Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro

Turner Classic Movies broadcast Goke at 2AM, October 03, 2006 in a gorgeous, widescreen, sub-titled print. It's great that they were able to secure a print of this quality. There are many questions, few answers, in the allegorical script. The last of the J-horrors produced late in the decade, the pulp sci-fi magazine elements are presented in searing colors and psychedelic effects, giving this film an unforgettable visual impact. Great looking women are a major plus. Injecting an anti-war, anti-Viet Nam stance throughout the entire film took a lot of nerve and must have damaged its theatrical distribution with US exhibitors. The movie producers at the Sci-Fi channel should carefully study this film.

It's a survivalist sci-fi thriller with aliens and vampires but mostly about victims of an airline crash. No routine action special-effects film, it's often artful and philosophical, certainly sermonizing on a variety of social-political issues (mostly war, politicians, munitions manufacturers, political assassinations, terrorists, hijackers, and general human nature), and is unusually bleak for a modest-budget genre film.

An American girl is one of the passengers here, too, but she's a Vietnam war widow traveling to retrieve her husband's remains, a fact that will determine the direction of some of the action once things start to happen. It starts off as an airline disaster film, and gradually evolves into sort of a weird blend of Night of the Living Dead, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, War of the Worlds (or Independence Day), and The Last Man on Earth, with perhaps a tinge of Melancholia.

First of all, if you want to see this flick, you'll have to look for one of the out of print tape copies made by Sinister Cinema. They used to have them and in widescreen (more or less) but apparently cannot make any more. Mine was one I found for sale that was already viewed but was lucky to find.

The widescreen is not the complete picture, but it's close, there's not too much cropped off at the sides and it's about 1.66 to 1 ratio. Pretty good image and color too. The story concerns an airplane crash landing on some sort of island or rural area, where a spaceship has landed. The alien is a life form which takes control of a person by entering the body, and then turns that person into a vampire, who drains its victims of all blood. It seems this alien is the vanguard of an advancing conquest. The whole thing is pretty eerie but has plenty of goofy moments that will make for laughs. There's the whole idea of mankind racing to destroy itself along with pretty vapid references to Vietnam, and how terrible the world is. The idea is that the earth will get what it deserves since we can't live in peace. Good old 1970s peacenik hand-wringing at the terrible state of humanity, with a good dash of cardboard character clichés thrown in. You'll want to see it for the really weird execution of a pretty spooky premise, and fast paced too. One of those type of films that cries out for a remake by someone who knows how to handle sci-fi horror.

Goke has this great, rare exploitation look of the 60's. With extreme bright colours like orange, red and yellow. Great sounds of cheap ass spaceships sending out information to those who has a twisted mind, and venerable for their wicked master plan. Namely to take over the world again. The real cool thing of this cheap thrill flick is the message underneath. In fact the aliens want to make clear to us that taking over the world isn't that difficult. Cause we people are bound to destroy each other. We are building for the kill and the only thing the invaders have to do is to sit and wait till each and one of those humans are dead. Of course in Goke are some people who don't give up and try to fight the aliens. Only for them to find out that this guy and girl are all alone on planet earth. Goke take you all the way. Spaceships, weird landscapes psychocolors weird sound effects, enough action packed scenes and classic shots of spaceship invaders attacking the world. I love this Movie deeply!!!!!!!!!!!

Goke is one of those films that I had only heard about in the 1980's but was never able to see. It had a reputation among the hard core film fans as something out of left field but not very good. Many years later I had forgotten about the film but had chanced across director Sato's deliriously silly kid's film "Golden Bat". I was rather surprised that this film was by the same man.

The film is very artificial from the first shot of a model jet in front of a red sky to the rock quarry most of film takes place in. Most Japanese film fans will recognize this quarry. It's in samurai films, gangster films and every other episode of Power Rangers. The cheapness is off-set by the care of the direction and photography. The special effects are super color saturated and very bizarre at times. While definitely not a children's film, Sato utilizes a number of techniques from Golden Bat including the generic action music and the kabuki inspired movements for the possessed.

The energy that's put into this film makes up for the logic gaps, bad acting and cheapness. The ending is very unexpected, nightmarish and disturbing. Finishing this film is like waking from a very bad night of sleep. As Sato has no further films in his listing here yet lived for quite a while after, I wonder what was his state of mind while making this film.

Recommended.