Yûsei ôji

I saw this on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I've never laughed so hard in my life, and that's no exaggeration. This is 110% cheese, at it's very best. The overdubbing of English voices is hilarious. Everything about this movie is ridiculous, from the cheesy makeup, to the cheesy laughs, to the same lines used over....and over....and over. And I thought my eardrums were going to bleed after hearing that horrible 'spaceship' sound effect used nearly 1000 times throughout the film. This movie is so bad, it's hilarious. I was able to catch this on MST3K, and they do a wonderful job of just ripping it a new one. The children in this movie are so...so robotic. Horribly amusing. Or maybe just amusingly horrible. You be the judge.

Give it a watch.

Forget the ratings! It's a bad movie, but it will have you laughing the whole way through. The story is lame, the acting non-existent (to their credit, the actors were working hard), and production values were low. Still, I watch it occasionally; it's a guilty pleasure.

I saw this movie on MST3K. Yes, the fx are weak, but it was 1959. Was Hollywood doing much better? I remember several films with fx equally weak. The dubbing is hilarious but that seems to be a common denominator in dubs. Overall, as a fan of the sci/fi genre I feel this film is not half as bad as all the other viewers claim. I give it 4 out of 10.

"Your weapons have no effect on me" but this movie does. Want to laugh until you fall over? This is the one that tops the charts for the worst Japanese film of all times. The story appears to be that 7, or maybe 8, chickens try to take over the earth, or Japan, or something and a shoe-shine boy, who is really the Prince of Space, points a butane grill lighter at them and jumps around with a sinus mask over his face. The Phantom of Krankor, the head chicken (or is that rooster?), forgot his underwear much to our dismay (or delight),has drooping football pads under his tights, and laughs demonically every five minutes. His flock keep shooting at the Prince with their stick weapons, ignoring his statement that the "weapons have no effect on me". Maybe they should have just hit him over the head. To add to the confusions, small Japanese boys run around giving orders, having access to restricted government property and speaking with a variety of American accents. Somewhere along the line, a giant Pillsbury Dough Boy appears, guarding the planet Krankor, and is easily dispatched by the Prince. So much for giant guardians. The wimpy scientists, meeting in a room the size of the Metropolitan Opera, run the gamut of emotions from cowardice to boredom, which is probably what you will do as you watch this film. It all works out, I guess and the world is safe from Krankor and his flock of invading Rhode Island Reds. I wonder if the Prince went back to his shoe shine job?

Prince of space is a pretty crappy movie, but it isn't the so called "Starman" series. The Starman series, which has been released in two volumes from Something Weird video, features a tights-wearing japanese man running around laughing and beating people up as they fire guns, which they know can't kill him, for he's made of steel. Shintoho, a company that was an off shoot of the great Toho production company created these films which range from bad to so horrible that you want to spray mace in your eyes so you can't see the screen. Walter Manly, the man responsible for delivering these messes to America made it worse by cutting them down from serials and turning them into 75 minute films about salamanders and monsters, and emerald planets... I really couldn't follow the plot I was to busy throwing up... anyway, their are some really classic moments in the films, weird, American serial influenced fights against hordes of creatures or even space facists, and mutants dressed in costumes you'd think were made by the producer's mother for $15.00. There are four films made for American release (even though there were nine films from Japan, three of them were turned into "The Evil Brain From Outer Space" which, sadly, is one of the better ones. My favorite of them all is "Invaders from Space, which has some nifty acrobatics and isn't as boring as some of the others. Prince of Space does suck, but then again so does Starman... if you've got nerdy friends and you're either drunk and/or high and your looking for a giggle, check them out.