In the wake of the unprecedented box office bounty of
George Lucas' seminal
Star Wars in 1977, filmmakers around the world raced to unveil their own epic space operas, all hoping to strike gold mining the same cosmic vein. Among the most prominent of these international productions was Toei Studios'
Message From Space (
Uchu kara no messeji), released in the United States in the Autumn of 1978 by United Artists.
The planet Jillucia has been conquered by the Gavanas Empire, its natural beauty devastated after years of war. The few survivors call upon their gods and are given eight magic seeds (that look like walnuts), which they send out into the universe to find eight champions to help Jillucia overthrow its conquerors. The seeds end up in the hands of a motley crew - including a disgraced Earth general Garuda (
Vic Morrow,
Twilight Zone: The Movie) and his robot, a couple of young "space hot rodders" (
Philip Casnoff,
Dollhouse, and
Hiroyuki Sanada,
Lost), a thrill-seeking heiress (
Peggy Lee Brennan), and an exiled Gavanas warrior prince (
Sonny Chiba,
Streetfighter, Kill Bill). Ultimately, all of these individuals embrace their destiny and unite to face the evil Empire and save Earth from destruction.
Fast-paced, absurd and fun,
Message From Space is a giddily insane interstellar samurai fantasy, loaded with space dogfights, laser battles, swordplay and explosions. The miniature effects are extraordinarily well-crafted, and the production design is lavish. The cast is pretty good, too; I really like Morrow as the noble, drunken Garuda, and, of course, Sonny Chiba rocks as the
ronin-like Prince Hans.
Etsuko Shihomi - better known to cult film fans as "Sue Shiomi" of the
Sister Streetfighter films - makes a lovely space princess, even if her character is sadly under-used and she never gets to demonstrate any of her legendary ass-kicking skills.
The story owes as much to traditional Japanese
chambara as it does to George Lucas' pulp space opera, and while Western audiences might find the plot both convoluted and juvenile (especially the magic, glowing walnuts!), I actually find it to be a rather charming outer space fairy tale.
"Viva Chiba!"
Like Toho's
The War In Space of the year before,
Message exhibits a distinctively Japanese aesthetic, with many striking images, including a schooner-like starship with solar sails. Interestingly, a number of scenes and images from this film were echoed in later American sci-fi films, like
Roger Corman's
Battle Beyond The Stars (1980), and even by Lucas'
Star Wars sequels, especially
Message's climactic bombing run, which is uncannily similar to the climax of
The Return of the Jedi, released five or six years later!
Personally, I never imagined that
Message From Space would ever be released on DVD in the U.S., and definitely not in widescreen, but, much to my surprise, the original Japanese/International uncut version is now available on an NTSC format, region-free import disc from Eastern Star. Presented in a nearly flawless, 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer,
Message From Space looks terrific! Both the original Japanese language track and the English dub are included, both in 2.0 stereo, although the English track is somewhat muffled and has a soft background hiss. English and Chinese subtitles are available. Special features include a still gallery, several original Japanese trailers for the film, and trailers for a couple other Eastern Star titles.
If you enjoy Asian fantasy films or 70s space opera, you owe it to yourself to check out
Message From Space. If you're already a fan of the movie, I can't recommend the Eastern Star release more highly. It can be purchased from Amazon:
Message From Space
Haven't seen it all the way through yet, but after watching "Turkish Star Wars" last week, I think I'm ready for this. It's on Netflix, so I'll check it out tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen this movie in 25 years or so, but it really made an impact on my adolescent sci-fi-hungry psyche. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteWow, I don't think I've ever come across this before. To say it looks worth a watch would be an understatement. I'll keep an eye out.
ReplyDeleteKurosawa was an influence on Lucas too, but I'll bet you know that very well. There's a quote and details here for anyone who needs convincing:
http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/508/508820p1.html
It's a great movie, but be prepared for a few quirky moments. In particular, the "space firefly" scene and the old lady with her son from Pluto. But otherwise, it's a fun movie with some really cool effects. The ship that the space jockeys put together is pretty cool - I always liked the design on all of the fighters. Vic Morrow does a fine job in this movie and he is sorely missed.
ReplyDeleteWow, swords and glowing walnuts in space, what'll they think of next--nice review ;)
ReplyDeleteMessage From Space has always been one of my favorites from the post-Star Wars craze and it's great to see there's finally a decent dvd release of it. Although I didn't actually see the movie back in '78 (although I do remember the commercials), Message was one of the first things I saw--along with Starcrash and Saturn 3--on Showtime when my family got cable in 1980. I really loved the music, which sounds like a cross between Princess Leia's Theme and one of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores. Does anyone remember the model kits of the spaceships, which were available in the U.S.?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I actually had one of the MESSAGE FROM SPACE models - Maia's spaceship, complete with both fighters. Unfortunately, like my SPACE: 1999 kits and Millennium Falcon, it didn't survive my adolescence.... sigh.
ReplyDeleteFYI - the version of MESSAGE that's available for download from Netflix is the United Artists U.S. cut, which is reportedly about 10 minutes shorter than the Japanese cut on the DVD. I haven't personally confirmed this, though.
ReplyDeleteI remember getting some of the ships (in a very tiny scale) out of gunball machines in the early 80's. I've never been able to find them again.
ReplyDeleteI just realized that the guy who played Shiro was on LOST as Dogan. Wow...he's had a good career.
Some of the footage in the movie was used in the arcade game Astron Belt from Sega in 1983. The game also used fottage from Battle Beyond the Stars.
ReplyDeleteThis movie was a lot of fun, as I recall. I saw it in the theatres but haven't seen it since. Great to see it released on DVD!
ReplyDeleteI too first ran across this movie in 1980 on Showtime. Weird and funky and I became a fan. None of my friends had Showtime and had no clue as to what I was talking about. I also ran across those model kits, remembering my shock that kits where actually being sold from this film. I wish I would have bought them, however I did play the coin op video game that used footage from the flick. My DVD is ordered and I can't wait to sit down and watch it.
ReplyDeleteThe Netflix streaming version is uncut - the audio from it (the best I've ever heard on a copy of this movie - in English, anyways) synchs quite nicely to the Japanese R2 Toei Video DVD... The shorter version of the movie was cut for USA Network in the early 80's, re-titled Return To Jillucia.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update/correction. Apparently, I was misinformed.
ReplyDeleteI still have the old model kits of the three 'hero' ships from that movie (Liabe, Comet Fire and Galaxy Runner), as well as those bubble-gum machine versions mentioned by Steve in his Dec 1 post. (There were only two of the MfS ships in that set: the Liabe & the Comet Fire. One of the little ships, though, kinda sorta resembled one of the Earth battlecruisers from the movie, with a bit of cut-and-paste model conversion. Others in the set seemed like random ships, except for one that was based on an earlier set of--I kid you not--spaceship erasers! But I digress...)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you mentioned the ending of this film resembled Return of the Jedi... when I saw MfS on the big screen as a kid, I thought the end was something of a Star Wars rip-off, with a twist. When I saw Jedi in 1983, I thought immediately how it was something of a Message from Space rip-off, with no twist. I guess "the circuit is now complete," eh?
Anyway, love this film for the memories it brings back, and the fun & detailed SFX miniature work. Haven't seen it since I was a teenager, so I look forward to finally getting a DVD copy.
Thanks,
CR
I picked up the DVD on Christopher's recommendation and I have been very pleased with the transfer. I never thought that I'd have the chance to own such a great copy of the movie. I've also shared it with some friends and now they're fans of the flick. :)
ReplyDelete