“People of Earth, surrender or die.”
Aliens called The Sapphirians come from the Sapphire Galaxy. The Sapphirians want to take over Earth. They plan on using nuclear weapons to do so. No reason is ever given why they want to conquer Earth other than they want to rule the Universe. The Emerald Planet is once again in fear that fallout from nuclear attack could affect their planet so Starman is once again sent to remedy the situation. As usual Starman (Ken Utsui) is made of steel and has his nifty globemeter to help him fly through space, find radiation and communicate in any language.
The Sapphirians infiltrate a secret lab on Earth that is building a special space ship. The engine of this ship is far superior to anything they have. In the wrong hands it could be used as a weapon. They want the technology for themselves. Dr. Yamanaka (Hiroshi Hayashi) is the scientist in charge of the project. The Sapphirians kidnap him and his son and daughter along with a technician. When Yamanaka refuses to help the Sapphirians his mind is erased and he and his children are hypnotized.
Starman presents himself to the scientists that built the space ship. He promises to do what he can to stop the Sapphirians. His globemeter tells him that the Sapphirians have two bases, one in space and one underground. He destroys the one in space but before he can do anything about the one underground the Sapphirians rev up their space ship with its stolen technology and take off. Starman must now pursue the aliens into space and through a Death Star try to save Dr. Yamanaka and his kids.
“Attack from Space” was released in 1964 and was directed by Teruo Ishii. This was the last film of the series that he directed. It is reported that he left after hearing of a child who was injured jumping out of a window pretending to be Super Giant.
If you’ve been following along you know Attack from Space was originally part of nine smaller films known as the Super Giant series, the name of the spaceman in the original films. “Attack from Space” is the 5th and 6th Super Giant films put together. Originally they were titled “The Artificial Satellite and the Destruction of Humanity” and “The Spaceship and the Clash of the Artificial Satellite”. The original films were released in 1957 and 1958 for Japanese television.
In this film we have aliens that look like people. When they are walking around Earth they are dressed in normal suits. In their underground lair they are dressed very much like Nazi’s, even with the Nazi salute. On the spaceship they were satin boiler suits with hoodies. The alien spaceship is cool looking and quite big. There is a fight toward the end of the movie that just goes on and on. It’s over fifteen minutes long, almost half of the original “Super Giant” featurette.
Starman, “Super Giant” was played in all nine films by respected film/TV actor Ken Utsui. Utsui hated playing the role and, right up to his death, always played down his participation. This was partially on account of the somewhat embarrassing costume, especially the overstuffed crotch area (he said the producers thought that female viewers were attracted to well-endowed men, so they stuffed the crotch area of Utsui's costume with cotton).