Chikyû Bôeigun (1957)

Director:

Ishirô Honda

Writers:

Shigeru Kayama (story)
Takeshi Kimura (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

15 May 1959 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller | War

Tagline:

They come from another World...They want 3 kilometres of land-and...FIVE of your WOMEN!

Plot:

Aliens arrive on Earth and ask permission to be given a certain tract of land for their people to live on...

Plot Keywords:

Alien | Giant Robot | Meteor | Fall From Height | Brother Sister Relationship

Cast

Kenji Sahara	...	Joji Atsumi
Yumi Shirakawa	...	Etsuko Shiraishi
Momoko Kôchi	...	Hiroko Iwamoto
Akihiko Hirata	...	Ryoichi Shiraishi
Takashi Shimura	...	Dr. Tanjiro Adachi
Susumu Fujita	...	Gen. Morita
Hisaya Ito	...	Capt. Seki
Yoshio Kosugi	...	Cmdr. Sugimoto
Fuyuki Murakami	...	Dr. Nobu Kawanami
Tetsu Nakamura	...	Dr. Koda
Yoshio Tsuchiya	...	Leader of the Mysterians
Yutaka Sada	...	Police Capt. Miyamoto
Ren Imaizumi	...	Adachi's Assistant Hayami
Takeo Oikawa	...	Announcer on TV
Tadao Nakamaru	...	1st Lt. Yamamoto
George Furness	...	Dr. Svenson
Harold Conway	...	Dr. DeGracia
Haruya Kato	...	Doomed Villager
Senkichi Ômura	...	Doomed Villager
Shin Ôtomo	...	Policeman Kawada
Akio Kusama	...	Chief of Police station Togawa
Shôichi Hirose	...	Detective in Etsuko's house
Rinsaku Ogata	...	Policeman Ogata
Heihachirô Ôkawa	...	Person at Board Meeting
Takuzô Kumagai	...	Col. Ito (as Jirô Kumagai)
Mitsuo Tsuda	...	Person at Defense Meeting
Kamayuki Tsubono	...	Person at Defense Meeting
Hideo Mihara	...	Gen. Emoto
Yasuhiro Shigenobu	...	Doomed Villager
Katsumi Tezuka	...	Mysterian
Haruo Nakajima	...	Moguera
Byron Morrow	...	General (American version)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Rikie Sanjo	...	Etsuko's mother
Soji Ubukata	...	Dr. Noda
Hideo Unagami	...	The mysterian
Minosuke Yamada	...	The Secretary of Defense Hamamoto
Mitsuo Matsumoto	...	Reporter of news paper (uncredited)

Directed by
Ishirô Honda

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Shigeru Kayama		story
Takeshi Kimura		writer
Jojiro Okami		story

Produced by
Tomoyuki Tanaka	....	producer

Original Music by
Akira Ifukube

Cinematography by
Hajime Koizumi

Film Editing by
Koichi Iwashita

Production Design by
Teruaki Abe

Production Management
Yasuaki Sakamoto	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Koji Kajita	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Jay Bonafield	....	dubbing supervisor: English
Ichirô Minawa	....	sound effects
Masanobu Miyazaki	....	sound recordist
Carlos Montalbán	....	dubbing scenarist: English
Peter Riethof	....	dubbing scenarist: English

Special Effects by
Hidesaburo Araki	....	special effects photographer
Sadamasa Arikawa	....	special effects photographer
Eiji Tsuburaya	....	director of special effects
Akira Watanabe	....	special effects art director

Stunts
Haruo Nakajima	....	stunt choreographer

Other crew
Hiroshi Mukoyama	....	combination shots

Production Companies

• Toho Company

Distributors

• Toho Company (1957) (worldwide) (all media)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1959) (USA) (theatrical) (dubbed)
• Tokyo Shock (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• Star Classics Video (video)
• United Video (video)
• VCI Home Video (video)

Other Companies

• Toho Studios  sound stages

Also Known As:

Defence Force of the Earth
Earth Defense Force
The Mysterians (USA)

Runtime:

89 min | Japan:88 min | USA:85 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Perspecta Stereo (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Norway:12 | UK:PG

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

Tôhô Kabushiki Kaisha's first color widescreen special-effects film.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): One of the bicyclist firefighters has a very southern-US accent, when the on-screen actors are obviously Japanese.

Quotes:

Dr. Tanjiro Adachi: Strange things are happening behind the moon!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Angry Video Game Nerd: Godzilla (#4.15)" (2009)

Japan's Fantasies Finest Hour

We have always enjoyed the early Japanese Fantasy Films circa 1954-1963. During this time they took themselves and there subjects seriously. What ever their technical short comings were you could see they were in earnest. Basically after this period starting with KING KONG -vs- GODZILLA the slide down to kiddy fare began just a step above STARMAN.

Though we consider the original GORJIRA/Godzilla as the first and the best THE MYSTERIANS is the one (1) we enjoyed most. This is a SPACE OPERA on a grand scale. Watching it is like seeing the old pulp Science-Fiction magazine covers of the 1930's being brought to life. Basically the team that acted and made the original Godzilla are back plus the addition of Technicolor and WideScreen. They needed a big and splashy story and THEM -vs- US for the world was the canvas that well suited this first effort.

We first saw it on T.V. in the mid 1960s and were enthralled like any early teenagers by these scenes of action and massed destruction. But even then we (my brother and I) felt something was missing. It was not until the early 1990s that we saw a restored Japanese print in it's original format (WS) and subtitled in English that what happened on screen made sense. Best of all there were more scenes of destruction.

It is a pity that TOHO did not make a direct sequel and made BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE instead (still a fun film). Now that they are more technically adapt it would be nice to see this film remade. The one (1) thing I would keep though (other then the basic plot line) is the exceptional musical score.