November 24, 2025 • 62 mins
In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe consider the 1974 Thai co-production "Hanuman vs. & Ultraman," in which the hindu god Hanuman teams up with the Ultra Seven to defeat evil monsters and dastardly human plots. (originally published 5/28/2021)
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb,
and today we have an episode that originally aired five
twenty eight, twenty twenty one. This is the in my opinion,
quite excellent and quite fun, nineteen seventy four Thaie co
production Hanaman versus seven Ultraman. It's this has been a
(00:27):
favorite of mine for a long time. Hanaman teams up
with the Ultra seven to defeat evil monsters and dastardly
human plots. All right, let's jump right into the action.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're going to
be talking about a Thai kaiju movie, or at least
partially tie. I think this is a Thai Japanese co production.
Am I right about that? Rob?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yes, though it is, it's the Thai aspects of it
are definitely tied to the max. It's filmed in Thailand,
has Thai actors, and features the really stars the Thai
variation of the god Hanuman.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Right, so this movie has a couple of different titles.
I think the English translation of the Thai title is
Hanuman Versus Seven Ultra Men. And then there's also an
English translation of a Japanese title I've seen it filed under,
which is the Six Ultra Brothers versus the Monster Army,
which I like out the titles do not agree on
(01:43):
the numbers of ultras.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, and then it can also be sometimes confused because
there's another film from the same year in the same
directors that I think is the follow up to this,
titled Hanuman and the Five Common Writers. So that's a
different film but similar premise.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Okay, so this is not only our first Thai movie,
this is also our first false versus film false versus
because the title Hanuman Versus the Seven Ultramen is entirely misleading.
Hanuman never fights the Seven Ultramen. In fact, Hanuman in
this movie is created by the seven Ultramen and they
(02:20):
fight together against some bad demons that are released from
the earth by arrogant scientists who don't believe in the gods.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, it's more like seven Ultramen En list Hanamana or
team up with Hanuman.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah. But my one sentence review, this movie is just
a rush of endorphins. So it's so good.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, this is a Oh, it's a very colorful film.
I can't really stress that enough. Like when you think
of a Kaiju movie, there are certain things you expect.
You expect cool, kind of practical, sometimes goofy monster costumes.
This film has that. You expect model cities and uctures
blowing up and getting crushed. Definitely, we have that. You
(03:03):
often expect children playing a major part in it, because
ultimately these are films for kids, and yes, those who
are present as well. But there are these mythological sequences
involving Hanoman and sometimes other deities. There are cosmic scenes
that are in play, and as we will describe some
of these as we move along, but they are just
so brilliant and psychedelic at times that it's overpowering.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I was actually going to point out that there are
parts of this movie, in fact, I would say, especially
the first few minutes of the movie, going from like
the studio logo through the opening narration, that feature some
film techniques that you don't usually expect to see in
a big monster fight movie. And it actually weirdly reminded
(03:50):
me of the experimental films of Stan Brackage, like The
Dog Star Man sequence, which have a lot of things
like extreme close ups of weird textures and color manipulation
was unusual manipulations of the film stock itself. It felt
like techniques that felt more at home in the realm
of you know, mid twentieth century experimental film. But here
(04:14):
they are in a big in a big Kaiju slam.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, and it's it's often invoked in a way that,
especially in the space scenes, it depicts a thoroughly mythological cosmos,
you know, a cosmos that ultimately has more in common
with with say, like like Hindu astrology than with you know,
even nineteen seventies understandings of what the cosmos actually consisted of.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You know, one of the funny things we were talking
about before we started recording is that I didn't quite
realize that this movie, in terms of themes, was essentially
going to be like one of those Christian apologetics movies,
like the Gods Not Dead movies, except for like Hanuman
the Hindu Deities here and the Ultramen where an erg
and scientists is punished for not necessarily punished, but an
(05:04):
arrogant scientist does wrong and releases a bunch of demons
and causes trouble basically because he doesn't believe in the gods.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah. Yeah, there's a strong theme of that. There's some
other it's it's it's a film that's very forward with
its with its themes, like, yeah, especially with some of
the minor bad guys who will get into Like the
minor bad guys are just super super bad. They're like
tying ladies to railroad tracks bad.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, but they're also their major sin is that they
don't respect the gods either. I don't respect the temples.
They don't respect the Buddha. They try to cut off
a Buddha statue's head so they can sell it for money,
and they are they are mercilessly brutally punished for this act. Well,
actually they're they're punished for that and for shooting a
child in the face. So conventionally morally evil as well.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, that's and that's another thing that I would say
about this film why it's worth checking out is that
it is it is kind of surprisingly violent at times. Yeah,
like with the terrestrial violence involving the you know, these
criminals who are defacing the temples, but then also when
you get to the big Kaiju battles. These are some
brutal beatdowns. There are like moral Kombat style fatalities that
(06:14):
take place here that I don't recall really seeing in
the likes of Gamera and Godzilla.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You're absolutely right about that. And there's another way in
which I thought this was different than many of the
other giant monster fight movies I've seen. This one had
much more of an element of dance in it, yes,
than I thought any other one I've ever seen. So
it's not just you know, people in giant monster costumes
doing wrestling moves at each other. There spend a lot
(06:40):
of time almost sort of dancing at one another. And
there are other dance sequences in the movie, like a
large part of the early third of the film is
like children dancing and playing music to make it rain,
because part of the plot is that the earth is
too hot.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, you might find yourself watching this and thinking how
much of the dance sequence am I going to have
to watch? And the answer is you will watch all
of it. Yeah, it is an extended sequence. And indeed,
Hanaman and in a minute we'll explain Hanaman for everybody's
not familiar. The Hanomon has depicted here is not like
some sort of like sci fi twist on Hanaman. For
(07:18):
the most part, it is Hanomon as Hanaman is depicted
in the art and culture of Thailand, both in terms
of visual depictions but also performance depictions and traditional Thai dance.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, that's right, so you get a lot of monkey
dances in the movie. Now, another thing I wanted to
come back to is I was trying to think of
examples of other false versus movies. I know there are some,
I just couldn't call them to mind. I didn't know
if you could think of any examples. But the closest
thing I actually came up with is a trash DVD
that I like to watch. I think it's from the
(07:53):
early two thousands. That's a movie called Frost Portrait of
a Vampire. It has Gary Busey a bit part in it.
But the funniest thing about it is actually that there
is a character named Frost in the movie, but he
is not a vampire.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah. I can't think of another film offhand where it's
something versus something and they don't actually fight. Now, there
are plenty of examples where the versus matchup is about
two good characters who will fight each other but then
ultimately team up against a greater evil. I mean that's
a common, a common trope.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, of course, you know, King Kong versus Godzilla, and
then actually they have to fight Mecca Godzilla or something.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but in this it's I don't Yeah,
Hanaman and the Ultra team are pretty square from the
get go, like they're they're they're never in conflict with
each other.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, I don't even recall a minor disagreement there. They're
absolutely in lock steps by side the entire time.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Fine tune machine.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, maybe we should hit that trailer audio.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, let's let's hear a little bit of the trailer
and and hopefully if this is the right clip, you'll
hear some of the music in it, because there's a
fabulous Haniman theme song in this that just as delightful,
especially if you if you enjoy like ty pop music
of this era, really good stuff.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
One easy Gone, We're not lawa Pawan get Yon playing up,
(09:36):
get your dumble ti p.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Oh. I don't know if we mentioned the year, we
should say this movie is from what year? Is it
nineteen seventy four?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Is that nineteen seventy four?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yes, oh boy, that was a good year for for
Tai Kaiju.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
All right, so let's get into some of the connections here.
Normally we talk about, you know, the human connections of Note,
and we are going to get to the humans, but
first I want to talk about the god of note here,
and that is Hanaman born. If we can really put
a data on this sort of thing, maybe fifteen hundred BCE.
But then again, Hahnaman is a god, so it's kind
(10:14):
of ridiculous, Steven, throw that out there. So yes, this
movie heavily features Hanuman. And it's not actually the Hindu
god Hanaman. It's actually a guy in a suit. But
I always love this aspect of the film sci fi
comic book hero teams up with an actual god. And
we're not talking Zeus or Poseidon. We're not talking Cthulhu
(10:36):
or Gozer. We're talking about a mythological figure and deity
that is hugely culturally and religiously important to one of
the world's major religions. So Hanaman is a god that
is still like very much in play now. Hanaman is
a fascinating figure in Hindu mythology. And while nothing is certain,
I believe some scholars believe that the Chinese figure of
(10:58):
soon we'll call the Monkey King, the Great Sage equal
to Heaven, may have at least partially emerged out of
traditions of Hanuman that that flowed out of India into China.
But then again Sun Wukong is very much a separate
mythological entity as well.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Now Sun Wu Kong. Is this the figure who appears
in say, the novel Journey to the West, and yes,
sometimes characterized as the handsome Monkey King?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yes, yes, there, yeah, that that is. That is the
Monkey King indeed, and they have some shared characteristics, but
again each one is very much their own character. So
if there's you know, it's it's not so much. One
is the Chinese version and one is the you know,
the Indian or Thai version. It's like they're really separate
(11:43):
entities at this point. So in getting into the the
Hindu origins of Hanuman, which then of course are become
important in Thai culture as well. I was reading a
book titled The Sacred Animals of India my by Nantifa Krishna,
and the points out that the Sanskrit word for monkey
(12:03):
is copy. But in the Hindu epic the Ramayana, in
which Hanaman and his soldiers aid Rama in the rescue
of Sita from the evil king Ravana. The word copy
is not used to describe Hanaman and his soldiers. Instead,
they are described as the Vanara, literally the forest men,
the people of the forest.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Oh whoa. So is it possible this is something more
like a bigfoot kind of creature that some they have
in mind.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I mean, I imagine there are some interpretations that may go
in that direction, But there seem to be associations with
monkeys as kind of totem animals for the Vannara. So
the interpretation that Krishna is making in this book is
that perhaps the origins were like a like a people,
a tribe of the forest, like a culture of the forest,
(12:50):
and perhaps they had as their their emblem the monkey,
or perhaps they worshiped a deity that they had that
monkey characteristics, a deity that might even be sort of
the proto Hahnaman I see. But in later literary traditions,
writers increasingly draw in monkey descriptions for the Vanara, deliberate
(13:12):
monkey characteristics, and so you see this transformation. Hanaman and
his people become the monkeys of the forest, like the
noble monkey warriors of myth, and it's also only over
time that the word vanara becomes a blanket term for
primates in the real world as well. So chief among
the Vanara is Hanaman, loyal friend and devote to Rama,
(13:33):
like he's just his loyalist supporter. Like in some interpretations,
I think Hanaman gets his power out of his devotion
to Rama, Like that's just how strong it is. There's
the scene where he like, you know, he opens his
heart and you see Rama inside his heart.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So he's also one of the ten incarnations of the
Lord Vishnu. He's the son of the Wind. He's the
offspring of Anjana. He is fierce, immortal, he's unbeatable, but
he also has a certain humanity to him. There's something
about about Hanaman that is relatable, Like he's you know,
he's bold, but he's he's not stuck up. Now, there's
(14:12):
a lot more to Animan. He's been a very popular
figure in Hinduism for a very long time, and he's
also vital in Thailand, where the Thai version of the Ramayana,
the Ramakan, is one of Thailand's national epics. Derived from
the Buddhist Dasaratha Jadaka and if you visit the Grand
Palace in Thailand, in Bangkok, you can explore these beautiful
(14:34):
murals depicting Hanuman's war against the demon Armies, where Hanaman
has this, he has this, this, this brilliant porcelain skin
and this fierce face and yeah, battling these these demon
armies with valor and magic.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Now in this movie, Haniman does in fact battle a
demon army. Did you notice anything from those murals or
artistic depictions coming through in the movie Hanuman versus the
Seven Ultramen.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
No, I mean not really. Not to my eye anyway,
it seems like the the monsters that are battled in
this are very much more kaiju. Like the only combatant
that really has the you know, the feel of Thai
cultural tradition about them is Hanuman himself, and he's just
steeped in it.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
He might as well be fighting Rodin or something.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Right, Yeah, like just you know, for instance, there are
scenes where Hanaman flies across the sky and he does
so in this stylized pose that that is very much
like the pose you see him taking in various traditional
artistic depictions.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I noticed that, yes, similar to the style of flying
you see often in say Hindu art or Hindu iconography
where they're not flying in the Superman pose, or not
flying with arms out like they're like a bird or something,
but as if they're in sort of a levitating capsule.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, it's to me, it's it's it's interesting because on
one hand, it seems like a perfect fit for Hanaman
to pop up in a tie children's movie to help
superheroes battle giant monsters. But on the other hand, yeah,
there's there's nothing quite like it, nothing you can compare
to it in Western traditions, you know, Like I was thinking, Okay, well,
sometimes we have tales about Santa Claus doing stuff, but
(16:21):
you can't compare Santa to Hanaman. It's it's not it's
not at all the same. You know, Santa is a mythological,
folkloric character, but not one on the same level as
like like you wouldn't say Santa is like a cultural
icon or cultural hero. Uh. For the most part, I
think and likewise, I can't think of another religious figure
(16:41):
that you could imagine popping up in a film like this.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
I mean, I guess maybe the closest is like Thor
or something in the Marvel universe. True, But but yeah,
I mean especially not for like religions that are still
widely followed today have huge, huge numbers of adherents. I
know that there are people who have done some sort
of Norse religious revival, but like you wouldn't expect to
see a movie where, say, Jesus is wrestle slamming robots.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
No, though, weirdly enough, you do see in some of
the exported Santo movies they sometimes call him Samson, if
I remember correctly. Oh, that's interesting, and they may do
that with certain other strong man films that came out
of Italian traditions. I think where you just go to, oh,
we'll just call him Samson, referring to the Samson of
(17:30):
Jewish and Christian traditions. But then again, I'm not sure
there's ever been an actual Samson film where Samson is
taken out of the biblical world and is say, dropped
in New York City to battle monsters or something.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I see some strange symbolic parallels between El Santo and Samson.
They have a similar thing where you could take away
their power by doing something to their head. Samson by
cutting his hairs, El Santo by unmasking him.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, and actual it. Hannaman reminds me a little bit
of Santo, as we explored him in the previous Santo movie.
We discussed it the Santo is so good that the
evildoers really don't stand a chance against him, and see,
and Hannaman is very much the same way. So, in
a weird way, Santo is about as close as I
(18:19):
can come to imagining something like Hanamon in another movie.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah, I can see that. Okay. So who are the
directors of this movie?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Okay, we have a couple of directors. First, there is
Sampote Sans Director born nineteen forty one, famed tie director
who directed a string of really interesting sounding films. There's
some other clear ultraman and ultraman asked stuff in there,
but my attention was instantly grabbed by nineteen seventy nine's Crocodile,
(18:51):
which is a giant croc movie. Magic Lizard from nineteen
eighty five, which is I think a comedy or children's
movie about a roller skating lizard that fights aliens in Bangkok.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Ooh sounds good, yep.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I saw a clip from it. Looks interesting. And then
there's Fadda Rod Mary from nineteen eighty one, which is
a film about ogres. I was reading the synopsis and
it was twelve girls are abandoned by their parents because
they are too poor to take care of them. The
twelve daughters are rescued by an ogress in disguise who
promises to take care of them as their own daughters.
(19:25):
And yeah, and then it goes from there. So it
seems very steeped in some sort of folklore tradition and
has like a very cool looking, like tai style ogress
on the poster art that I saw. All right, all right,
then we also have Shohei Tojo as one of the directors,
largely a special effects film director. He did a bunch
(19:47):
of ultraman stuff, but he also did some sintai stuff
which was then adapted into Power Rangers in the United States.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Okay, so this would be an example of what in
Japanese cinema is some called a tokusatsu film, like a
special effects driven movie.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, tokusatsu. So I guess you could say, like to
a certain extent, like who's the tokosatsu director in the
American sense, Michael.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Bay, Yeah, Roland Limerick or something like that.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, similar thing.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Girmo del Toro maybe yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
So both of these directors gave us this Hanoman movie,
the subsequent Honomon movie from the same year, and they
worked together on a film titled The Last Dinosaur that
I'll get to here in just a bit.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So that brings us to the writer Boonzo Wakatsuki. Active
from the late nineteen fifties to the late nineteen eighties.
He wrote on a number of projects, including some that
fans of Mystery Science Theater three thousand might be familiar with,
star Wolf Fugitive Alien, Fugitive Alien two. These were films
(20:52):
that arrived at MST three K via the Sandy Frank
Distribution System, which I think headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia back
in the day when it was around. But anyway, these
films featured a character named Captain Joe. He was the
one of the ball cap On played by the legendary
Joe Shashido, who lived nineteen thirty three through twenty twenty.
(21:15):
He was the star of the excellent nineteen sixty seven
assassin film Branded to Kill All Right. What about the cast, Well,
the cast is largely these are largely Thai actors. Most
of them are not people I'm really familiar with. There
is an actor by the name of Yodchai Metsuwan who
plays doctor Wissuit, who is going to be our sort
(21:36):
of our central villain in the piece. He seems like
he was a taie actor of possible note I'm not
familiar with him, but he has a number of films
attributed to him on IMDb.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Now, probably the most memorable human characters in this film
are a couple of I don't know how to describe
them exactly. They really embody the monkey spirit of this movie.
A couple of sort of physical comedians who spend a
lot of the film sort of dancing and jumping around
in strange and obscene ways. And when we first meet them,
(22:09):
they're wearing the most glorious jumpsuits. But these are let's see,
I'm trying to remember their character's names. I've got them
written down somewhere here.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Well, yeah, their names are shriep Polk and Shressuya I believe.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, that's right. So the version I had spelled it differently,
but I think it's transliterating the same sounds as Seapuk
and Sisulia.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah. And on IMDb at least, which has especially given
you know that this is a typhone from the nineteen seventies.
I don't know that there might be something that is
not the information might be messed up in some way.
But on IMDb they are listed as playing themselves, which
leads me to believe that maybe they were Thai comedians
of note at the time, like they maybe they had
(22:50):
an act because, like you say, they are very physical
comedic performers. If not, I think clowns. We might even
that might even be an accurate depiction of the sort
of of humor that they display.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Oh well, they're even wearing white face paint in some scenes,
that's right. Yeah, yeah, so they seem to be very
much in a kind of the clown school tradition. They
are enthusiastic performers. They're sort of a handful for the eyes.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, they are a lot, Yes, for sure. Various other
actors in this, many of which you do it, do
a fine job. But I'm just going to skip over
him here because I don't know that they really have
much import to the listener. But let's get to the
special effects, because after all, this is a special effects movie.
The special effects director on this was Cazoa Sagawa and
(23:37):
Sagawa did ultraman special effects throughout his career, but he
also worked on a number of films and TV shows
you might have heard of. His first credit was nineteen
sixty eight's Mighty Jack TV show, a version of which,
like a movie cut of it, was featured on Mystery
Science Theater three thousand back in the day. And while
most of his credits are full Japanese productions, he also
(23:58):
did effects on nineteen seventy seven The Last Dinosaur, which
was a Japanese American co production starring Richard Boone and
Joan van Ark who was in Frocks.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Oh, I remember her.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, so there's our connection to a previous film. The
Last Dinosaur was also a co production by Rankin in Bass.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Wow. Wait was it rotoscoped?
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I'm not sure?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
But another interesting credit that Sagawa has he worked on
a TV series what was apparently a horror anthology TV
series in Japan titled Horror Theater Unbalanced or I think
it's sometimes translated as Unbalanced Horror Theater from nineteen seventy three,
and I was trying to find out more about it.
(24:44):
I couldn't find out much, but it looks really interesting. Again,
I'm generally interested in any kind of horror anthology, but
in nineteen seventy three Japanese anthology TV series, it sounds
really rad YEP, sign me up. And finally, the music,
which I'm only mentioning because we tend to mention the music.
Toro Fuyuki did the music on this. It's nothing really
(25:04):
to write home about. It feels very old fashioned and
very you know, sort of cliche adventure music. But this
guy did a lot of ultraman music. Also Inframan from
nineteen seventy five, which starred Danny Lee who was in
The Oily Maniac.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Well, are you ready to get into the plot.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Let's get into the plot of this movie.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Okay. Now we start off with a once again a
beautiful film studio logo. I have to say I've noticed
many times since we started doing Weird House Cinema that
I really love a lot of Asian film studio logos.
Loved the Shaw Brothers logo. I love the Toho logo
of course, and I would say the Chaio Film studio
(25:53):
here joins the list because it's just got these two
heavenly beasts, these kind of you know, like dragon tiger
type creatures cradling the studio name in a disk between
their paws while a kaleidoscopic supernova just roars behind them.
It is really gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, it's it's quite beautiful and eye catching and flows
nicely into the rest of the film because it's it's
not like we cut from this to just a city
street or anything.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Like.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
We're right into the into the the the blinding, you know,
astrological world of the mythic cosmos.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, the very first thing you see is the sun.
You are just right up in the sun's business, like you're,
you know, you're you can smell the Sun's breath. And
I also have to say a caveat on all that follows.
I can only judge the text content of this film
based on the English subtitles that I encountered, which were
maybe not professionally produced. I'm not sure so so, of course,
(26:48):
the quality of a film translation can vary a lot,
and any awkward qualities of the narration or dialogue that
I'm about to mention may well be a result of
the translation and not the film itself.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, yeah, same here. I think we used the same
stream of this that had the imperfect subtitles, but it
was still an improvement over the original way. I watched
this film, which was on a tie DVD that I
bought off of eBay, which had no subtitles, and I
just had kind of had to figure it out. I mean,
you can figure out most of this film by watching it.
(27:20):
It's not too deep. But there were a few things
that I just I had no idea how they were
supposed to have happened, and we'll get to those here
in a bit.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
So the very beginning, I wonder if you have some
insights into you might have some astrological knowledge that I don't.
But the opening narration that's showing us the Sun and
space and planets, and it says, in our universe there
is the Milky Way, the galaxy where our solar system
is encircling the Sun. Nine planets were born Wednesday, Mercury, Friday, Venus, Earth, Tuesday, Mars, Saturday, Saturn, Thursday, Jupiter, Uranus, nept.
(27:59):
I include, do you know what's going on there with
the days? And maybe something's lost in translation.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I think it's perhaps a connection to Hindu astrology. Yeah, okay, okay,
and the earlier associations of the of the planets.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, okay, or like days of the week on which
these planets were created. Maybe I was wondering, but I'm
gonna go with yours. And then next it tells us
three million light years away there is the Ultra galaxy.
Now brief astronomy note here, I was like, wait a minute,
what could that be referring to? So the distance from
(28:35):
our galaxy to the next nearest galaxy, which is the
Andromeda galaxy, is about two point five million light years away.
So that's you know, pretty clear ballpark of three million
light years away. But the funny thing about that is
it won't always be that far away. While most galaxies
in the universe are moving farther and farther away from
each other as the universe expands the Milky Way and
(28:57):
the Andromeda galaxies are actually on a collision course. They
will probably slam into each other at least pass nearby
one another within four to five billion years. So if
the Ultra galaxy is indeed the Andromeda Galaxy, then then
you know, maybe we'll get more ultraman movies a few
billion years from now as they get i don't know, closer,
(29:18):
and that reduces the required budget for recruiting them. But anyway,
the narration then tells us that there are sixty nine
planets which circle around something called M seventy eight. Now,
at first I was like, is that supposed to refer
to Messia seventy eight, which is sometimes called M seventy eight.
I think it's probably not, because this, it turns out,
is a planet, and Messia seventy eight is a hazy
(29:41):
nebula within the Milky Way that's about sixteen hundred light
years away. So we learned from the narration that M
seventy eight is a planet full of light and happiness,
and quote there were born the Ultras. They have extraordinary
powers and are extremely intelligent. They guarantee the piece of
the galaxies.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
And the Ultras are of course, this is Ultraman and
his kin.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Yes, his mother and his brothers. And then while we're
being told this, we're getting a pan over the surface
of HIM seventy eight. But it looks like a wall
on the satellite of Love. It's just a big old
mess of bike reflectors glinting in the stage lights and
Greebels on the loose.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, a lot of greebels.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, very good. Greebels. It's also really funny because as
we're being told that they guarantee the piece of the galaxies,
we see a close up on one of the Ultraman masks,
which don't necessarily look benign, and they look somewhat evil
with orange eyes, and we hear a sound that is
kind of like rats shrieking in the darkness. It's not
(30:44):
the most piece of the galaxy sound, you know, audio
visual combination, you could imagine.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Well, I mean, I guess it's a tough job at times.
I mean, clearly it involves combating monsters half the time.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Uh huh. But then we get more facts delivered by
the narration. So talking about seventy eight, we learned that
piece is eternal. There, that's good. We also learned that
Ultraman Taro watches over the three hundred cities that in
the cities without sunlight, warmth is provided by nine hundred heaters.
I found these numbers very funny. Then we also learned
(31:18):
that Ultraman Taro teaches the Ultra brothers how to fight,
that Ultraman Zafi leads his brothers helped by their mother,
And then we meet Mother Ultra and Mother Ultra is awesome.
She is just a grand slam. I love her costume,
I love her movements. She's got this big red cape
that opens like bat wings. She holds it open kind
(31:41):
of like the Master and Manos the Hands of Fate,
and we see her framed by an aurora when we
first meet her. She's just awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah. They have Even though again we have we have
sci fi like superhero robot people, you know, colliding with
actual gods here, the ultra man, the ultra folk here,
they do have a mythic quality to the way they're
presented that ultimately makes things feel like they fit together.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
I feel cohesive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And this comes back to,
you know, something we've talked about on the podcast before,
on our core episodes, which is that I'm not sure
the distinction between gods and aliens is something that would
have been quite so well distinct to say, ancient people
(32:30):
as it is to us, because I think the main
distinction that we make in the modern world between gods
and aliens is whether you're talking about something that is
natural or something that is supernatural. And I don't think
the natural versus supernatural categories held as firmly in the
ancient world where you know, to many ancient peoples, the
gods would be not necessarily supernatural, but something that's defined
(32:54):
by sort of being of another place, maybe a place
above in the stars or a kind of pure land
or something, and then also being extremely powerful or being immortal.
And so if you were, say an alien from another
planet who had amazingly powerful technology, I mean that seems
basically almost the same as being a god.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Absolutely, But then we get an origin. So then we
cut straight from the Ultras to an origin story for Hanuman.
This all just sort of blends together. It's as if
it's all part of the same epic cycle. So it
has always been, yes, So you go, so straight from
the epica origins of the Ultras, we go to narration
that ten thousand years ago King Panela was raining in
(33:38):
India and you see natural disasters. There's wind and black
clouds blowing rocks over the ground and tree limbs snapping
in the wind, water swirling, and the narration tells us
that it was under his reign that Hanuman was born
from Angana, pregnant from the god of the wind. And
we see her dressed in a splendorous out fit and
(34:00):
a red sky background, and there's wind being generated by
the wind to God, and she just vacuums it up
into her mouth.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah. And this, by the way, is why Hanuman can fly,
because he is the offspring in part of the wind.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah. And then there's there's a very psychedelic birth sequence
for Hanuman. He's like, I don't know again, it's very
experimental film. It as these dog star man like textures,
and and Hanuman flies out of the ether toward the
camera with a fist extended. Then I guess that's all all, okay,
(34:35):
dust off the hands background is done. Time to roll
the credits over, which plays an original theme song about Hanuman,
which I love it. I love it. It's like green Slime time,
you know, green Slime. Every sci fi fantasy movie should
get its own original theme song with lyrics about the plot.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah. And this is a great song. I think we
probably heard part of it in the trailer audio earlier.
It just it has you know, even even though you know,
I you know, I don't speak Thai, the Thai language
has this wonderful cadence to it, which which works perfectly
in songs like this.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Let's get another clip of that.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
One.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Okay, I want to cite some lyrics of this song. Again,
this is according to the translation that I had access to,
so this is the best I could do. It says
that Hanuman is invincible, armed with his incandescent trident. I
don't know if I remember a trident. Oh well, he's
got his slicing weapon at the Yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Looks like a sigh what we might think of as
a sigh, and that's tradition.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I buy it. Now we
learned that he is immortal. He is the Master of
the Wind against five monsters. He fights aided by the
seven Ultras. Before fight, he prays that's why he is invincible.
And then finally the lyrics say, Hanuman and seven Ultramen
watch this great movie.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yes, there there are there are some. I don't know
how much of it is the translation, but this would
be a couple of one of a couple of places
in the movie where they seem to be breaking the
fourth wall, like there's a part with the narrations like, hey,
this is our protagonist.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, that happened. In fact, that happens almost immediately.
We meet a boy named co who is at a
ruined temple with many other children, and they're praying and
dancing and playing music in order to get the gods
to make it rain because the earth is very hot
at the beginning of the movie, like the sun is
too close to the earth, and it's very dry and
(36:47):
very hot, and they need rain to cool the earth off.
So they're doing these rituals. And when we very first
meet Co, he's dancing around in a Hanuman mask, and
the narration just says, this is the protagonist. Yes, yeah,
But actually before we meet Co, the first human characters
we meet are the clowns we were talking about earlier.
We see two dudes who were they're off roading in
(37:09):
a truck or a jeep or something that is spewing
these wonderful pink fumes, and they are wearing really good jumpsuits.
They're kind of Mario Super Mario Brother colors. They're red
and blue with white stripes, and their truck breaks down.
They're having car trouble and that turns into a bunch
of high jinks and tumbling around, and after they fail
(37:30):
to get their cars started and it spews a bunch
of smoke all over the place, they run away from
it and the car explodes, and then they laugh and
they dance. And I don't know if this is correct,
but in the version I was watching, there's a subtitle
annotation telling us that they are dancing like Hanuman in
order to receive better luck, though I don't know what
their luck could be now that their car has exploded.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, I'm not sure either, but many are. Yeah, they are.
They are clowning hard in this, in this scene and
all subsequent.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yes, And so we get more about how hot the
sun is, like they witness birds falling out of the
sky on fire and smoking because the sun is so hot.
And so the two clown characters here they run around
chattering and they're doing like monkey like dances and talking
about how hot they are and how they need water.
(38:22):
And I think the implication is that their car exploded
because it was so hot outside.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yes, I think so.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Eventually the two clown guys shed their their awesome jumpsuits,
which is sad, but they shed them because they see
a river that they want to swim in to cool off.
So they take off the jumpsuits, run and jump in
the water. They're wearing like one piece bathing suits under
their jumpsuits. Interesting choice. But then while they're enjoying the water,
(38:50):
they explain that someone named doctor we Suit has invented
a way to make it rain, and so everything's going
to be okay, And the narrator tells us that they
two guys are in fact famous pilots. Yeah, and they
do some really good camera mooning and such. But we
learn more about doctor Weesut's plan that he's going to
(39:11):
shoot some rockets into the sky that are going to
make it rain and cool off the world, and so
we go to doctor Wezut's lab to learn about his plan.
His lab set is really awesome. It's part sort of
green slime type set, you know, standard sci fi rivets everywhere,
but also it's part dangerous nineteen seventies playground with metal equipment,
(39:34):
which is my favorite kind of playground.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, it's really splendid to behold.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Like the background really should have a rusty swing set
and a slide that just has blood all over it.
You know, it's like a lawsuit factory playground. But there's
an argument between doctor Weesut and another character somebody else
who works in the lab named Melisa, about whether they
need to ask the angels for rain in addition to
(39:59):
their rocket plan. Elisa is like, hey, you know, I
think we should appeal to the gods. That would be
a good idea. And doctor Weisud is like, no, it
is foolish to believe in the gods. Hanuman does not exist,
and I will not ask him for rain, yep, because
I am arrogant. So some some very heavy handed science
versus religion stuff. Yeah, and then meanwhile, back at the
(40:20):
temple where the children are dancing and praying for rain.
Of course all the dancing goes on, but some bad
guys show up. There are these ruthless thieves who appear
in a jeep and want to steal a precious idol
from the temple complex. So they run up to a
statue of the Buddha and start chopping its head off,
saying soon we will be rich.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, and this is yeah, this is just super low, Like,
this is highly frowned upon. I mean, and we don't
you don't even need to be told that. Obviously they're
they're messing around with with on sacred grounds. But yeah,
to rip the head off of a statue like this
on temple grounds just the lowest of the low and
our hero instantly realizes this.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Yeah, he sees what they're doing. He catches the thieves
in the act and Co tries to stop them. They
fight him off. In fact, this goes there's a long
sequence of him chasing the thieves around and them like
kicking him to the ground, and he's really insistent. He
keeps getting back up. That's perseverance, you know, he's gonna
fight for that Buddha. Heead And eventually the robbers they
(41:21):
have enough of Co and they just straight up shoot
him in the face.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, like three shots and then I mean, it's not
too graphic. It is a little surprising. When I watched
it for the first time, I'm like, oh my god,
that just happened. But you know, to be clear, it's
just like three gunshots and then suddenly he has red
paint smeared on his face and he's dead.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Yes, so the way it actually looks in the movie
is kind of benign and comical, but conceptually, yes, they
shoot a child in the face. That is what kicks
off the rest of the plot. So Co is dead.
He's lying there dead in the road as the robbers
escape with their booty and the children. They come to
see their friends, and he's been killed and they start
(42:02):
to hold a funeral for him. And then meanwhile on
planet M seventy eight, the mother of Ultra gathers her
six sons and ooh, it is bad news for those
thieves because the Ultras saw what you did. They so
they reason about this. Here's how it goes. Co was good,
thieves are bad, so they deem this instance of shooting
(42:25):
a person in the face unfair. And then we learned
that the Mother of Ultra transports Ko's body to the
planet M seventy eight and then quote the Ultras merge
his body with Hanuman, so Co will be able to
return to Earth as an avenger.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Okay, So on one hand, I'm not entirely sure why
Earth is under the jurisdiction of M seventy eight, right,
But fair enough the other thing like this, So this
whole bit about how the boy Co becomes Hanaman, or
to what extent he becomes Hanaman, I was always unclear
about this watching it without any translations, I'm still unclear
(43:04):
unclear about it with a translation. So I guess it's like,
because Hanaman exists, Hanaman has a reality, right, pre exists
and yet somehow they are stepping in and allowing Hanuman
to return to Earth by fusing him with Koe's body.
So there's some sort of the metaphysics on it are
(43:25):
a little foggy, It's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Well, at one point, one of Ko's friends explains the
situation by saying, Co is dead, but he became Hanuman. Okay,
I'm not sure. So I don't know to what extent
he's still Co, but to some extent he is. Yeah. Anyway,
So the form that the Mother of Ultra's intervention takes
(43:49):
here is that a giant hand reaches out of the
sky at Coe's funeral, picks him up, takes his body
to the altar of the Ultramen turns him into Hanuman.
And then we see Hanuman flying over cities in Thailand
in that iconic pose, you know, so upright sort of
posed with the arms in the air, just zooming around
(44:09):
over landmarks.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, like I think the ruins are in a Yuthia.
And then we see Hanuman flying over what I believe
is Bangkok, and I think even flies over that the
Royal Palace that I was mentioning earlier that has the
fabulous murals. I think that's one of the locations you
see him fly over.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
And there were like reports there are sightings of Hanuman
flying around. Because in doctor Weizut's lab, Melissa receives the reports.
She's like, hey, they're saying Hanuman was sighted flying through
the sky and we suit his smug and dismissive, and
he's like, Hanuman does not exist. That is foolishness. I
only need science. And then we get a bunch more
(44:57):
lore that I really enjoyed. It feels mostly superfluous to
the rest of the film, but we get the legend
of fra Rahm and his brother Frau Loch. So Frau Looc,
we find out, fought against the demon thought Sakhon, and
he was wounded by a lance. And because a wise
man had said that only the sap of the flower Sangkon,
(45:22):
which was found on the mountain of Sapaya, could heal
Frauloc Hanuman had to go looking for this flower. But
he is warned by the sage that the flower must
be plucked before sunrise, and so in order to get
it before sunrise, he has to slow down the Sun's cart.
So there's some drama with the Sun cart driver. We
(45:42):
see Hanuman going up to the guy who basically, you know,
like the Sun, the driver of the Sun, and the
Sun agrees to slow down because Frau loc is a
saint who must fight a demon to maintain the universe.
And then there's a long scene where Hanuman chases the
flower around the mountain. They seem to kind of be
flirting with each other. The sequence is very good and
(46:05):
it has more of that psychedelic imagery. Ultimately, Hanuman wins
this chase by tying up the mountain with his tail
and he gets the flower.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, it's this whole sequence is just like a marvelous
fever dream. But to your point, I'm not exactly sure
why it was necessary. It's nice. Yeah, it's great, and
it's about our main character, Hanuman, but I don't know
if it was super necessary for what is a rather
long movie about gods and Kaiji.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Oh, I'm not complaining. I will take this sequence. I
want it left in.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Oh yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Don't streamline it for me anyway. So co after this
returns to stop the thieves. The thieves are they're in
their car with the stolen buddhahead and they're like, Haha,
we're going to get some money for this. We're going
to sell it for our crime. And then they're driving
along the road and then suddenly standing in the road
(46:58):
in fact dancing is Co, the boyk who they shot
in the face, and they're like, what is this? Is
this a ghost?
Speaker 4 (47:05):
You know?
Speaker 3 (47:05):
They start freaking out and they shoot at him. They
empty their guns into him to no effect, and then
Co goes into Hanuman mode. He changes into Hanuman form
and becomes gigantic and just brutally murders the three thieves.
Brutally murders them with a preference for gory, crushing deaths,
(47:25):
like one of them he stomps on one of them,
he knocks over a tree on and that guy gets
crushed in is all bloody. And then the last guy
he grabs and crushes in his hand like a can.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
That one I love because he's also kind of nodding.
Holly does it as if he's acknowledging us the viewer
and saying, yep, yep, I'm crushing him in my hand,
Like there's kind of like a monkey's zeal to the vengeance.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Yes, And there's also this bniacal like Hanuman talks. You know,
he says, like, while he's chasing them around, we get
at least the subtitles I saw where Haha, you're all
going to die. You cut Buddha's head, and after the
three thieves are crushed, the buddhahead magically returns to the
statue where it began. So next, now that he's sated
(48:11):
his thirst for bloody revenge, Hanuman has to fix the sun. Right,
He's going to protect Earth. So he flies up to
the Sun and much like earlier, so I guess that
here's one way it connects. You know, previously he has
talked to the Sun into slowing down. Now he flies
up and he tells the son. He's like, you're too
close to Earth. Your flames are too strong. You need
to back up. And the Sun says okay, and the
(48:34):
problem is solved. Hanuman convinces the Sun to back off
and seems like things should be okay. Now the movie
should be over. It's only been about forty minutes, so
something's got to happen, and incomes the evil atheistic science
to step in and ruin things. So doctor Weizut and
his rocket plan to cause rain. This leads to a fiasco.
(48:58):
There's a long sequence in the middle of the movie
you here where rockets start malfunctioning and blowing everything up
and whoops, the explosions of the godless science rockets open
up cracks in the earth and release ancient demons. And
now you know what. The rest of the movie is
going to be a good old fashioned Kaiju meat slam,
(49:19):
some some foam costume suplexes and Frankensteiner's and and here
it's just basically monster action for the rest of the movie.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah, and it's it's pretty great. Like I say, you
might come into a film like this thinking, wow, you know,
I'm I'm a Godzilla fan, I'm a Gammerer fan, and
if you hide the hold those particular films in high regard.
But this is some some fabulous monster wailing.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah. And there are a lot of monsters. Five of
them wake up and they're running all over the place.
They're dancing in the rocket fields. That's a great but
again it's very dance oriented kind of fighting. Yeah, they're
almost there are parts where it looks kind of like
the demons are doing the dugie. And so there's first
the classic human forces versus the giant monsters. That doesn't
(50:05):
go so well for the humans. They send in the
air force and the monsters breathe jets of fire on
the airplanes and wreck them and so forth, and then
we get another phase of the movie that is Hanuman
to the rescue, Hanuman versus Demons. At first, Hanuman is
doing pretty well, but then all the demons gang up
on him and he starts getting whipped and they paralyze
(50:26):
him inside a crystal laser ball. And then there's a
big third phase of the fight where the Ultramen show
up and then the Ultramen join on Hanuman's side. The
tides turn yet again we get a classic destroy All
Monsters command and Rob I was wondering if is there
a term for this in professional wrestling, where like, you know,
(50:48):
the fights between this guy and that guy and it's
not going so well for the likable character, but then
another one runs into the rescue.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I mean it's run in. Is that the terminology for it? Yeah? Yeah,
so basically this would be this would be you know,
a run in where Hanuman is getting handled again. It's
five to one, yeah, but now it's it's soon going
to be uh what eight to five? And one of
the things that's very noticeable is that either side, either
the Monsters or Ultra the Ultramen, and in Hanuman, neither
(51:21):
side is afraid to use the numbers game to their advantage.
Oh yeah, they're not going to insist on on Neither
side is going to insist on fair numbers in fair fights.
If it's like four to one, it's going to be
a four to one whaling.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah, to use the wrestling terminology and pardon my French,
but there there are several cans of whoop ass that
are opened. Yes, the they So the monsters gang up
on Hanuman and they're all just like pushing him around.
It looks very they're bullying him, and that makes sense.
They're demons, they're from the earth. They're bad monsters. But
then the same thing happens when the Ultramen show up.
(51:54):
The Ultramen. You really start kind of feeling bad for
the monsters the way they gang up on them. And
then there is a really beautiful final slicing action on
the last big monster at the end. I just loved.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Yeah, yeah, this is the one where they where they
cut him in half and then he explodes.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
He is cloven and then he explodes.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Oh and they rip the skin off of another one. Yeah,
that's another one where they they again. This is it's
very in a way grotesque, and to this to a
certain extent, you do almost feel for the monsters, like,
oh man, these demons woke up because of an explosion.
They woke up out our earth, and they just thought
they were going to get to whale on the world.
Turns out they were in for a very bad day.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
But it's a good day for the audience. I mean,
I really enjoyed this one, so so I think that
that does it for me. That's Hanuman versus seven Ultramen.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Yeah, I would say, you know, there we could go
into more detail describing the the last thirty minutes of
the film, but basically a lot of the expected things
from the genre occur. You know, various humans are observing
the battle and reacting to the battle in different ways. Behavior,
more clown behavior, the you know, the scientists. Villain is
(53:04):
observing and learning his lesson that sort of thing, and
then we have some goodbyes said at the end. But
but yeah, the stuff that really stands out those those
psychedelic and mythological sequences. The final fight and also I
think it's just neat to see, you know, especially the ruins,
the Thai ruins in the background there. It just adds
(53:24):
to the flavor of the film.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Yeah, I really appreciated the Ruins in setting up the
fights as well. I thought, I thought that was good. Yeah,
it's maybe this is the closest thing we'll ever get
to see to like, you know, a Kaiju fight at
angor watt.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah. So it's yeah, ultimately, just this one's just packed
full of wonderful weirdness. I love it and I understand
it was it was. It was something of a hit
at the time and really helped to cement the Ultraman
as being like a franchise in Thailand, you know, because
the Ultraman I think ultimately we're sort of a Japanese import.
But this made the made them, you know, authentically high
(54:00):
to a large degree.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Do you know if the Mighty morphin Power Rangers were
inspired by the Ultramen, because I see some similarities in
the costumes and all that.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
I mean, I would imagine so given that some of
the same people were involved in the creation of the
show that became The Power Rangers.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
Oh, I don't think. I don't know really anything about
the history of the Power Rangers. Was that the Japanese
show first.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yes, Japanese show Super Sindai I believe, Yeah, and some
of the people involved in this film were involved in that.
But basically you just stripped out the human aspects of
that and replaced them with that with Western actors, and
you have the mighty morphin Power Rangers.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
I see. Yeah, you might not have been in the
right age group. But when you were a kid, did
you ever have the flute that would play the Green
Rangers song?
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I did not. I remember Power Rangers. I was not
too old to enjoy Power Rangers. So I remember having
it on and watching some of it and liking the
bad guys. Yeah, but I never had any merchandise from it.
I think maybe played one of the video games at
some point.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
I remember really liking the monsters, but also noticing, even
as a child that the structure of the episodes was
somewhat repetitive. Yeah, so, I guess you could say that
about the kaiju movies that I love today. In fact,
many of the genre movies I love today, which are
basically structurally identical, and it's just you know, whatever fur
you're going to rub in between those checkpoints in the plot.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah, but especially if it's a TV series and every
episode needs to essentially have a big monster battle at
the end, you know they're all going to have sort
of similar beats for sure.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
So really it's all about the fur. What does the
fur feel like? Insert from the future. I don't don't
know if we can run some kind of weird house
specific siren there. So here we're coming back at you.
This was not originally part of the episode we recorded,
but after we wrapped up our wonderful journey with Hanuman
(55:54):
and the ultramen rob you were kind of thinking about it,
and you're like, you know what, we should talk more
about some of the specific Kaiju beat down executions toward
the end of the film. So here's our makeup test.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
That's right, because you know, we like to dwell on
what really works in a film, and certainly Hahneman's brutal
executions of Kaiju that's what it's all about here. So
we can't just let this go by. We've got to
get into the grizzly details.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Okay, let's hear it all right.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
So one of the Kaiju is just kind of electrocuted,
slash exploded. Nothing fancy, but in a way it's perfect because,
especially if you're used to less gory treatment of your
Kaiju enemies in cinema, this seems like, oh, well, this
is just what's going to happen. You know, there's going
to be some rubber suit wrestling and there's going to
be some mild exploding or electrocution. The rest of the
(56:47):
kills are a lot more gory.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, there's a lot of slicing and use of blades,
which I have not come to expect in Kaiju Meet slams.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Right, So for two of the sort of nondescript Kaiju,
and I think they all have names in this. I've
seen like breakdowns where they each have a name, but
I don't know what these two are called. Hanaman uses
his trident to fling chakrum discs of pure light at them,
which cut off their arms and decapitate them both simultaneously.
So then their bodies run around with bloody stumps where
(57:19):
their arms and head. Once where they run around, they
bump into each other comically for a few seconds, and
then they just kind of lean against each other again,
headless and armless, and then they explode.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
That's kind of a hyper bloody three stooges bit.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, and then there's this other kaiju. So we're working
our way up the chain, there's this neat one that
kind of has what I think of it is kind
of like a dirpy head. Do you remember this guy?
Speaker 3 (57:42):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Yeah, he's definitely more of a fighter. He's really put
in the boots to one of the Ultras when Hanaman
jumps in, gets the hot tag and so he stabs
this Kaiju in the heart with the trident, and then
while the while the other while the Ultra holds him,
Hanaman puts the monster in a headlock and then pulls
the flesh off of the Kaiju's head, leaving only a
(58:06):
perfectly white skull setting atop his body.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Very very strong. Why do we never see the skin
head ripping move in the in real wrestling? I mean,
like if Rowdy Roddy Piper had had peeled the had
like d gloved ahead, that would be a popular finishing move.
Speaker 1 (58:23):
Yeah, I guess it's hard. I mean the closest thing,
of course is unmasking of a luchador, but in now
you have the reverse where their mask is a skull
their face is just a human face. You're you're you're
stealing you know, the divine or the macabre from the
normal human. But in this case, yeah, you're just ripping
the skin off a monster's skull. But they're not done
with this guy yet. Hanaman and the Ultra they go
(58:44):
ahead and they just pull on both arms of the
sky and they rip the flesh off of the arms, leaving,
you know, leaving just a like skeleton there as well.
Then the Kaiju flails in pain for a second, and
then Hanaman uses his wind power to create a vortex
around the Kaiju, pulling off the rest of its flesh,
(59:04):
leaving only a skeleton, which then is like sort of
stands like a kind of like a marionette for a
few seconds before just toppling into a pile of bones.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
It's very wily. Coyote is yeah, yeah, once you notice
the physics they then they apply.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yeah. Okay, so at this point we have one Kaiju left,
and it's the big horned Kaiju with the rainbow powers,
the one that I believe is it actually was the
one that was able to sort of freeze Hanaman inside
of a sphere before the other Ultras were able to
come and save him.
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Yeah, the crystal laser sphere that gets him frozen. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:38):
Yeah. He also has the power to block out the
sun with smoke clouds, so he starts unleashing just untold destruction.
So Hanamon and all seven Ultras gang up on him
and they just beat him down.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
It's like it's really bullying.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
Yeah, it's not pretty. At one point, the monsters trying
to crawl away, like they've beat him down so much
that he's just to crawl to safety, and the Ultras
grab him and Hanaman just beats him with a club.
At one point he rallies. He throws a boulder at
the Ultras, but they use Hanaman uses the club to
(01:00:13):
bash it back to him like they're playing baseball, and
then hits the Kaiju in the head. And so finally
Hanaman creates a laser crescent with his staff and then
cuts the Kaiju cleanly in half vertically, and then the
Kaiju explodes in a shower of sparks.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
I think this is the one finishing move that I
did mention previously, the cleaving in half.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yeah, So that's the big that's the big violent.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Finish, tremendous power, all honoring glory to Hanuman.
Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Yes, so a little more detail about the closing. Enclosing,
Hanaman and the Ultras say they're goodbyes. Then Hanaman says
goodbye to the human characters. Then Hanaman flies off into
the sunset, and then the film ends with the director
narrating thanking the viewer for having watched.
Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
The film, and I say, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
All right, all right, well, I guess we'll go ahead
and close this one out. But we'd love to hear
from everyone out there, for instance, that you know, have
have you seen any Ultraman films before? Had you seen
Hanaman versus Seven Ultraman before? Have you seen the other
Ultraman Hanaman team up movie? We'd love to hear from you.
I'd also love to hear from anyone who who actually
(01:01:20):
saw these in Thailand or has a you know, more
of a connection to Thai culture and can speak to
some of those aspects of the film, like what is
this film's prevalence in Thai cinema? How about some of
those other titles we mentioned, the Japanese or Thai films?
Did are you familiar with any of those? Should? Should
we seek out the Unbalanced Tar theater. I'm not sure
(01:01:42):
we could find it if we did seek it out.
It looks it looks like it's a little hard to get.
But anyway, we'd love to hear from everyone about any.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Of these topics. Yeah, definitely, especially Yeah. Please tie listeners,
let us know your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
And if you would like to listen to other episodes
of Weird House Cinema. This comes out every Friday in
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We're primarily
a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
but on Mondays we do a little listener mail. On
Wednesdays we do an artifact episode, and on Fridays we
cut loose and talk about some sort of weird or
interesting film.
Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb,
and today we have an episode that originally aired five
twenty eight, twenty twenty one. This is the in my opinion,
quite excellent and quite fun, nineteen seventy four Thaie co
production Hanaman versus seven Ultraman. It's this has been a
(00:27):
favorite of mine for a long time. Hanaman teams up
with the Ultra seven to defeat evil monsters and dastardly
human plots. All right, let's jump right into the action.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're going to
be talking about a Thai kaiju movie, or at least
partially tie. I think this is a Thai Japanese co production.
Am I right about that? Rob?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yes, though it is, it's the Thai aspects of it
are definitely tied to the max. It's filmed in Thailand,
has Thai actors, and features the really stars the Thai
variation of the god Hanuman.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Right, so this movie has a couple of different titles.
I think the English translation of the Thai title is
Hanuman Versus Seven Ultra Men. And then there's also an
English translation of a Japanese title I've seen it filed under,
which is the Six Ultra Brothers versus the Monster Army,
which I like out the titles do not agree on
(01:43):
the numbers of ultras.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, and then it can also be sometimes confused because
there's another film from the same year in the same
directors that I think is the follow up to this,
titled Hanuman and the Five Common Writers. So that's a
different film but similar premise.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Okay, so this is not only our first Thai movie,
this is also our first false versus film false versus
because the title Hanuman Versus the Seven Ultramen is entirely misleading.
Hanuman never fights the Seven Ultramen. In fact, Hanuman in
this movie is created by the seven Ultramen and they
(02:20):
fight together against some bad demons that are released from
the earth by arrogant scientists who don't believe in the gods.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, it's more like seven Ultramen En list Hanamana or
team up with Hanuman.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah. But my one sentence review, this movie is just
a rush of endorphins. So it's so good.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, this is a Oh, it's a very colorful film.
I can't really stress that enough. Like when you think
of a Kaiju movie, there are certain things you expect.
You expect cool, kind of practical, sometimes goofy monster costumes.
This film has that. You expect model cities and uctures
blowing up and getting crushed. Definitely, we have that. You
(03:03):
often expect children playing a major part in it, because
ultimately these are films for kids, and yes, those who
are present as well. But there are these mythological sequences
involving Hanoman and sometimes other deities. There are cosmic scenes
that are in play, and as we will describe some
of these as we move along, but they are just
so brilliant and psychedelic at times that it's overpowering.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I was actually going to point out that there are
parts of this movie, in fact, I would say, especially
the first few minutes of the movie, going from like
the studio logo through the opening narration, that feature some
film techniques that you don't usually expect to see in
a big monster fight movie. And it actually weirdly reminded
(03:50):
me of the experimental films of Stan Brackage, like The
Dog Star Man sequence, which have a lot of things
like extreme close ups of weird textures and color manipulation
was unusual manipulations of the film stock itself. It felt
like techniques that felt more at home in the realm
of you know, mid twentieth century experimental film. But here
(04:14):
they are in a big in a big Kaiju slam.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, and it's it's often invoked in a way that,
especially in the space scenes, it depicts a thoroughly mythological cosmos,
you know, a cosmos that ultimately has more in common
with with say, like like Hindu astrology than with you know,
even nineteen seventies understandings of what the cosmos actually consisted of.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You know, one of the funny things we were talking
about before we started recording is that I didn't quite
realize that this movie, in terms of themes, was essentially
going to be like one of those Christian apologetics movies,
like the Gods Not Dead movies, except for like Hanuman
the Hindu Deities here and the Ultramen where an erg
and scientists is punished for not necessarily punished, but an
(05:04):
arrogant scientist does wrong and releases a bunch of demons
and causes trouble basically because he doesn't believe in the gods.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah. Yeah, there's a strong theme of that. There's some
other it's it's it's a film that's very forward with
its with its themes, like, yeah, especially with some of
the minor bad guys who will get into Like the
minor bad guys are just super super bad. They're like
tying ladies to railroad tracks bad.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, but they're also their major sin is that they
don't respect the gods either. I don't respect the temples.
They don't respect the Buddha. They try to cut off
a Buddha statue's head so they can sell it for money,
and they are they are mercilessly brutally punished for this act. Well,
actually they're they're punished for that and for shooting a
child in the face. So conventionally morally evil as well.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, that's and that's another thing that I would say
about this film why it's worth checking out is that
it is it is kind of surprisingly violent at times. Yeah,
like with the terrestrial violence involving the you know, these
criminals who are defacing the temples, but then also when
you get to the big Kaiju battles. These are some
brutal beatdowns. There are like moral Kombat style fatalities that
(06:14):
take place here that I don't recall really seeing in
the likes of Gamera and Godzilla.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You're absolutely right about that. And there's another way in
which I thought this was different than many of the
other giant monster fight movies I've seen. This one had
much more of an element of dance in it, yes,
than I thought any other one I've ever seen. So
it's not just you know, people in giant monster costumes
doing wrestling moves at each other. There spend a lot
(06:40):
of time almost sort of dancing at one another. And
there are other dance sequences in the movie, like a
large part of the early third of the film is
like children dancing and playing music to make it rain,
because part of the plot is that the earth is
too hot.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, you might find yourself watching this and thinking how
much of the dance sequence am I going to have
to watch? And the answer is you will watch all
of it. Yeah, it is an extended sequence. And indeed,
Hanaman and in a minute we'll explain Hanaman for everybody's
not familiar. The Hanomon has depicted here is not like
some sort of like sci fi twist on Hanaman. For
(07:18):
the most part, it is Hanomon as Hanaman is depicted
in the art and culture of Thailand, both in terms
of visual depictions but also performance depictions and traditional Thai dance.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, that's right, so you get a lot of monkey
dances in the movie. Now, another thing I wanted to
come back to is I was trying to think of
examples of other false versus movies. I know there are some,
I just couldn't call them to mind. I didn't know
if you could think of any examples. But the closest
thing I actually came up with is a trash DVD
that I like to watch. I think it's from the
(07:53):
early two thousands. That's a movie called Frost Portrait of
a Vampire. It has Gary Busey a bit part in it.
But the funniest thing about it is actually that there
is a character named Frost in the movie, but he
is not a vampire.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah. I can't think of another film offhand where it's
something versus something and they don't actually fight. Now, there
are plenty of examples where the versus matchup is about
two good characters who will fight each other but then
ultimately team up against a greater evil. I mean that's
a common, a common trope.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, of course, you know, King Kong versus Godzilla, and
then actually they have to fight Mecca Godzilla or something.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but in this it's I don't Yeah,
Hanaman and the Ultra team are pretty square from the
get go, like they're they're they're never in conflict with
each other.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, I don't even recall a minor disagreement there. They're
absolutely in lock steps by side the entire time.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Fine tune machine.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, maybe we should hit that trailer audio.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, let's let's hear a little bit of the trailer
and and hopefully if this is the right clip, you'll
hear some of the music in it, because there's a
fabulous Haniman theme song in this that just as delightful,
especially if you if you enjoy like ty pop music
of this era, really good stuff.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
One easy Gone, We're not lawa Pawan get Yon playing up,
(09:36):
get your dumble ti p.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Oh. I don't know if we mentioned the year, we
should say this movie is from what year? Is it
nineteen seventy four?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Is that nineteen seventy four?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yes, oh boy, that was a good year for for
Tai Kaiju.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
All right, so let's get into some of the connections here.
Normally we talk about, you know, the human connections of Note,
and we are going to get to the humans, but
first I want to talk about the god of note here,
and that is Hanaman born. If we can really put
a data on this sort of thing, maybe fifteen hundred BCE.
But then again, Hahnaman is a god, so it's kind
(10:14):
of ridiculous, Steven, throw that out there. So yes, this
movie heavily features Hanuman. And it's not actually the Hindu
god Hanaman. It's actually a guy in a suit. But
I always love this aspect of the film sci fi
comic book hero teams up with an actual god. And
we're not talking Zeus or Poseidon. We're not talking Cthulhu
(10:36):
or Gozer. We're talking about a mythological figure and deity
that is hugely culturally and religiously important to one of
the world's major religions. So Hanaman is a god that
is still like very much in play now. Hanaman is
a fascinating figure in Hindu mythology. And while nothing is certain,
I believe some scholars believe that the Chinese figure of
(10:58):
soon we'll call the Monkey King, the Great Sage equal
to Heaven, may have at least partially emerged out of
traditions of Hanuman that that flowed out of India into China.
But then again Sun Wukong is very much a separate
mythological entity as well.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Now Sun Wu Kong. Is this the figure who appears
in say, the novel Journey to the West, and yes,
sometimes characterized as the handsome Monkey King?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yes, yes, there, yeah, that that is. That is the
Monkey King indeed, and they have some shared characteristics, but
again each one is very much their own character. So
if there's you know, it's it's not so much. One
is the Chinese version and one is the you know,
the Indian or Thai version. It's like they're really separate
(11:43):
entities at this point. So in getting into the the
Hindu origins of Hanuman, which then of course are become
important in Thai culture as well. I was reading a
book titled The Sacred Animals of India my by Nantifa Krishna,
and the points out that the Sanskrit word for monkey
(12:03):
is copy. But in the Hindu epic the Ramayana, in
which Hanaman and his soldiers aid Rama in the rescue
of Sita from the evil king Ravana. The word copy
is not used to describe Hanaman and his soldiers. Instead,
they are described as the Vanara, literally the forest men,
the people of the forest.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Oh whoa. So is it possible this is something more
like a bigfoot kind of creature that some they have
in mind.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I mean, I imagine there are some interpretations that may go
in that direction, But there seem to be associations with
monkeys as kind of totem animals for the Vannara. So
the interpretation that Krishna is making in this book is
that perhaps the origins were like a like a people,
a tribe of the forest, like a culture of the forest,
(12:50):
and perhaps they had as their their emblem the monkey,
or perhaps they worshiped a deity that they had that
monkey characteristics, a deity that might even be sort of
the proto Hahnaman I see. But in later literary traditions,
writers increasingly draw in monkey descriptions for the Vanara, deliberate
(13:12):
monkey characteristics, and so you see this transformation. Hanaman and
his people become the monkeys of the forest, like the
noble monkey warriors of myth, and it's also only over
time that the word vanara becomes a blanket term for
primates in the real world as well. So chief among
the Vanara is Hanaman, loyal friend and devote to Rama,
(13:33):
like he's just his loyalist supporter. Like in some interpretations,
I think Hanaman gets his power out of his devotion
to Rama, Like that's just how strong it is. There's
the scene where he like, you know, he opens his
heart and you see Rama inside his heart.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So he's also one of the ten incarnations of the
Lord Vishnu. He's the son of the Wind. He's the
offspring of Anjana. He is fierce, immortal, he's unbeatable, but
he also has a certain humanity to him. There's something
about about Hanaman that is relatable, Like he's you know,
he's bold, but he's he's not stuck up. Now, there's
(14:12):
a lot more to Animan. He's been a very popular
figure in Hinduism for a very long time, and he's
also vital in Thailand, where the Thai version of the Ramayana,
the Ramakan, is one of Thailand's national epics. Derived from
the Buddhist Dasaratha Jadaka and if you visit the Grand
Palace in Thailand, in Bangkok, you can explore these beautiful
(14:34):
murals depicting Hanuman's war against the demon Armies, where Hanaman
has this, he has this, this, this brilliant porcelain skin
and this fierce face and yeah, battling these these demon
armies with valor and magic.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Now in this movie, Haniman does in fact battle a
demon army. Did you notice anything from those murals or
artistic depictions coming through in the movie Hanuman versus the
Seven Ultramen.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
No, I mean not really. Not to my eye anyway,
it seems like the the monsters that are battled in
this are very much more kaiju. Like the only combatant
that really has the you know, the feel of Thai
cultural tradition about them is Hanuman himself, and he's just
steeped in it.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
He might as well be fighting Rodin or something.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Right, Yeah, like just you know, for instance, there are
scenes where Hanaman flies across the sky and he does
so in this stylized pose that that is very much
like the pose you see him taking in various traditional
artistic depictions.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I noticed that, yes, similar to the style of flying
you see often in say Hindu art or Hindu iconography
where they're not flying in the Superman pose, or not
flying with arms out like they're like a bird or something,
but as if they're in sort of a levitating capsule.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, it's to me, it's it's it's interesting because on
one hand, it seems like a perfect fit for Hanaman
to pop up in a tie children's movie to help
superheroes battle giant monsters. But on the other hand, yeah,
there's there's nothing quite like it, nothing you can compare
to it in Western traditions, you know, Like I was thinking, Okay, well,
sometimes we have tales about Santa Claus doing stuff, but
(16:21):
you can't compare Santa to Hanaman. It's it's not it's
not at all the same. You know, Santa is a mythological,
folkloric character, but not one on the same level as
like like you wouldn't say Santa is like a cultural
icon or cultural hero. Uh. For the most part, I
think and likewise, I can't think of another religious figure
(16:41):
that you could imagine popping up in a film like this.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
I mean, I guess maybe the closest is like Thor
or something in the Marvel universe. True, But but yeah,
I mean especially not for like religions that are still
widely followed today have huge, huge numbers of adherents. I
know that there are people who have done some sort
of Norse religious revival, but like you wouldn't expect to
see a movie where, say, Jesus is wrestle slamming robots.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
No, though, weirdly enough, you do see in some of
the exported Santo movies they sometimes call him Samson, if
I remember correctly. Oh, that's interesting, and they may do
that with certain other strong man films that came out
of Italian traditions. I think where you just go to, oh,
we'll just call him Samson, referring to the Samson of
(17:30):
Jewish and Christian traditions. But then again, I'm not sure
there's ever been an actual Samson film where Samson is
taken out of the biblical world and is say, dropped
in New York City to battle monsters or something.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I see some strange symbolic parallels between El Santo and Samson.
They have a similar thing where you could take away
their power by doing something to their head. Samson by
cutting his hairs, El Santo by unmasking him.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, and actual it. Hannaman reminds me a little bit
of Santo, as we explored him in the previous Santo movie.
We discussed it the Santo is so good that the
evildoers really don't stand a chance against him, and see,
and Hannaman is very much the same way. So, in
a weird way, Santo is about as close as I
(18:19):
can come to imagining something like Hanamon in another movie.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah, I can see that. Okay. So who are the
directors of this movie?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Okay, we have a couple of directors. First, there is
Sampote Sans Director born nineteen forty one, famed tie director
who directed a string of really interesting sounding films. There's
some other clear ultraman and ultraman asked stuff in there,
but my attention was instantly grabbed by nineteen seventy nine's Crocodile,
(18:51):
which is a giant croc movie. Magic Lizard from nineteen
eighty five, which is I think a comedy or children's
movie about a roller skating lizard that fights aliens in Bangkok.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Ooh sounds good, yep.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I saw a clip from it. Looks interesting. And then
there's Fadda Rod Mary from nineteen eighty one, which is
a film about ogres. I was reading the synopsis and
it was twelve girls are abandoned by their parents because
they are too poor to take care of them. The
twelve daughters are rescued by an ogress in disguise who
promises to take care of them as their own daughters.
(19:25):
And yeah, and then it goes from there. So it
seems very steeped in some sort of folklore tradition and
has like a very cool looking, like tai style ogress
on the poster art that I saw. All right, all right,
then we also have Shohei Tojo as one of the directors,
largely a special effects film director. He did a bunch
(19:47):
of ultraman stuff, but he also did some sintai stuff
which was then adapted into Power Rangers in the United States.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Okay, so this would be an example of what in
Japanese cinema is some called a tokusatsu film, like a
special effects driven movie.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, tokusatsu. So I guess you could say, like to
a certain extent, like who's the tokosatsu director in the
American sense, Michael.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Bay, Yeah, Roland Limerick or something like that.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, similar thing.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Girmo del Toro maybe yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
So both of these directors gave us this Hanoman movie,
the subsequent Honomon movie from the same year, and they
worked together on a film titled The Last Dinosaur that
I'll get to here in just a bit.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So that brings us to the writer Boonzo Wakatsuki. Active
from the late nineteen fifties to the late nineteen eighties.
He wrote on a number of projects, including some that
fans of Mystery Science Theater three thousand might be familiar with,
star Wolf Fugitive Alien, Fugitive Alien two. These were films
(20:52):
that arrived at MST three K via the Sandy Frank
Distribution System, which I think headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia back
in the day when it was around. But anyway, these
films featured a character named Captain Joe. He was the
one of the ball cap On played by the legendary
Joe Shashido, who lived nineteen thirty three through twenty twenty.
(21:15):
He was the star of the excellent nineteen sixty seven
assassin film Branded to Kill All Right. What about the cast, Well,
the cast is largely these are largely Thai actors. Most
of them are not people I'm really familiar with. There
is an actor by the name of Yodchai Metsuwan who
plays doctor Wissuit, who is going to be our sort
(21:36):
of our central villain in the piece. He seems like
he was a taie actor of possible note I'm not
familiar with him, but he has a number of films
attributed to him on IMDb.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Now, probably the most memorable human characters in this film
are a couple of I don't know how to describe
them exactly. They really embody the monkey spirit of this movie.
A couple of sort of physical comedians who spend a
lot of the film sort of dancing and jumping around
in strange and obscene ways. And when we first meet them,
(22:09):
they're wearing the most glorious jumpsuits. But these are let's see,
I'm trying to remember their character's names. I've got them
written down somewhere here.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Well, yeah, their names are shriep Polk and Shressuya I believe.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, that's right. So the version I had spelled it differently,
but I think it's transliterating the same sounds as Seapuk
and Sisulia.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah. And on IMDb at least, which has especially given
you know that this is a typhone from the nineteen seventies.
I don't know that there might be something that is
not the information might be messed up in some way.
But on IMDb they are listed as playing themselves, which
leads me to believe that maybe they were Thai comedians
of note at the time, like they maybe they had
(22:50):
an act because, like you say, they are very physical
comedic performers. If not, I think clowns. We might even
that might even be an accurate depiction of the sort
of of humor that they display.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Oh well, they're even wearing white face paint in some scenes,
that's right. Yeah, yeah, so they seem to be very
much in a kind of the clown school tradition. They
are enthusiastic performers. They're sort of a handful for the eyes.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, they are a lot, Yes, for sure. Various other
actors in this, many of which you do it, do
a fine job. But I'm just going to skip over
him here because I don't know that they really have
much import to the listener. But let's get to the
special effects, because after all, this is a special effects movie.
The special effects director on this was Cazoa Sagawa and
(23:37):
Sagawa did ultraman special effects throughout his career, but he
also worked on a number of films and TV shows
you might have heard of. His first credit was nineteen
sixty eight's Mighty Jack TV show, a version of which,
like a movie cut of it, was featured on Mystery
Science Theater three thousand back in the day. And while
most of his credits are full Japanese productions, he also
(23:58):
did effects on nineteen seventy seven The Last Dinosaur, which
was a Japanese American co production starring Richard Boone and
Joan van Ark who was in Frocks.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Oh, I remember her.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, so there's our connection to a previous film. The
Last Dinosaur was also a co production by Rankin in Bass.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Wow. Wait was it rotoscoped?
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I'm not sure?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
But another interesting credit that Sagawa has he worked on
a TV series what was apparently a horror anthology TV
series in Japan titled Horror Theater Unbalanced or I think
it's sometimes translated as Unbalanced Horror Theater from nineteen seventy three,
and I was trying to find out more about it.
(24:44):
I couldn't find out much, but it looks really interesting. Again,
I'm generally interested in any kind of horror anthology, but
in nineteen seventy three Japanese anthology TV series, it sounds
really rad YEP, sign me up. And finally, the music,
which I'm only mentioning because we tend to mention the music.
Toro Fuyuki did the music on this. It's nothing really
(25:04):
to write home about. It feels very old fashioned and
very you know, sort of cliche adventure music. But this
guy did a lot of ultraman music. Also Inframan from
nineteen seventy five, which starred Danny Lee who was in
The Oily Maniac.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Well, are you ready to get into the plot.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Let's get into the plot of this movie.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Okay. Now we start off with a once again a
beautiful film studio logo. I have to say I've noticed
many times since we started doing Weird House Cinema that
I really love a lot of Asian film studio logos.
Loved the Shaw Brothers logo. I love the Toho logo
of course, and I would say the Chaio Film studio
(25:53):
here joins the list because it's just got these two
heavenly beasts, these kind of you know, like dragon tiger
type creatures cradling the studio name in a disk between
their paws while a kaleidoscopic supernova just roars behind them.
It is really gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, it's it's quite beautiful and eye catching and flows
nicely into the rest of the film because it's it's
not like we cut from this to just a city
street or anything.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Like.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
We're right into the into the the the blinding, you know,
astrological world of the mythic cosmos.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, the very first thing you see is the sun.
You are just right up in the sun's business, like you're,
you know, you're you can smell the Sun's breath. And
I also have to say a caveat on all that follows.
I can only judge the text content of this film
based on the English subtitles that I encountered, which were
maybe not professionally produced. I'm not sure so so, of course,
(26:48):
the quality of a film translation can vary a lot,
and any awkward qualities of the narration or dialogue that
I'm about to mention may well be a result of
the translation and not the film itself.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, yeah, same here. I think we used the same
stream of this that had the imperfect subtitles, but it
was still an improvement over the original way. I watched
this film, which was on a tie DVD that I
bought off of eBay, which had no subtitles, and I
just had kind of had to figure it out. I mean,
you can figure out most of this film by watching it.
(27:20):
It's not too deep. But there were a few things
that I just I had no idea how they were
supposed to have happened, and we'll get to those here
in a bit.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
So the very beginning, I wonder if you have some
insights into you might have some astrological knowledge that I don't.
But the opening narration that's showing us the Sun and
space and planets, and it says, in our universe there
is the Milky Way, the galaxy where our solar system
is encircling the Sun. Nine planets were born Wednesday, Mercury, Friday, Venus, Earth, Tuesday, Mars, Saturday, Saturn, Thursday, Jupiter, Uranus, nept.
(27:59):
I include, do you know what's going on there with
the days? And maybe something's lost in translation.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I think it's perhaps a connection to Hindu astrology. Yeah, okay, okay,
and the earlier associations of the of the planets.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, okay, or like days of the week on which
these planets were created. Maybe I was wondering, but I'm
gonna go with yours. And then next it tells us
three million light years away there is the Ultra galaxy.
Now brief astronomy note here, I was like, wait a minute,
what could that be referring to? So the distance from
(28:35):
our galaxy to the next nearest galaxy, which is the
Andromeda galaxy, is about two point five million light years away.
So that's you know, pretty clear ballpark of three million
light years away. But the funny thing about that is
it won't always be that far away. While most galaxies
in the universe are moving farther and farther away from
each other as the universe expands the Milky Way and
(28:57):
the Andromeda galaxies are actually on a collision course. They
will probably slam into each other at least pass nearby
one another within four to five billion years. So if
the Ultra galaxy is indeed the Andromeda Galaxy, then then
you know, maybe we'll get more ultraman movies a few
billion years from now as they get i don't know, closer,
(29:18):
and that reduces the required budget for recruiting them. But anyway,
the narration then tells us that there are sixty nine
planets which circle around something called M seventy eight. Now,
at first I was like, is that supposed to refer
to Messia seventy eight, which is sometimes called M seventy eight.
I think it's probably not, because this, it turns out,
is a planet, and Messia seventy eight is a hazy
(29:41):
nebula within the Milky Way that's about sixteen hundred light
years away. So we learned from the narration that M
seventy eight is a planet full of light and happiness,
and quote there were born the Ultras. They have extraordinary
powers and are extremely intelligent. They guarantee the piece of
the galaxies.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
And the Ultras are of course, this is Ultraman and
his kin.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Yes, his mother and his brothers. And then while we're
being told this, we're getting a pan over the surface
of HIM seventy eight. But it looks like a wall
on the satellite of Love. It's just a big old
mess of bike reflectors glinting in the stage lights and
Greebels on the loose.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, a lot of greebels.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, very good. Greebels. It's also really funny because as
we're being told that they guarantee the piece of the galaxies,
we see a close up on one of the Ultraman masks,
which don't necessarily look benign, and they look somewhat evil
with orange eyes, and we hear a sound that is
kind of like rats shrieking in the darkness. It's not
(30:44):
the most piece of the galaxy sound, you know, audio
visual combination, you could imagine.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Well, I mean, I guess it's a tough job at times.
I mean, clearly it involves combating monsters half the time.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Uh huh. But then we get more facts delivered by
the narration. So talking about seventy eight, we learned that
piece is eternal. There, that's good. We also learned that
Ultraman Taro watches over the three hundred cities that in
the cities without sunlight, warmth is provided by nine hundred heaters.
I found these numbers very funny. Then we also learned
(31:18):
that Ultraman Taro teaches the Ultra brothers how to fight,
that Ultraman Zafi leads his brothers helped by their mother,
And then we meet Mother Ultra and Mother Ultra is awesome.
She is just a grand slam. I love her costume,
I love her movements. She's got this big red cape
that opens like bat wings. She holds it open kind
(31:41):
of like the Master and Manos the Hands of Fate,
and we see her framed by an aurora when we
first meet her. She's just awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah. They have Even though again we have we have
sci fi like superhero robot people, you know, colliding with
actual gods here, the ultra man, the ultra folk here,
they do have a mythic quality to the way they're
presented that ultimately makes things feel like they fit together.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
I feel cohesive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And this comes back to,
you know, something we've talked about on the podcast before,
on our core episodes, which is that I'm not sure
the distinction between gods and aliens is something that would
have been quite so well distinct to say, ancient people
(32:30):
as it is to us, because I think the main
distinction that we make in the modern world between gods
and aliens is whether you're talking about something that is
natural or something that is supernatural. And I don't think
the natural versus supernatural categories held as firmly in the
ancient world where you know, to many ancient peoples, the
gods would be not necessarily supernatural, but something that's defined
(32:54):
by sort of being of another place, maybe a place
above in the stars or a kind of pure land
or something, and then also being extremely powerful or being immortal.
And so if you were, say an alien from another
planet who had amazingly powerful technology, I mean that seems
basically almost the same as being a god.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Absolutely, But then we get an origin. So then we
cut straight from the Ultras to an origin story for Hanuman.
This all just sort of blends together. It's as if
it's all part of the same epic cycle. So it
has always been, yes, So you go, so straight from
the epica origins of the Ultras, we go to narration
that ten thousand years ago King Panela was raining in
(33:38):
India and you see natural disasters. There's wind and black
clouds blowing rocks over the ground and tree limbs snapping
in the wind, water swirling, and the narration tells us
that it was under his reign that Hanuman was born
from Angana, pregnant from the god of the wind. And
we see her dressed in a splendorous out fit and
(34:00):
a red sky background, and there's wind being generated by
the wind to God, and she just vacuums it up
into her mouth.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah. And this, by the way, is why Hanuman can fly,
because he is the offspring in part of the wind.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah. And then there's there's a very psychedelic birth sequence
for Hanuman. He's like, I don't know again, it's very
experimental film. It as these dog star man like textures,
and and Hanuman flies out of the ether toward the
camera with a fist extended. Then I guess that's all all, okay,
(34:35):
dust off the hands background is done. Time to roll
the credits over, which plays an original theme song about Hanuman,
which I love it. I love it. It's like green Slime time,
you know, green Slime. Every sci fi fantasy movie should
get its own original theme song with lyrics about the plot.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah. And this is a great song. I think we
probably heard part of it in the trailer audio earlier.
It just it has you know, even even though you know,
I you know, I don't speak Thai, the Thai language
has this wonderful cadence to it, which which works perfectly
in songs like this.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Let's get another clip of that.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
One.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Okay, I want to cite some lyrics of this song. Again,
this is according to the translation that I had access to,
so this is the best I could do. It says
that Hanuman is invincible, armed with his incandescent trident. I
don't know if I remember a trident. Oh well, he's
got his slicing weapon at the Yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Looks like a sigh what we might think of as
a sigh, and that's tradition.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I buy it. Now we
learned that he is immortal. He is the Master of
the Wind against five monsters. He fights aided by the
seven Ultras. Before fight, he prays that's why he is invincible.
And then finally the lyrics say, Hanuman and seven Ultramen
watch this great movie.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yes, there there are there are some. I don't know
how much of it is the translation, but this would
be a couple of one of a couple of places
in the movie where they seem to be breaking the
fourth wall, like there's a part with the narrations like, hey,
this is our protagonist.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, that happened. In fact, that happens almost immediately.
We meet a boy named co who is at a
ruined temple with many other children, and they're praying and
dancing and playing music in order to get the gods
to make it rain because the earth is very hot
at the beginning of the movie, like the sun is
too close to the earth, and it's very dry and
(36:47):
very hot, and they need rain to cool the earth off.
So they're doing these rituals. And when we very first
meet Co, he's dancing around in a Hanuman mask, and
the narration just says, this is the protagonist. Yes, yeah,
But actually before we meet Co, the first human characters
we meet are the clowns we were talking about earlier.
We see two dudes who were they're off roading in
(37:09):
a truck or a jeep or something that is spewing
these wonderful pink fumes, and they are wearing really good jumpsuits.
They're kind of Mario Super Mario Brother colors. They're red
and blue with white stripes, and their truck breaks down.
They're having car trouble and that turns into a bunch
of high jinks and tumbling around, and after they fail
(37:30):
to get their cars started and it spews a bunch
of smoke all over the place, they run away from
it and the car explodes, and then they laugh and
they dance. And I don't know if this is correct,
but in the version I was watching, there's a subtitle
annotation telling us that they are dancing like Hanuman in
order to receive better luck, though I don't know what
their luck could be now that their car has exploded.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, I'm not sure either, but many are. Yeah, they are.
They are clowning hard in this, in this scene and
all subsequent.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yes, And so we get more about how hot the
sun is, like they witness birds falling out of the
sky on fire and smoking because the sun is so hot.
And so the two clown characters here they run around
chattering and they're doing like monkey like dances and talking
about how hot they are and how they need water.
(38:22):
And I think the implication is that their car exploded
because it was so hot outside.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yes, I think so.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Eventually the two clown guys shed their their awesome jumpsuits,
which is sad, but they shed them because they see
a river that they want to swim in to cool off.
So they take off the jumpsuits, run and jump in
the water. They're wearing like one piece bathing suits under
their jumpsuits. Interesting choice. But then while they're enjoying the water,
(38:50):
they explain that someone named doctor we Suit has invented
a way to make it rain, and so everything's going
to be okay, And the narrator tells us that they
two guys are in fact famous pilots. Yeah, and they
do some really good camera mooning and such. But we
learn more about doctor Weesut's plan that he's going to
(39:11):
shoot some rockets into the sky that are going to
make it rain and cool off the world, and so
we go to doctor Wezut's lab to learn about his plan.
His lab set is really awesome. It's part sort of
green slime type set, you know, standard sci fi rivets everywhere,
but also it's part dangerous nineteen seventies playground with metal equipment,
(39:34):
which is my favorite kind of playground.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, it's really splendid to behold.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Like the background really should have a rusty swing set
and a slide that just has blood all over it.
You know, it's like a lawsuit factory playground. But there's
an argument between doctor Weesut and another character somebody else
who works in the lab named Melisa, about whether they
need to ask the angels for rain in addition to
(39:59):
their rocket plan. Elisa is like, hey, you know, I
think we should appeal to the gods. That would be
a good idea. And doctor Weisud is like, no, it
is foolish to believe in the gods. Hanuman does not exist,
and I will not ask him for rain, yep, because
I am arrogant. So some some very heavy handed science
versus religion stuff. Yeah, and then meanwhile, back at the
(40:20):
temple where the children are dancing and praying for rain.
Of course all the dancing goes on, but some bad
guys show up. There are these ruthless thieves who appear
in a jeep and want to steal a precious idol
from the temple complex. So they run up to a
statue of the Buddha and start chopping its head off,
saying soon we will be rich.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, and this is yeah, this is just super low, Like,
this is highly frowned upon. I mean, and we don't
you don't even need to be told that. Obviously they're
they're messing around with with on sacred grounds. But yeah,
to rip the head off of a statue like this
on temple grounds just the lowest of the low and
our hero instantly realizes this.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Yeah, he sees what they're doing. He catches the thieves
in the act and Co tries to stop them. They
fight him off. In fact, this goes there's a long
sequence of him chasing the thieves around and them like
kicking him to the ground, and he's really insistent. He
keeps getting back up. That's perseverance, you know, he's gonna
fight for that Buddha. Heead And eventually the robbers they
(41:21):
have enough of Co and they just straight up shoot
him in the face.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, like three shots and then I mean, it's not
too graphic. It is a little surprising. When I watched
it for the first time, I'm like, oh my god,
that just happened. But you know, to be clear, it's
just like three gunshots and then suddenly he has red
paint smeared on his face and he's dead.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Yes, so the way it actually looks in the movie
is kind of benign and comical, but conceptually, yes, they
shoot a child in the face. That is what kicks
off the rest of the plot. So Co is dead.
He's lying there dead in the road as the robbers
escape with their booty and the children. They come to
see their friends, and he's been killed and they start
(42:02):
to hold a funeral for him. And then meanwhile on
planet M seventy eight, the mother of Ultra gathers her
six sons and ooh, it is bad news for those
thieves because the Ultras saw what you did. They so
they reason about this. Here's how it goes. Co was good,
thieves are bad, so they deem this instance of shooting
(42:25):
a person in the face unfair. And then we learned
that the Mother of Ultra transports Ko's body to the
planet M seventy eight and then quote the Ultras merge
his body with Hanuman, so Co will be able to
return to Earth as an avenger.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Okay, So on one hand, I'm not entirely sure why
Earth is under the jurisdiction of M seventy eight, right,
But fair enough the other thing like this, So this
whole bit about how the boy Co becomes Hanaman, or
to what extent he becomes Hanaman, I was always unclear
about this watching it without any translations, I'm still unclear
(43:04):
unclear about it with a translation. So I guess it's like,
because Hanaman exists, Hanaman has a reality, right, pre exists
and yet somehow they are stepping in and allowing Hanuman
to return to Earth by fusing him with Koe's body.
So there's some sort of the metaphysics on it are
(43:25):
a little foggy, It's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Well, at one point, one of Ko's friends explains the
situation by saying, Co is dead, but he became Hanuman. Okay,
I'm not sure. So I don't know to what extent
he's still Co, but to some extent he is. Yeah. Anyway,
So the form that the Mother of Ultra's intervention takes
(43:49):
here is that a giant hand reaches out of the
sky at Coe's funeral, picks him up, takes his body
to the altar of the Ultramen turns him into Hanuman.
And then we see Hanuman flying over cities in Thailand
in that iconic pose, you know, so upright sort of
posed with the arms in the air, just zooming around
(44:09):
over landmarks.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, like I think the ruins are in a Yuthia.
And then we see Hanuman flying over what I believe
is Bangkok, and I think even flies over that the
Royal Palace that I was mentioning earlier that has the
fabulous murals. I think that's one of the locations you
see him fly over.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
And there were like reports there are sightings of Hanuman
flying around. Because in doctor Weizut's lab, Melissa receives the reports.
She's like, hey, they're saying Hanuman was sighted flying through
the sky and we suit his smug and dismissive, and
he's like, Hanuman does not exist. That is foolishness. I
only need science. And then we get a bunch more
(44:57):
lore that I really enjoyed. It feels mostly superfluous to
the rest of the film, but we get the legend
of fra Rahm and his brother Frau Loch. So Frau Looc,
we find out, fought against the demon thought Sakhon, and
he was wounded by a lance. And because a wise
man had said that only the sap of the flower Sangkon,
(45:22):
which was found on the mountain of Sapaya, could heal
Frauloc Hanuman had to go looking for this flower. But
he is warned by the sage that the flower must
be plucked before sunrise, and so in order to get
it before sunrise, he has to slow down the Sun's cart.
So there's some drama with the Sun cart driver. We
(45:42):
see Hanuman going up to the guy who basically, you know,
like the Sun, the driver of the Sun, and the
Sun agrees to slow down because Frau loc is a
saint who must fight a demon to maintain the universe.
And then there's a long scene where Hanuman chases the
flower around the mountain. They seem to kind of be
flirting with each other. The sequence is very good and
(46:05):
it has more of that psychedelic imagery. Ultimately, Hanuman wins
this chase by tying up the mountain with his tail
and he gets the flower.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, it's this whole sequence is just like a marvelous
fever dream. But to your point, I'm not exactly sure
why it was necessary. It's nice. Yeah, it's great, and
it's about our main character, Hanuman, but I don't know
if it was super necessary for what is a rather
long movie about gods and Kaiji.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Oh, I'm not complaining. I will take this sequence. I
want it left in.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Oh yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Don't streamline it for me anyway. So co after this
returns to stop the thieves. The thieves are they're in
their car with the stolen buddhahead and they're like, Haha,
we're going to get some money for this. We're going
to sell it for our crime. And then they're driving
along the road and then suddenly standing in the road
(46:58):
in fact dancing is Co, the boyk who they shot
in the face, and they're like, what is this? Is
this a ghost?
Speaker 4 (47:05):
You know?
Speaker 3 (47:05):
They start freaking out and they shoot at him. They
empty their guns into him to no effect, and then
Co goes into Hanuman mode. He changes into Hanuman form
and becomes gigantic and just brutally murders the three thieves.
Brutally murders them with a preference for gory, crushing deaths,
(47:25):
like one of them he stomps on one of them,
he knocks over a tree on and that guy gets
crushed in is all bloody. And then the last guy
he grabs and crushes in his hand like a can.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
That one I love because he's also kind of nodding.
Holly does it as if he's acknowledging us the viewer
and saying, yep, yep, I'm crushing him in my hand,
Like there's kind of like a monkey's zeal to the vengeance.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Yes, And there's also this bniacal like Hanuman talks. You know,
he says, like, while he's chasing them around, we get
at least the subtitles I saw where Haha, you're all
going to die. You cut Buddha's head, and after the
three thieves are crushed, the buddhahead magically returns to the
statue where it began. So next, now that he's sated
(48:11):
his thirst for bloody revenge, Hanuman has to fix the sun. Right,
He's going to protect Earth. So he flies up to
the Sun and much like earlier, so I guess that
here's one way it connects. You know, previously he has
talked to the Sun into slowing down. Now he flies
up and he tells the son. He's like, you're too
close to Earth. Your flames are too strong. You need
to back up. And the Sun says okay, and the
(48:34):
problem is solved. Hanuman convinces the Sun to back off
and seems like things should be okay. Now the movie
should be over. It's only been about forty minutes, so
something's got to happen, and incomes the evil atheistic science
to step in and ruin things. So doctor Weizut and
his rocket plan to cause rain. This leads to a fiasco.
(48:58):
There's a long sequence in the middle of the movie
you here where rockets start malfunctioning and blowing everything up
and whoops, the explosions of the godless science rockets open
up cracks in the earth and release ancient demons. And
now you know what. The rest of the movie is
going to be a good old fashioned Kaiju meat slam,
(49:19):
some some foam costume suplexes and Frankensteiner's and and here
it's just basically monster action for the rest of the movie.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah, and it's it's pretty great. Like I say, you
might come into a film like this thinking, wow, you know,
I'm I'm a Godzilla fan, I'm a Gammerer fan, and
if you hide the hold those particular films in high regard.
But this is some some fabulous monster wailing.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah. And there are a lot of monsters. Five of
them wake up and they're running all over the place.
They're dancing in the rocket fields. That's a great but
again it's very dance oriented kind of fighting. Yeah, they're
almost there are parts where it looks kind of like
the demons are doing the dugie. And so there's first
the classic human forces versus the giant monsters. That doesn't
(50:05):
go so well for the humans. They send in the
air force and the monsters breathe jets of fire on
the airplanes and wreck them and so forth, and then
we get another phase of the movie that is Hanuman
to the rescue, Hanuman versus Demons. At first, Hanuman is
doing pretty well, but then all the demons gang up
on him and he starts getting whipped and they paralyze
(50:26):
him inside a crystal laser ball. And then there's a
big third phase of the fight where the Ultramen show
up and then the Ultramen join on Hanuman's side. The
tides turn yet again we get a classic destroy All
Monsters command and Rob I was wondering if is there
a term for this in professional wrestling, where like, you know,
(50:48):
the fights between this guy and that guy and it's
not going so well for the likable character, but then
another one runs into the rescue.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I mean it's run in. Is that the terminology for it? Yeah? Yeah,
so basically this would be this would be you know,
a run in where Hanuman is getting handled again. It's
five to one, yeah, but now it's it's soon going
to be uh what eight to five? And one of
the things that's very noticeable is that either side, either
the Monsters or Ultra the Ultramen, and in Hanuman, neither
(51:21):
side is afraid to use the numbers game to their advantage.
Oh yeah, they're not going to insist on on Neither
side is going to insist on fair numbers in fair fights.
If it's like four to one, it's going to be
a four to one whaling.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah, to use the wrestling terminology and pardon my French,
but there there are several cans of whoop ass that
are opened. Yes, the they So the monsters gang up
on Hanuman and they're all just like pushing him around.
It looks very they're bullying him, and that makes sense.
They're demons, they're from the earth. They're bad monsters. But
then the same thing happens when the Ultramen show up.
(51:54):
The Ultramen. You really start kind of feeling bad for
the monsters the way they gang up on them. And
then there is a really beautiful final slicing action on
the last big monster at the end. I just loved.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Yeah, yeah, this is the one where they where they
cut him in half and then he explodes.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
He is cloven and then he explodes.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Oh and they rip the skin off of another one. Yeah,
that's another one where they they again. This is it's
very in a way grotesque, and to this to a
certain extent, you do almost feel for the monsters, like,
oh man, these demons woke up because of an explosion.
They woke up out our earth, and they just thought
they were going to get to whale on the world.
Turns out they were in for a very bad day.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
But it's a good day for the audience. I mean,
I really enjoyed this one, so so I think that
that does it for me. That's Hanuman versus seven Ultramen.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Yeah, I would say, you know, there we could go
into more detail describing the the last thirty minutes of
the film, but basically a lot of the expected things
from the genre occur. You know, various humans are observing
the battle and reacting to the battle in different ways. Behavior,
more clown behavior, the you know, the scientists. Villain is
(53:04):
observing and learning his lesson that sort of thing, and
then we have some goodbyes said at the end. But
but yeah, the stuff that really stands out those those
psychedelic and mythological sequences. The final fight and also I
think it's just neat to see, you know, especially the ruins,
the Thai ruins in the background there. It just adds
(53:24):
to the flavor of the film.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Yeah, I really appreciated the Ruins in setting up the
fights as well. I thought, I thought that was good. Yeah,
it's maybe this is the closest thing we'll ever get
to see to like, you know, a Kaiju fight at
angor watt.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah. So it's yeah, ultimately, just this one's just packed
full of wonderful weirdness. I love it and I understand
it was it was. It was something of a hit
at the time and really helped to cement the Ultraman
as being like a franchise in Thailand, you know, because
the Ultraman I think ultimately we're sort of a Japanese import.
But this made the made them, you know, authentically high
(54:00):
to a large degree.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Do you know if the Mighty morphin Power Rangers were
inspired by the Ultramen, because I see some similarities in
the costumes and all that.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
I mean, I would imagine so given that some of
the same people were involved in the creation of the
show that became The Power Rangers.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
Oh, I don't think. I don't know really anything about
the history of the Power Rangers. Was that the Japanese
show first.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yes, Japanese show Super Sindai I believe, Yeah, and some
of the people involved in this film were involved in that.
But basically you just stripped out the human aspects of
that and replaced them with that with Western actors, and
you have the mighty morphin Power Rangers.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
I see. Yeah, you might not have been in the
right age group. But when you were a kid, did
you ever have the flute that would play the Green
Rangers song?
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I did not. I remember Power Rangers. I was not
too old to enjoy Power Rangers. So I remember having
it on and watching some of it and liking the
bad guys. Yeah, but I never had any merchandise from it.
I think maybe played one of the video games at
some point.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
I remember really liking the monsters, but also noticing, even
as a child that the structure of the episodes was
somewhat repetitive. Yeah, so, I guess you could say that
about the kaiju movies that I love today. In fact,
many of the genre movies I love today, which are
basically structurally identical, and it's just you know, whatever fur
you're going to rub in between those checkpoints in the plot.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah, but especially if it's a TV series and every
episode needs to essentially have a big monster battle at
the end, you know they're all going to have sort
of similar beats for sure.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
So really it's all about the fur. What does the
fur feel like? Insert from the future. I don't don't
know if we can run some kind of weird house
specific siren there. So here we're coming back at you.
This was not originally part of the episode we recorded,
but after we wrapped up our wonderful journey with Hanuman
(55:54):
and the ultramen rob you were kind of thinking about it,
and you're like, you know what, we should talk more
about some of the specific Kaiju beat down executions toward
the end of the film. So here's our makeup test.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
That's right, because you know, we like to dwell on
what really works in a film, and certainly Hahneman's brutal
executions of Kaiju that's what it's all about here. So
we can't just let this go by. We've got to
get into the grizzly details.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Okay, let's hear it all right.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
So one of the Kaiju is just kind of electrocuted,
slash exploded. Nothing fancy, but in a way it's perfect because,
especially if you're used to less gory treatment of your
Kaiju enemies in cinema, this seems like, oh, well, this
is just what's going to happen. You know, there's going
to be some rubber suit wrestling and there's going to
be some mild exploding or electrocution. The rest of the
(56:47):
kills are a lot more gory.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, there's a lot of slicing and use of blades,
which I have not come to expect in Kaiju Meet slams.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Right, So for two of the sort of nondescript Kaiju,
and I think they all have names in this. I've
seen like breakdowns where they each have a name, but
I don't know what these two are called. Hanaman uses
his trident to fling chakrum discs of pure light at them,
which cut off their arms and decapitate them both simultaneously.
So then their bodies run around with bloody stumps where
(57:19):
their arms and head. Once where they run around, they
bump into each other comically for a few seconds, and
then they just kind of lean against each other again,
headless and armless, and then they explode.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
That's kind of a hyper bloody three stooges bit.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, and then there's this other kaiju. So we're working
our way up the chain, there's this neat one that
kind of has what I think of it is kind
of like a dirpy head. Do you remember this guy?
Speaker 3 (57:42):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Yeah, he's definitely more of a fighter. He's really put
in the boots to one of the Ultras when Hanaman
jumps in, gets the hot tag and so he stabs
this Kaiju in the heart with the trident, and then
while the while the other while the Ultra holds him,
Hanaman puts the monster in a headlock and then pulls
the flesh off of the Kaiju's head, leaving only a
(58:06):
perfectly white skull setting atop his body.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Very very strong. Why do we never see the skin
head ripping move in the in real wrestling? I mean,
like if Rowdy Roddy Piper had had peeled the had
like d gloved ahead, that would be a popular finishing move.
Speaker 1 (58:23):
Yeah, I guess it's hard. I mean the closest thing,
of course is unmasking of a luchador, but in now
you have the reverse where their mask is a skull
their face is just a human face. You're you're you're
stealing you know, the divine or the macabre from the
normal human. But in this case, yeah, you're just ripping
the skin off a monster's skull. But they're not done
with this guy yet. Hanaman and the Ultra they go
(58:44):
ahead and they just pull on both arms of the
sky and they rip the flesh off of the arms, leaving,
you know, leaving just a like skeleton there as well.
Then the Kaiju flails in pain for a second, and
then Hanaman uses his wind power to create a vortex
around the Kaiju, pulling off the rest of its flesh,
(59:04):
leaving only a skeleton, which then is like sort of
stands like a kind of like a marionette for a
few seconds before just toppling into a pile of bones.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
It's very wily. Coyote is yeah, yeah, once you notice
the physics they then they apply.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yeah. Okay, so at this point we have one Kaiju left,
and it's the big horned Kaiju with the rainbow powers,
the one that I believe is it actually was the
one that was able to sort of freeze Hanaman inside
of a sphere before the other Ultras were able to
come and save him.
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Yeah, the crystal laser sphere that gets him frozen. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:38):
Yeah. He also has the power to block out the
sun with smoke clouds, so he starts unleashing just untold destruction.
So Hanamon and all seven Ultras gang up on him
and they just beat him down.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
It's like it's really bullying.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
Yeah, it's not pretty. At one point, the monsters trying
to crawl away, like they've beat him down so much
that he's just to crawl to safety, and the Ultras
grab him and Hanaman just beats him with a club.
At one point he rallies. He throws a boulder at
the Ultras, but they use Hanaman uses the club to
(01:00:13):
bash it back to him like they're playing baseball, and
then hits the Kaiju in the head. And so finally
Hanaman creates a laser crescent with his staff and then
cuts the Kaiju cleanly in half vertically, and then the
Kaiju explodes in a shower of sparks.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
I think this is the one finishing move that I
did mention previously, the cleaving in half.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yeah, So that's the big that's the big violent.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Finish, tremendous power, all honoring glory to Hanuman.
Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Yes, so a little more detail about the closing. Enclosing,
Hanaman and the Ultras say they're goodbyes. Then Hanaman says
goodbye to the human characters. Then Hanaman flies off into
the sunset, and then the film ends with the director
narrating thanking the viewer for having watched.
Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
The film, and I say, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
All right, all right, well, I guess we'll go ahead
and close this one out. But we'd love to hear
from everyone out there, for instance, that you know, have
have you seen any Ultraman films before? Had you seen
Hanaman versus Seven Ultraman before? Have you seen the other
Ultraman Hanaman team up movie? We'd love to hear from you.
I'd also love to hear from anyone who who actually
(01:01:20):
saw these in Thailand or has a you know, more
of a connection to Thai culture and can speak to
some of those aspects of the film, like what is
this film's prevalence in Thai cinema? How about some of
those other titles we mentioned, the Japanese or Thai films?
Did are you familiar with any of those? Should? Should
we seek out the Unbalanced Tar theater. I'm not sure
(01:01:42):
we could find it if we did seek it out.
It looks it looks like it's a little hard to get.
But anyway, we'd love to hear from everyone about any.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Of these topics. Yeah, definitely, especially Yeah. Please tie listeners,
let us know your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
And if you would like to listen to other episodes
of Weird House Cinema. This comes out every Friday in
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We're primarily
a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
but on Mondays we do a little listener mail. On
Wednesdays we do an artifact episode, and on Fridays we
cut loose and talk about some sort of weird or
interesting film.
Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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