Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro, or Goke Bodysnatcher From Hell as it's more commonly known amongst Western audiences, starts with Air Japan flight JA307 from Haneda to Osaka flying through a bizarre orange tinted sky & clouds. Something is very wrong, first birds commit suicide by flying into the plane & then the pilot (Hiroyuki Nishimoto) receiving a radio message saying that there may be a bomb on board. It's up to co-pilot Sugisaka (Teruo Yoshida) & the stewardess Kuzumi Asakura (Tomomi Sato) to check all the passengers luggage. Besides a mad bomber an assassin (Hideo Ko) is also on board who pulls a gun out & hijacks the plane. He demands that the pilot change course, soon after a blinding light is seen heading straight for the plane & only just misses it. All the gauges go crazy & the pilot is forced to make a crash landing in a remote part of the Japanese country. During the landing the pilot is killed but both Sugisaka & Asakura survive along with eight passengers, Mano (Eizo Kitamura) a top brass politician, an American lady named Mrs. Neal (Kathy Horan), Mr. Tokuyasu who owns a company that makes weapons & his wife Noriko Tokuyasu (Yuko Kusunoki, by the way I took these spellings directly off my sub-titled DVD & they are correct, the IMDb is wrong), the original bomber, Dr. Momotake (Kazuo Kato) a psychiatrist, Saga (Masaya Takahashi) who claims he is a researcher in space biology & the assassin. Since they were off course Sugisaka has no idea where they are or indeed do the rescue teams. If they are to survive & make it back to civilisation then they must all work together, unfortunately the darker side of human nature begins to rear it's ugly head as petty squabbling & selfishness sets in. If being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no food or water & surrounded by a bunch of a-holes wasn't bad enough they learn of an alien invasion that intends to wipe out the entire planet...
This Japanese production was directed by Hajime Sato & I really liked it, it's eerie, creepy & atmospheric. The script by Kyuzo Kobayashi & Susumu Takahisa has a great central idea, body jumping blob like aliens, a plane crash to isolate our human victims, birds committing suicide & a strong recurring moral message that war is bad. Unfortunately Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro's biggest problem is it's cast of highly unlikable characters who squabble, bicker, argue, act like spoilt brats & generally behave in a selfish & unrealistic way. Everyone except the hero Sugisaka & Asakura get involved in some heated argument that obviously wouldn't help anyone especially themselves. Whether it's letting people fall off cliffs, locking people up, trying to ruin other's careers, shooting people or trying to let the aliens kill others so they might live it becomes very annoying & all the characters become irritating quite quickly. It moves along at a nice pace & never becomes dull or boring, I loved the downbeat ending too. The one area where Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro does stand out is it's film-making techniques & visual style. While the special effects look a little dated they are very effective, from the striking orange tinted sky to the brightly glowing flying saucers, from the rich primary colours used throughout to the aliens appearance where they ooze into wounds in peoples foreheads, from the images of dead people who were controlled by the aliens falling down, turning to dust & literary blowing away in the wind to the final terrific vision of dozens of flying saucers headed towards Earth to complete the invasion. Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro is packed with memorable imagery, much more so than any American 60's Sci-Fi that I can think of. Tecnically the film is OK, the scope cinematography is a joy to watch after years of cropped VHS tapes & just about every part of the frame is used. The music is great as well. There is no blood or gore, a few split open foreheads & a couple of corpses is about as graphic as it gets. I can't really comment on the acting as I don't understand Japenese, it seemed OK. Oddly the American woman Neal speaks in English throughout. I also have this on VHS which is dubbed into English & panned and scanned but it's been years since I've seen that so I'm basing this review on the widescreen subtitled DVD that I own. Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro is a highly memorable piece of Japanese Sci Fi horror from the late 60's which still seems relevant particularly with the recent events with suicide bombers & terrorists. I just wish some of the characters were more likable, overall I think this is definitely worth tracking down to see. Recommended for Sci-Fi enthusiasts & weird cinema fans in general.
This Japanese production was directed by Hajime Sato & I really liked it, it's eerie, creepy & atmospheric. The script by Kyuzo Kobayashi & Susumu Takahisa has a great central idea, body jumping blob like aliens, a plane crash to isolate our human victims, birds committing suicide & a strong recurring moral message that war is bad. Unfortunately Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro's biggest problem is it's cast of highly unlikable characters who squabble, bicker, argue, act like spoilt brats & generally behave in a selfish & unrealistic way. Everyone except the hero Sugisaka & Asakura get involved in some heated argument that obviously wouldn't help anyone especially themselves. Whether it's letting people fall off cliffs, locking people up, trying to ruin other's careers, shooting people or trying to let the aliens kill others so they might live it becomes very annoying & all the characters become irritating quite quickly. It moves along at a nice pace & never becomes dull or boring, I loved the downbeat ending too. The one area where Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro does stand out is it's film-making techniques & visual style. While the special effects look a little dated they are very effective, from the striking orange tinted sky to the brightly glowing flying saucers, from the rich primary colours used throughout to the aliens appearance where they ooze into wounds in peoples foreheads, from the images of dead people who were controlled by the aliens falling down, turning to dust & literary blowing away in the wind to the final terrific vision of dozens of flying saucers headed towards Earth to complete the invasion. Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro is packed with memorable imagery, much more so than any American 60's Sci-Fi that I can think of. Tecnically the film is OK, the scope cinematography is a joy to watch after years of cropped VHS tapes & just about every part of the frame is used. The music is great as well. There is no blood or gore, a few split open foreheads & a couple of corpses is about as graphic as it gets. I can't really comment on the acting as I don't understand Japenese, it seemed OK. Oddly the American woman Neal speaks in English throughout. I also have this on VHS which is dubbed into English & panned and scanned but it's been years since I've seen that so I'm basing this review on the widescreen subtitled DVD that I own. Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro is a highly memorable piece of Japanese Sci Fi horror from the late 60's which still seems relevant particularly with the recent events with suicide bombers & terrorists. I just wish some of the characters were more likable, overall I think this is definitely worth tracking down to see. Recommended for Sci-Fi enthusiasts & weird cinema fans in general.