Atomic Rulers (1965)

Half way through this film I wondered which year in the 50s it was made? A decade-guess, based on the horrifically bad "special effects". Mid-sixties, really? Anyway if you like fight scenes in which the aggressors just give up out of sheer boredom, this is an A list movie. My favorite scene was a standoff between star-man and would be assailants who kept driving their car at him. You could go make a cup of tea while they continue this standoff and it's a standoff which ends so inexplicably as to be magical (or really bad editing). Also features an execution machine which proceeds at a pace which would ensure it's victim would die of old age. And it includes a nuclear weapon which ticks so tediously as the alleged actors try desperately to do something, that you feel your life force ebbing. You'll find you forget a lot about the film but if you teach film making, it's a must because in every scene you can just stand there and say "no". Only show this to children you don't like but if you like quality films, you could build an entire party experience around this one and it would be hilarious.

Atomic Rulers of the World is a badly done Japanese children's serial that makes the later entries in the Godzilla series look like big budget epics. The Galactic Council (made up of some of the fakest looking robots you've ever seen) is concerned that if Earth gets into a nuclear war, the radiation could poison the entire galaxy. (Isn't space full of radiation anyway?) To prevent this catastrophe, they send the ultra powerful "Starman" to save Earth.The film suffers from a number of flaws, not the least of which being the producers' decision to insert a group of annoying orphans into the plot. At various points, the orphans show up to either help or be rescued by Starman. The young woman who looks after them is particularly cloying.At times, the film is just laugh out loud funny. For instance-a foreign country is planning to take over the world. Who do we call? (Aside from Starman, of course!) Why, the Tokyo police! Who else? Add to this some truly awful special effects, sub par for even B-level Japanese cinema, and you have the makings of a dubbed Plan 9 from Outer Space.

It is what it is- and what it is is lots of far-fetched fun. Starman was one of the many heroes who haunted the black and white world of my childhood. I may be misremembering it, but I seem to recall seeing him die in an atomic explosion at the end of one adventure (though I could be confusing it with the final episode of ASTRO BOY). Like ULTRAMAN and ULTRAMAN TIGA and the giant robots RED BARON and IRON KING and GIGANTOR and the child-sized ASTRO BOY (my all-time favorite Japanese import) and all the others, Starman took me away, time and again, to a better world- one where heroes really existed... and sometimes died battling the ever-present Forces of Evil. ATOMIC RULERS OF THE WORLD is better than ATTACK FROM SPACE (in which Starman jams a bad guy head-first into a torpedo tube and then rams a torpedo in after him in what may have been an unintentionally hilarious scene...), but I highly recommend them both for fans of early superhero imports. Not a bad way to spend an evening; not at all.

Ken Utsui stars in his fourth and final outing as Starman, Japan's favorite fruity spandex clad superhero. This time he's out to stop the evil country of Magolia (no not Mongolia) from getting their hands on atomic weapons deadly enough to destroy the entire world. Unlike it's predecessors which featured lots of funny fighting and goofy effects, this flick plays like a third rate version of the George Reeves' Superman show (Starman's alter ego even dresses up like a mild mannered Oriental in a suit and fedora) and it's pretty dull to boot. There's also a lot of rigmarole with a bunch of snotty Japanese Little Rascals types that slow things down considerably as well. And instead of the goofy aliens in Evil Brain from Outer Space, all the villains in this one are a bunch of cheap thugs who are straight out of the forties. (And why is it that all those hired thugs are always dressed so impeccably in their dapper suits?) Anyway, die hard Starman fans (no not you Jeff Bridges enthusiasts out there) will want to check it out, but this one didn't nearly have enough goofy fight scenes for my liking. Oh yeah, and despite the title, there isn't a radioactive yardstick to be seen in this flick.