Tah Tien

Director: some Thai guy
Writer: some other Thai guy
Producer: some guy from Thailand
Cast: Sombat Methanee, Supuk Likitkul, Thep Tienchai
Year of release: 1973
Country: Thailand
Reviewed from: Thai VCD

Several reviews of Mars Men mention that the character of Yak Wat Jang, the giant Thai demon/superhero character in that Thai/Japanese co-production, also appeared in an earlier movie. Well now - here it is.

And let me tell you, folks: it’s bonkers.

In a prologue, we see a ragged-looking chap carrying a gold statue of Buddha which he has presumably stolen. Chortling with glee, he sits down at the foot of a large, gaily painted statue of Yak Wat Jang. Bad mistake. The statue lifts its staff and pounds the thief into the ground - literally. Hooray for Yak Wat Jang!

This is the last we will see of Yak Wat Jang for more than an hour.

So here’s what happens in the rest of the movie. A comet hurtles out of the sky and crashes into the sea (or at least, we see a still illustration of a comet followed by a small explosion in the water). From this comes a giant snake which crawls up onto the land and coughs up an egg. The egg is then eaten by a giant frog, which subsequently spits it out and expires. The egg promptly explodes to reveal a beautiful young woman, who somehow magically melds with the dead giant frog, who then gets up and walks away.

The snake (which we’ll see again) is basically a life-size prop. The frog is a man in a costume. It’s utterly, utterly extraordinary.

An old guy with a comedy moustache (let’s call him Roy) is riding his water buffalo along, minding his own business, when he is startled by a giant frog, which talks to him in the voice of a young woman. He takes her home to his shack, which has a tiger skin on the wall, and they share a comedy scene with a two-foot-long cigarette. Now tell me this folks: what other movie offers you a scene where an old man and a giant frog share an enormous roll-up?

Cut to an underwater kingdom where a woman with a head-dress like a cobra is discussing something with a young man who is probably her consort. I don’t know who this woman is, but we never see her again, which is a shame because it raised my hopes that this might be yet another snake-woman movie. Instead we see that old giant snake again, coming ashore and transforming into a young man (could be the one from the last scene but I really was by this point too engrossed in this weirdness to go back and check). He wears a snake-skin jerkin and red leggings and has a belt shaped like a snake. So this is a snake-man movie. Ooh, so close.

Back at Roy’s shack, we find that the frog can turn into the young woman but only does so when he’s not there. She magically creates a lot of food and drink, cushions and carpets, which impresses him, but he still thinks she’s a frog. The next day, she sees him off to work, but he sneaks back and peeks through the window, where he sees her in human form. Being a lecherous old comic relief character, he tiptoes in, grabs her from behind and steals a kiss - during which she of course transforms back into a frog.

Wait, what’s this? It’s some copyright-ignoring Sergio Leone music as another old guy rides up to Roy’s shack. He wears a stetson and a sheriff’s badge and a sarong. Clearly he’s a mate of Roy, unlike the young man dressed in black with a bandolier over his shoulder who follows him. I really didn’t understand this bit, which finishes with the young villainous guy chasing after the sheriff to give him his horse back. We never see either again, but we do get to see a giant frog chatting with a talking horse.

Okay, let’s leave Roy and Frog Girl for the moment and follow the adventures of Snake Boy as he comes across a small camp, occupied by a tall, good-looking hunter in a safari suit and his two assistants, who we’ll call Woolly Hat and Orange Vest. Snake Boy magically turns his belt into a (real) python which attacks Orange Vest, but Snake Boy then steps in and rescues him from the (drugged) snake. Snake Boy and Safari Suit swiftly become best friends.

Woolly Hat, being a lecherous young comic relief character, goes down to the river where he spies on two naked women. But who’s this coming up behind him? Why, it’s a man-in-a-crappy-suit gorilla. This movie just gets better and better. Back at the camp, the foursome pair off: Woolly Hat and Safari Suit forming one team, Orange Vest and Snake Boy the other. I assume they’re going to hunt for the gorilla but who can tell? The former pair are attacked by a rhinoceros, which consists of a combination of a dodgy puppet head and stock footage of a rhino clearly shot in a zoo.

Intermission. Change discs.

Snake Boy and Orange Vest find themselves in a rocky landscape where they see, well, a sort of dragon-dinosaur-monster. It’s about eight feel tall with a short tail, spikes up its back and a sort of beak - a stunning piece of ultra low budget suitmation. They kill it with a grenade but when Orange Vest checks the body the thing turns out to be still alive and promptly kills him. Snake Boy gives the beast a flying kung fu kick and knocks it over a cliff. Looking down, he sees that it has not only survived the fall but is now fighting a different dragon-dinosaur-monster! (This one has a longer tail and masses of big teeth.)

Wait a minute - the monsters are now fighting on top of a cliff, where they knock each other over the edge (cue shot of two monster suits being flung down a cliff). Snake Boy runs up and checks that they really are dead, despite the fact that he should technically be two cliffs above them.

Safari Suit, Woolly Hat and Snake Boy meet up back at camp where a sudden storm causes a flash flood which sweeps them and everything else away. Safari Suit is discovered the next day, unconscious, by... Roy, who is out spear-fishing. Roy takes him back to his shack where he meets and falls in love with Frog Girl (who is staying human for the moment).

We do briefly see what happened to one of the others - a bloody great crocodile (stock footage/puppet) chomps down on his limp body, causing vast amounts of blood to flow into the river. We can’t actually see if this is Woolly Hat or Snake Boy, and we never see either of them again.

Safari Suit and Frog Girl go to Bangkok where they visit various temples and speak with an ancient, white-haired hermit who magically disappears. Finally, 76 minutes into the film, Yak Wat Jang reappears. The young couple admire the 15-foot tall giant statue then discover the Buddha from the prologue hidden in some shrubbery. While Safari Suit is taking that somewhere, Frog Girl transforms into her amphibian persona and talks with Yak Wat Jang who magically turns into a human version of himself, retaining the extravagant costume and with a hat depicting the statue’s scary face.

Now appears the weird old man statue character who we previously saw in the cobbled-together-from-TV-episodes abomination Yak Wat Jang wu Jumbo A. Frog Girl turns him into a human version of himself too. The two gods argue like little children and eventually start fighting. In the last few minutes of the film, we finally get to see what the inlay promised: two giant beings devastating downtown Bangkok.

Well, it’s the cheapest, least thrilling giant-vs-giant rumble ever. The only miniature on show is a bridge, next to which Yak Wat Jang trashes some toy boats. All other shots achieve the impression of gigantism by simply shooting the two costumes in Bangkok itself from a very low angle. A few shots are even done over-the-shoulder, looking down at the tiny people and cars below, by putting the costumes on a hotel balcony! Eventually, the old man statue is defeated and Yak Wat Jang turns back into a statue. Frog Girl and Snake Boy live happily ever after.

Even by my standards - and I do have standards, believe it or not - this is one of the weirdest films I have ever seen. It looks like it might be based on some ancient Thai legend about a frog princess and a snake prince or something. The scenes with the giant frog are really quite creepy, like one of those scary East German fairy tale movies. In terms of battling giant demons it’s a bit of a swizz since they’re only on screen for about five minutes. However, the two dinosaurs and the gorilla go some way towards making up for that.

The only information on this film I can find anywhere is the list of three actors on the eThaicd website. Other than that I know nothing. Oh, but what a joy to watch such weirdness. It’s cheap and tatty but it is also clearly intended, at least in part, as a comedy. Whatever, it is a unique film.

MJS rating: C+

Update: In 2008, several years after this vague review was first posted, I received a very helpful e-mail from Eric Hurd, to whom I am indebted, not least for his kind comments about this site:

“Long time listener, first time caller” as they say here on the radio in the US. I’m a big fan of your website and love reading your reviews.

"I’ve especially enjoyed reading all the stuff you’ve written on the 'Yak Wat Jang' character’s appearance in films, most notably since it is the only major mention of these babies in English! I enjoy seeking out information on unknown giant monster films, particularly foreign ones (I hope to write a book on them someday) and finding anything at all not in foreign typefaces helps my searches greatly.

"Well, in my findings, I’ve come across some added info and links you may wish to take note of for your wonderful articles, especially in light of Chaiyo and company finally getting dusted in their whole Ultraman lawsuit fiasco. Firstly, you probably know good ol’ Yak is a character taken from real life, specifically from the statues in front of the temples in Wat Chaeng and Wat Pho (see these pictures). I’ve found that there is some sort of classic mythology there, which is the basis for the Tah Tien movie. The grey stone fellow is apparently, another temple guardian, which seems to go by the name 'Yak Wat Pho', pretty much due to his location. This was confirmed by a couple references to the same statue by that name online.

"In the picture link I mentioned above, Wat Pho’s picture is a couple shots down on the page. Note also the two Wat Jang guardians in the first two pictures on the page. Both ‘guard’ the same building on either side. One is the ‘movie’ green color while the other is white and seemingly painted in the colors of Chaiyo’s Hanuman! You wonder if that's where they came up with them? Note also the many varieties of stone guardian statues on the page, particularly the armless female. There was definitely wasted giant creature material there, I tell you.

"Meanwhile, another page has surfaced, showing some information on Tah Tien in English. It appears to be from a 2006 screening and gives a little more detail, chiefly that the two giants were fighting over money! You may also take notice of the biased information on Chaiyo creating Ultraman- Bwa ha ha ha!!!!!

"And finally, there may be even one more appearance by the big green guy, this time teamed with Chaiyo’s other franchise player, Hanuman! (I was always surprised this wasn’t an obvious pairing from the get-go.) Made in 1984, some 10 years after the last Yak appearance at the time (Tah Tien being made in 1973 and the first Jumborg Ace and Giant pairing coming in ’74- dates found by cutting and pasting the original language into online film databases), it’s called The Noble War aka Suk Kumpakan and is supposedly based on the Ramayana. It, like the others, is available at ethaicd.com."

Yak Wat Jang wu Jumbo A

Director: various, cobbled together by someone on a Friday afternoon
Writer: as above
Producer: as above
Cast: Naoki Tachibana and a bunch of guys in rubber suits
Year of release: difficult to tell, probably late 1990s
Country: Thailand/Japan
Reviewed from: Thai VCD

When I invested in a VCD of this Thai film (aka Yak Wat Jang Vs Jumborg Ace, Yuk Wud Jaeng vs Jumbo A and many other varient spellings) I expected it to be an undubbed, slightly different edit of the Tsuburaya-produced, Thai/Japanese co-production which I had previously reviewed in its Italian incarnation as Mars Men. In fact, this is an almost entirely different film, sharing probably no more than 20 minutes out of its 80-minute running time.

What we have here is a mishmash of footage from the original Yak Wat Jang Vs Jumborg Ace, footage from the Jumborg Ace/Jumbo A television series (which ran for 50 episodes from 17th January to 29th December 1973), and newly shot footage. It is edited together so haphazardly, with characters appearing and disappearing at random, that it’s debatable whether there is in fact supposed to be a single narrative thread here or whether it’s just a compilation of Jumborg Ace’s greatest fights. I’ll try and sum up what happens, but be warned, this is a lo-o-o-ong summary!

We open on Earth with Dr Suriya and his wife Nipha from the Protective Attack Team exploring a Thai temple using their geiger counter. They don’t find anything but do stop to look at a giant statue of Yak Wat Jang. An alien then sends a bunch of cyborg-monsters down to earth and from five minutes in we have unfettered, unexplained, massive destruction of property by giant kaiju, which is frankly what we’re paying to see here.

In their control centre are a team of five people in silver suits who are possibly meant to be a new incarnation of the PAT. There’s a couple, a young boy (with a shaved head) and two extremely camp and unfunny comic relief characters, one with dark skin and red hair, the other very tall.

Cut to golden-haired Jump Killer and spiky-shouldered Antigone, two evil Martian types in their flying saucer who were the principal villains in Mars Men (one difference is that Jump Killer is female here). They watch some TV footage of Thailand.

A Cessna light aircraft is caught up in the big kaiju destruction and goes spinning into a blob of green light. When the pilot Naoki Tachibana (played by... Naoki Tachibana!) comes to, he is in a misty limbo, being addressed by an Ultraman-style character who shows him the mighty cyborg Jumbo A which can turn into his plane. Then he’s suddenly back in his plane so he tries transforming.

The alien we saw earlier sends a robot double of Jumbo A against our hero so we get to see the giant cyborg fight himself, or at least a version of himself with detachable flying forearms. He defeats the evil doppelganger by turning into an animated green streak which decapitates it.

Then we get the creation sequence of Jumborg Nine. The Ultraman-style character is seen again, this time giving Naoki the power to create a giant, world-saving cyborg out of, not a Cessna, but a Mini! The Italian Job was never like this... We then get a brief shot of the two Jumborgs fighting each other.

Jumborg/Jumbo Nine (wasn’t there a pop hit called ‘Jumbo Number Nine?’ oh, please yourselves) fights the alien we saw earlier (who is now giant) and a goofy muppet monster. He blasts the monster’s head and arms off with a fireball and stabs the alien with a sword from a slot in his chest; the alien collapses and spurts blood from his mouth.

Back in the New PAT’s control centre (the location of which is never hinted at), a strange, dark brown idol of an old man frightens the two camp characters, though it’s not clear why. This is the same character who battled Yak Wat Jang at the end of the Thai demon’s first cinematic appearance, Tah Tien, although I still don’t know who he is. Outside, there are a couple more Jumbo vs monster fights.

At 28 minutes in, we get the first bit of footage recognisable from Mars Men, as Dr Suriya and Nipha put on silver protection suits and helmets - complete with face-plates which steam up as the poor actors try and breathe - and explore some caves. There they spot Antigone fighting a three-headed dragon (not Ghidorah or even a rip-off of same) with his glowing sword - footage which was missing from Mars Men, possibly wisely given the awful dragon costume. Antigone takes from the cave wall a massive crystal, the solar eclipse diamond, which causes uncontrolled extreme weather conditions to suddenly hit the planet.

As a giant Antigone trashes the city, the boy and two camp blokes from the New PAT send the old man idol to become giant size and fight him, with all the traditional collateral damage that ensues.

Elsewhere in the city, the appearance of the Martians’ flying saucer causes stock footage panic. The Mini that can turn into Jumbo Nine (the Jum-Car or Jum-Z) stops and out get Naoki and Lin, the little kid from the original PAT who is (I think) Nipha’s little brother. A white-wigged woman dressed in black beams down from the saucer and says something to the crowd, before turning into the giant Jump Killer and trashing nearby buildings. Back in the control centre, the five members of the New PAT and the old man idol watch this happening.

Now we’re 47 minutes in, more than halfway through, and we get another bit of footage from the original film, as PAT aircraft blast at a giant laser which Jump Killer has set up on the Moon, using the solar eclipse diamond, to blast Earth. One of the craft crashes. At the old control centre, Naoki dashes off to his Cessna to create Jumbo A and other members of the team blast off in the, um, aircraft which we’ve just seen them piloting to the Moon. Hmm...

In the New PAT control centre, a doll of Yak Wat Jang which we saw earlier being waved about is made life-size somehow, then becomes giant and flies off, but this is new footage, vastly inferior to the creation scene in Mars Men (imagine - something actually being inferior to Mars Men!). Meanwhile, Jumbo A straps himself onto a space rocket to launch himself at the Moon, where he proceeds to fight Jump Killer and Antigone.

The second disc kicks off, 53 minutes in, with footage from the original movie of Yak Wat Jang and Jumbo A fighting each other on the Moon before realising their mistake and teaming up to battle Jump Killer and Antigone, plus a subplot of one of the PAT craft coming to rescue the downed ship. One thing that is very noticeable is that throughout the fights the giants never shut up. It seems you can never have just action, the character must always be saying something like, “Ah, Jumbo A! I will defeat you! You are no match for me! And then I will defeat Yak Wat Jang too! Hahahahaha!” and, “No, you will never defeat me! For I am Jumbo A!” etc.

After our two heroes defeat Antigone, Yak Wat Jang wanders off into a cloud of purple smoke, leaving Jumbo A to fight Jump Killer.

Next up is the most extraordinary scene of all, lifted from the old TV series. Jump Killer is back on Earth and is human-sized (continuity be damned!). She and three of her anonymous alien goons fight Naoki, who gets out of his Mini but obviously doesn’t think to turn it into Jumbo Nine and just squash her. Captured, he is strung up from a scaffold by his feet, while other members of the old PAT, even little Lin, are strapped up around him - crucified! Even by the outré standards of this ‘film’, this is an incredible scene, made all the more memorable by the soundtrack which eschews the normal vocal, orchestral pomposity (“Yak! Yak! Yak! Yak Wat Jang!”) for a lone trumpet. This plaintive music gives the scene the air of a spaghetti western, an idea exacerbated by numerous atmospheric shots of crows perched on the scaffolds and crucifixes. Sadly this can’t last long, as the PAT ship returns from the Moon, causing Jump Killer to grow giant and try to swat it out of the sky.

This is followed by inexplicable footage of Jump Killer on Mars looking at the graves of Antigone and two other Martians, Betagone and Satangone.

Jumbo A appears and fights her, then Jumbo Nine appears and fights her, but not both together because these are from two separate episodes it seems. She counters by transforming into a super-scary version of herself, complete with horns. Jumbo Nine grabs an enormous shard of crystal and rams it straight through Jump Killer’s stomach, causing an eruption of green blood and killing her.

Then, because continuity is for wimps, Jump Killer is fine and is setting two monsters against Jumbo A, the two who fought him on the Moon in Mars Men but we now seem to be on Earth (possibly, some of the time) because there is vegetation on the set. Defeated, Jumbo A lies on the floor but - hooray! - here comes Yak Wat Jang out of his cloud of smoke to kick Jump Killer’s arse! (All this with occasional cutaways to the New PAT team in their control centre, following the action on video screens.)

Jumbo A recovers and helps Yak Wat Jang defeat the monsters but Jump Killer disappears. The smoky atmosphere clears and the sun shines through on our planet. Huzzah!

But the solar eclipse diamond-powered laser is still on the Moon, blasting at Earth and causing millions of dollars of stock footage destruction. Jump Killer and Antigone appear on the Moon in their flying saucer but Yak Wat Jang and Jumbo A turn up to fight them, which they do by deflecting the laser onto each villain in turn, causing them to catch fire and then explode. Our two giant heroes destroy the laser, take the diamond, thank each other and fly back home to Earth.

Well, what the bloody hell was all that about? Here’s what I can determine: there are two Protective Attack Teams, the old 1970s lot which included Dr Suriya, Nipha and Lin and had access to the Jum-Cessna and the Jum-Car, and a 1990s version with two camp, irritating twats. Jump Killer is very much the main villain, or rather villainess, and has at least two other forms of herself into which she can transform. When I originally posted my Mars Men review I had Jump Killer and Antigone (aka Anchigoné) mixed up but I have now corrected this. Jumbo A, who was described in Mars Men as ‘il gigante robot Americano’ is very definitely Japanese here as he can be heard saying “Arigato” and “Sayonara” at the end. That’s about it.

Although the main plot of the original film - Antigone’s theft of the diamond from Earth and its use in a giant Moon-based laser - is still just about visible, it is mixed up with way too much footage from the TV series to make any sense. Characters die hideously and then are fine (and somewhere else) a moment later. And the inserted footage of the crappy new version of PAT is just horrible, especially their two gibbering ‘comic relief’ characters.

Actor Naoki Tachibana was also in a TV series called Kagestar and allegedly was imprisoned for murder in 1985! There are no on-screen credits on this movie.

I’m not fond of recommending bootlegs, but I have to say that if you only want one film of a giant Ultraman-esque cyborg hero teaming up with an enormous living Thai stone idol to defeat giant Martians - and it’s difficult to see who would want two - then you’re better off getting Mars Men, even with its Italian dubbing. I can also recommend the two other Tsuburaya-produced Thai kaiju movies Hanuman vs 7 Ultraman and Hanuman vs 5 Kamen Rider. This VCD on the Tiga label is only of interest as a sort of Jumborg Ace sampler.

MJS rating: D

Mars Men

Director: Chen Hun-Ming
Writer: Jack Lin
Producer: Tsi See-Shung
Cast: Wen Chang-Lung, Yeh Hsiao-I, Fang Mien
Year of release: 1974
Country: Thailand/Japan
Reviewed from: Italian VHS (Torino Video - and that spaceship is not in the movie!)

Here’s what I can discern from this, with the aid of Damon Foster’s indispensable and sorely missed Oriental Cinema magazine and the also-now-defunct Ultraman 2000 fansite. Gli Uomini di Marte is the Italian dub (and apparently, to some extent, re-edit) of a Thai/Japanese co-production called Yak Wat Jang wu Jumborg A in Thailand and Janborg A tai Giant in Japan.

This is the feature film spin-off from a 1973 TV series, Jumborg Ace/Janborg A, which was a Thai attempt to make a show like Ultraman, using the effects expertise of the Tsuburaya Company, who of course made Ultraman in the first place. Eiji Tsuburaya’s Thai protege was called Somport Sangdaunchay or Sompot Saengduenchai. Jumborg Ace (‘jumborg’ = ‘jumbo cyborg’!) looks very like Ultraman, but can produce a sword from a slot in his chest. He is created from a light aircraft piloted by someone who, well, isn’t actually shown in this movie, using a magic stone set in a wristwatch. Intriguingly, the Italian dubbed dialogue refers to the giant robot as ‘il gigante roboto Americano’...

So here is my attempt to make sense of an nth generation copy of an Italian dubbed video of a bad print of a Japanese/Thai film. We open on some kids playing baseball near an ancient Thai temple; one little kid (called Lin) goes looking for the ball, finds a hidden cave, and unearths a small statue, about a foot high. This is a typical Thai demon - scary face, pointy hat, long frock coat, etc. - called Yak Wat Jang (first seen in the bizarre fantasy Tah Tien).

Meanwhile, Lin’s father is watching TV when the broadcast is interrupted by a Martian spaceship announcing that it is planning to conquer the universe - starting presumably with Earth. Lin runs in and shows his dad the statue, which the old chap identifies as being 3,000 years old (according to my rudimentary knowledge of Italian, self-taught from horror movie titles!).

A young lady (Lin’s sister?) comes home and finds both the old guy and the kid on the floor. They are rushed to hospital where it is discovered that their skin has turned to metal (I think!). Neither is ever seen again, so presumably they’re actually dead! The young lady is Nipha, wife of Dr Suriya - both are members of a super-high-tech Earth defence force called the Protective Attack Team (PAT) and race to their secret base in an old temple, where they wear gold space-suits.

Although there are a bunch of Martians on the flying saucer which is menacing Earth, the only two we see do anything are the leader, who has a mane of golden hair and is (I believe) called Jump Killer in the original, and his pointy, more cowardly lieutenant named Antigone. The two ‘beam down’ to Earth, where they turn out to be giants, and destroy some buildings. It must be said, the miniatures aren’t bad and the effects shots of the flying saucer passing over cities are nicely matted.

In the cave where Lin found the statue, Antigoné finds a magical stone, the solar eclipse diamond, seen by Dr Suriya and Nipha. (The Ultraman 2000 site said that this happens at the start of the movie, which leads me to think the Italians re-edited the film; also some sources give the length as 100 minutes, when this version is a bit under 90 minutes.)

The Martians use the diamond to set up a giant heat-beam weapon on the Moon, with which they blast cities on Earth. Who can defeat them? Well, il gigante roboto Americano (Jumborg Ace to his friends) for one - who is introduced with no explanation whatsoever. At the same time, Dr Suriya and Nipha check Lin’s father’s house with a geiger counter and discover the small (radioactive) statue, which they take back to their base and blast with X-rays. When they look at it again later, it has tripled in size and shows signs of movement. As they watch, it leaps off the table, flies out the conveniently open door and heads off up to the Moon, growing to giant size as it does so.

The last half-hour is basically a series of fights between the four giant characters: Jumborg Ace, Yak Wat Jang, Antigone and Jump Killer. Initially the two good guys make the mistake of fighting each other, but later join forces to grapple the Martians. Yak Wat Jang has a sort of magic staff, while Jump Killer has an eye in his waist which blasts a heat-beam, and can also fire bullets from his torso. It’s cracking stuff, it really is! At one point, Jump Killer calls forth two rubber monsters (one of which has a gauze patch in the neck - for the actor to see and breathe - which is painfully obvious even on this fuzzy copy). When Yak Wat Jang destroys these two, the suits actually explode! Fantastic! Eventually, the Martians are defeated, Yak Wat Jang and Jumborg Ace thank each other and return to their respective parts of Earth.

This is a rollicking good piece of fun, with the Thai designs giving a whole new look to the normal Japanese giant hero genre. It’s difficult to read the credits on the small jpegs of Italian posters that I have found but they clearly don’t correspond with the ones on the print: the director is given as ‘Seika Den’ but that’s not a name you’ll find on any other film. It is also interesting how the title Mars Men is prominently displayed on the Italian posters to give the impression that this is an American picture, even though it has never even been dubbed into English, let alone released in the USA.

The French version, Les Hommes d'une Autre Planete, credits Ho Li Weper as producer and lists the cast as Yen Chiang Lung, Wang Pao Yu, Yen Tsiao, Fang Yen, Yan Fran Sua and Ro Gei. Allegedly this film was released in Thailand but not Japan. I don't know about that but it's worth noting that the Turkish(!) poster seems to be a merely a Chinese poster with the title Mars Adam printed over the top.

Fans of Ultraman, Godzilla and pals will love this and should watch out for two similar subsequent Thai/Japanese co-productions, Hanuman vs 7 Ultraman and Hanuman vs 5 Kamen Rider. However, beware of a Thai VCD which purports to be the original Yak Wat Jang Vs Jumborg Ace but is actually a hopelessly incomprehensible bodge of footage from this film and the Jumborg Ace TV series, together with some material about a new version of the PAT.

MJS rating: B-

review originally posted 6th January 2005