Kaitei daisensô (1966)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Hajime Sato

Writers:

Masami Fukushima (book)
Kohichi Ohtsu (writer)

Release Date:

1 July 1966 (Japan)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Plot Keywords:

Human Experiment | Skin Diving | Explosion | Underwater Cave | Navy

Cast

Sonny Chiba	...	Ken
Peggy Neal	...	Jenny
Franz Gruber		(as Frank Gruber)
Steve Queens
Andre Husse
Erik Neilson	...	Dr. Moore (as Enric Nielsen)
Eivary Keller
Hajime Sato		(as Terence Ford)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mike Daneen
Hans Horneff
Andrew Hughes
Tsuneji Miemachi
Hideo Murota	...	Henchman

Also Known As:

Battle Beneath the Sea (literal English title)
The Great Undersea War
The Terror Beneath the Sea (USA)
Water Cyborg
Water Cyborgs

Runtime:

Japan:90 min | USA:79 min

Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

K. Fujita Associates Inc.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Das geheime Kino (2007)

A monster film mostly for young kids and bad film fans.

Sadly, before Sonny Chiba made the wonderful martial arts films that made him so famous throughout the world, he starred in a bazillion films--including some real turkeys like INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN (in the bottom 100 films on IMDb). Despite a fairly respectable current score of 5.5 on IMDb, TERROR BENEATH THE SEA is also one of these early bad films. Now it isn't nearly as terrible as INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN (but what is?!), it's still mighty bad and a film only for kids and the curious.

The film involves Chiba and a cast of Westerners and Japanese investigating some strange creatures in the ocean. They look like a poor man's version of the Creature from CREATURE OF THE BLACK LAGOON--rubber body suits painted silver with putty-like faces. It turns out that they are the creation of a mad megalomaniac (Dr. Moore) who has learned to change humans into practically anything he'd like. Using a mind control device, these cheesy monsters do his bidding. And where does this crazed genius live? Yep, 3000 feet under the ocean--and it's up to Chiba and the US Navy to stop this crazy and his freaky friends. They never really explain how the subs are able to go that deep and Chiba's stupid red-headed sidekick wants to swim from there to the surface (they'd be crushed like grapes by the pressure almost immediately). Maybe originally they mean 300 feet and it was mis-dubbed!

The film looks very Japanese when it comes to the underwater battles and sub. There are lots of fires and explosions(!) under water and much of it looks really, really cheap--like they were created by someone who built the cities for the Godzilla films. Oddly, despite these silly special effects, some of the underwater diving scenes were very well done and filmed well and the color throughout the film was lovely--very vivid and clean. The costumes also aren't bad (other than the silver-suited freaks).

The film is entertaining silliness that bad movie fans and kids will like, but I can't imagine anyone else sitting through this odd film. Well,...at least it IS different!