Message From Space

Prince Hans, No Solo

Message From Space
aka Uchu kara no messeji
Japan 1978 Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Toei/Eureka Masters Of Cinema
Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Small spoilers about the final outcome of the movie... as if there was any doubt.

I’d not seen Message From Space before but I believe I do have a bootleg of this tucked away somewhere with the title Japanese Star Wars and, to be fair, that’s actually a more accurate title, in some ways, than its real one and, again in some ways, that does also sum up the movie too. And I don’t mean that to detract from what is, in actual fact, a quite entertaining and historically contextually impressive film.

Kinji Fukasaku, who some of my readers may remember from classic films like Battle Royale and the, perhaps, not quite so classic The Green Slime, directed this for release in 1978. It was a year after George Lucas’ magnum opus first hit cinemas in the US (and eventually, right at the end of the same year, in the UK) and the eyes of the world were eyeing up that box office take. Just as in America, many countries rushed to release their own, half rip off Star Wars* bandwagon films... some of which hadn’t been able to get a green light until the Lucas film had every producer on the planet scrambling to develop whatever science fiction properties they could get their hands on. And Japan was no exception although, while I’m sure many studio heads and film industry people had been able to see Star Wars in 1977, it actually didn’t get a release in Japan until a couple of months after this movie was already in cinemas (there’s a certain irony there, I guess).

Okay, so yes, despite the staunch defence of the movie against comparisons in the booklet included in the Eureka Blu Ray, this film certainly does have a lot of Star Wars injected straight into its DNA. I mean, if you want ot watch it on a surface level, you can’t help but laugh and be entertained by some of the ‘bend over backwards’ attempts to shoe horn as many resemblances as possible into the story and a fair few other production elements, it has to be said. However, there’s also a lot of other impressive stuff here which, perhaps, went on to inspire some of those Hollywood bandwagon movies in much the same way... I suspect.

A brief rundown of the plot set up is that Princess Emeralida, played by Etsuko Shihomi of the Sister Streetfighter films (reviews coming as soon as I get around to watching them) is charged with a mission by her father, the elder of the rag tag band of space hippies who are the lone survivors of the planet Jillucia. The war shredded planet has been occupied by the inhabitants of the evil, silver skinned Gavanas Empire, who have set up their main fortress there. So the tribal elder sends the eight magic Liaba seeds (snicker... Liaba minora perhaps... but they look just like Walnut shells to me) out into space to seek the eight brave warriors who are prophesised to save them. Emeralida and her humble bodyguard must follow them and find the eight worthy warriors, scattered in various places in the galaxy... and raise them to come to their aid. These include General Garuda played by Vic Morrow, his R2D2/C3PO half bleeping/half talking, dome headed android Beba Two, Kamikazi Mei (played wonderfully by a severely underused actress called Peggy Lee Brennan) and even the legendry Sonny Chiba as Prince Hans. They and some of the other ‘heroes’ are all pretty good in this and help carry what is a far more entertaining film than we should expect of the story. There’s even an appearance by the president of Earth, played by Tetsurô Tanba, who played in stuff like Three Outlaw Samurai (review will eventually be coming) and You Only Live Twice (reviewed by me here).

Okay, enough of the plot. The film has lots of key notes from Star Wars that it hits. The space ship flying overhead shot mimicking the Star Destroyer at the start of the Lucas film, the laser beams shot from pistols and dogfighting space ships (often making sounds more reminiscent of automatic pistols) plus many other familiar elements, such as the final attack run on the Gavanas fortress which looks suspiciously like the final attack on the Death Star, except in this case, instead of trying to hit a thermal exhaust port 3 metres in diameter, our brave and fearless heroes are trying to hit a reactor core 10 metres in diameter. Of course, in order to save the people of the planet, they also have to end up destroying said planet but, hey, at least they won, right? Right?

Certainly, one of the biggest influences felt from Star Wars here is the ‘golden age Hollywood score’ by composer Ken'ichirô Morioka. It’s like he studied John Williams seminal score to the ‘n’th detail and there are many call backs to some of the musical passages in the American film. Not least of which is the theme in the leitmotif for the Liaba seeds, which bears a striking resemblance (perhaps a couple of notes changed or missing) to the Obi Wan/Force theme from Williams’ Star Wars scores.

All this aside though, there are also some elements which Hollywood movies, including future Star Wars movies, might also have been taking notice of in this one. The lightning style forks of laser power emitted by the spaceships of the bad guys foreshadows the similar VGer effects used in Star Trek The Motion Picture of the following year (and I’m pretty sure one of the Gamera movies used it even before this... you’ll find it mentioned, I’m sure, in one of my Gamera reviews)... although, I guess it’s kind of an expansion of the same kind of visual effect used when R2D2 gets zapped by the Jawas, in some measure. Also, the interior sets of the Gavanas fortress, while tipping the head to the interiors of the Death Star in some ways, also has windows and decor which wasn’t seen in the Star Wars franchise until the second film, The Empire Strikes Back, was released in cinemas two years later than this. So, yeah, a kind of post modern Ouroboros kind of cannibalism between this and the Star Wars films, perhaps.

Ultimately, no matter how much of it is pure rip off (and there is a lot of that in this) and how much of it is original to this film (but probably also eclectically borrowed, perhaps), glowing space whips aside, Message From Space is a very entertaining piece of cinema starring some Japanese screen legends and I’m really glad that Eureka have decided to put out a fantastic looking Blu Ray disc of it. A definite recommendation from me, for sure. Maybe they’ll issue the TV series continuation next?

* And don’t forget, the Star Wars films themselves ransacked many different story elements from various sources (some, of course, from Japanese cinema) and so one can understand a lack of reluctance to copy the film by other people... it’s all fair game and Star Wars certainly wears its influences on its sleeve.