• PROGRAMME
• SYNOPSES

Mars men

1. Author: Fu Meai Shei, Jack Lin
2. Director: Chen Hun-Ming
3. Photography: Lai Wen Shing
4. Japan/Taiwan
5. Starring:
   Wen Chang Lung,
   Yeh Hsiao-I,
   Fang Mien
6. Japan
7. 100 min.
8. 1976

Extremely aggressive papier-maché Martians sneak into human TV programs sporting a look that reminds viewers of early videogames (Space Invaders in particular). Their message is quite clear: “We are going to invade the Earth!”. In the meantime a young boy discovers the statuette of an ancient war god while trying to retrieve a stray baseball. Making the statuette huge and sending it to the invading planet together with an American robot, to scare its inhabitants out of their desire to colonize space, is a piece of cake.
This film features a rudimentary animation, kung-fu-like action, an underlying political discourse and an extremely naive approach to science-fiction special effects. As a whole, however, there is real genius in its ability to use pop art and adventure to mix together kabuki iconography and cartoon-like science fiction, classic Godzilla-type characters and allegorical representations of the Far East (one of the key models for the Martian set is the post-atomic, abstract Japan designed by Kurosawa for Dodes’ka-Den). At the same time, the movie reprocesses much of the second-rate British and American science fiction of the Fifties and Sixties, turning its naiveté into a banner without so much as a hint of concern for the possibility of being ridiculed. This is a very rare movie indeed, the symbol of a certain Eastern way to represent science fiction by reviving remains of ancient traditions.