Uchu kara no messeji (1978)

User Rating:

4.0/10   

Director:

Kinji Fukasaku

Writers:

Kinji Fukasaku (story)
Shotaro Ishinomori (story)

Release Date:

30 October 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | War

Tagline:

Where Fantasies are Real & Reality is Fantastic.

Plot:

In this Star Wars take-off, the peaceful planet of Jillucia has been nearly wiped out by the Gavanas...

Plot Keywords:

Manga | Space Opera

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Sonny Chiba	...	Hans
Jerry Ito
Vic Morrow	...	General Garuda
Philip Casnoff	...	Aaron
Etsuko Shihomi	...	Esmeralida
Peggy Lee Brennan	...	Meia
Tetsuro Tamba	...	Noguchi
Hiroyuki Sanada	...	Shiro
Mikio Narita	...	Rockseia XLL
Makoto Satô	...	Urocco
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Eisei Amamoto	...	Mother Dark (in drag)
Seizo Fukumoto
Noboru Mitani	...	Kamesasa
Masazumi Okabe	...	Jackie
Junkichi Orimoto	...	Kido
Charles Scawthorn	...	1st guard, at Headquarters entrance
Isamu Shimizu	...	Beba, the robot
Harumi Sone	...	Lazare
Sandâ Sugiyama	...	Big Samu

Also Known As:

Message from Space (International: English title)
Message from Space: Galactic Wars
Return to Jelucia (USA) (cable TV title)

Runtime:

USA:105 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.00 : 1

Sound Mix:

Super Space Sound

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Kyoto, Japan

Company:

Toei Company

Trivia:

Portions of this film were spliced into "Astron Belt", the first laserdisc-based arcade game.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Galaxy Ranger (1984) (VG)

A few funny moments, but mostly dull ripoff of "Star Wars"

I've enjoyed plenty of other "Star Wars" ripoffs, including "Battle Beyond the Stars" and especially "Turkish Star Wars", but "Message From Space" bored me a bit. Apparently many other reviewers found this to be quite entertaining. In my mind, it had its moments of humorous camp, but not nearly enough. Too much of the film was devoted to annoying and unfunny comic relief, monotonous battle sequences, and a "cute" robot (who's essentially R2D2 with the voice of C3PO). Admittedly my bootleg print was in absolutely shoddy condition (distracting Russian subtitles, worn-out print, and the film seemed to go in and out of letterbox and full-screen), but this still bored me for some reason.

Vic Morrow was a decent actor, but by this point in his career he'd been regulated to either foreign exploitation films or guest parts on TV shows. He makes for a rather dull hero here. I don't go to my b-films for great acting, but at least entertaining performances or even unintentionally funny ones. However, like everyone else (including Sonny Chiba), he was rather dull here. As I said, there are some pretty funny parts in this movie, but its often too annoyingly cute. I'd rather be watching "Infra-Man" or "Mighty Peking Man" than this. (3/10)