawakens her army of mutant super-soldiers and unleashes them upon an unsuspecting populace. A brilliant scientist devises a plan to transform a brave astronaut into the first "Infra-Man," a bionic superhero who possesses the necessary strength and weaponry to conquer Princess Dragon Mom and her cohorts. "Infra-Man" is a unique title of unrepentant cheesiness, bad dubbing (is there any else?), and sci-fi kung-fu kick-'em-up. I wouldn't recommend this title to anyone who can't sit through cheesy late-night fanfare. For all its frenetic action sequences, director Shan Hua keeps a tight pace and never lets things slow down once they begin. In my view, they don't really get any better than this. I would suspect that soon a remake on a bigger budget and with better effects is on the horizon. I'm not really looking forward to something like that; it'll just take away all the campy fun and that's something we desperately need from "Infra-Man."10/10
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Amazing, 6 March 2006 Author: (dj_bassett) from Philadelphia
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Hong Kong/Shaw Brothers knock-off of the Japanese television show "Ultra-man" far surpasses the original. Monsters from the depths rise up to attack the world; the only thing between us and super-destruction is a small band of doughty fighters and Infra-Man, a Six Million Dollar kind of guy with a nuclear reactor for a power supply. Utterly ridiculous and entertaining, sort of "Ultra-man" on acid, frankly, or an exceptionally good episode of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". The villainess struts around in a bikini and brandishes a whip; there's monsters who looks like mutated artichokes, monsters who are robots with spring-loaded heads, and one monster who looks like a pile of poop. The henchmen all dress like skeletons and their actual hideout is a skull, for no reason that I can discern. Nor do the bad guys really seem to have a plan: at one point they break in to steal Infra-Man's blueprints, but it doesn't seem to have helped them any. A movie that sort of resists analysis or even description: it's the kind of thing you really have to experience. So by all means, go to it, it's amazing.
If you like the Power Rangers, then you'll like it. And, if you don't, it won't impress., 28 July 2009 Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
I rented this DVD because I really like Shaw Brothers movies, not because I am a fan of shows like the Power Rangers and the like. However, I figured with this Chinese studio behind the production, I might still enjoy it. Well, now that the film is over, I can say that I was not at all impressed, as it seemed like a movie only for kids--not fans of serious martial arts films. I appear to be in the minority, though, as all the other reviewers gave it glowing reviews. Now I am not saying that they are wrong--it's just that how much you enjoy this film will really depend on what you think of seeing superheroes and monsters in rubber suits beating each other up for most of the film. They liked it, I didn't--it's as simple as that. I grew up long before the Power Rangers--during the era of Ultraman and even then, I was the only boy in the neighborhood that didn't like the show. So, keep this in mind when reading my review.The film begins with monster attacks occurring all over the place. Only after this has occurred many times did the leader of these monsters show herself. Now I could not understand why some hot Chinese lady in an odd costume was the queen of a bunch of guys in rubber monster suits or Grim Reaper fighting costumes, but I guess you just have to accept this for what it is. The group of humans sent to fight these monsters is really pathetic and so it's up to the brilliant doctor to turn one of these men into the monster-fighter, Inframan! Inframan can do just about anyth8ing and one by one he beats the snot out of all the baddies--leading to a rather unexciting and highly anticipated finale.On the plus side, the costumes are pretty cool and SOME of the martial arts are pretty good (particularly later in the film). On the negative side, these are guys in rubber suits beating the crap out of each other! 'Nuff said!
Add another review
