Thereare two types of people in the world: Those who’ve seen Infra-Man andthose who haven’t.
As the chop-socky heroes at Shaw Brothers Studios neared itswaning years, thanks in large part to Raymond Chow and some guy namedBruce Lee, several attempts were made to revamp the ailing company.Banking on Peter Cushing, Shaw Brothers put out goofy collaborationswith Britain’s Hammer Studios with little success. But long beforelegendary Lau Kar-Leung’s magnificent Shaw swan song Eight DiagramPole Fighter (1983), the once-powerful Chinese studio gave a go atthe Japanese world of Ultraman-esque sci-fi and Godzilla-styledkaiju.
The result is Infra-Man, one of the finest B-movies ever made; aguilty pleasure for high-brow cineastes and a canon flick for filmgeeks.
A malevolent, snazzily-dressed, 10 million-year-old force known asPrincess Dragon Mom (Terry Liu) has arisen hell-bent on dominatingthe world. To aid the oddly-named princess in her nefarious task isan army of men in rubber suits. Besides the endless array ofcannon-fodder skeleton warriors with exploding spears, Dragon Mom hasseveral high-ranking officials to stand by her bone throne. The bulkygenerals include a gruff blue thug with a drill for one hand and asilver thing for the other; a pair of bouncing, mace shootingrobo-twins; a plant being that looks like a crappier version ofMarvel Comics’ Man-Thing (who’s really just a crappy version of DCComics’ Swamp Thing); a scruffy hairball with horns; a fire-breathingdragon man; and some freaky-looking dame with eyes in her hands andno navel.
Earth’s overwhelmed defense force (which apparently consists ofabout 40 Chinese guys in silver jumpsuits) develops a futuristicremedy to the monster problem. Professor Chang (Wang Hsieh)transforms one of his own underlings into a solar-powered cyberneticass-kicking kung-fu machine known as Inframan – a pretty weird nameconsidering the prefix “infra” means inferior or below – but who’scounting, right? Armed with sound effect-enhanced super kicks, laserbeams, projectile mini-saw blades, repetitive choreography anduber-destructive “thunderball fists,” Inframan truly is the hero forthe 21st century (or at least the mid 70s).
The subordinate guinea pig in question is a guy named Raymerplayed by the one and only Danny Lee who later in his career wenttoe-to-toe with Chow Yun-Fat in John Woo’s The Killer (1989) andaccidentally ate human flesh in the Anthony Wong vehicle The UntoldStory (1992).
It’s peculiar and unfortunate that Infra-Man never made it onto”Mystery Science Theater 3000″ and that as of this writing, I can’tfind a Region One or All-Region DVD of this latter-day Shaw Studiomasterpiece. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, butreally, this just makes me weepy.
– Hubert Vigilla
