One of the more popular superhero exports from Asia, Super Inframan (also known as Infra-Man and Chinese Superman) is a fantastic barrage of monsters and mayhem courtesy of the world famous Shaw Brothers studios. Though it's obviously inspired by the Japanese superhero television shows that were popular at the time, this Chinese answer to Ultraman has a quirky psychotronic charm that is all its own.

When the film begins, Princess Dragon Mom (Terry Liu of The Oily Maniac) rises from her lair far beneath the Earth where she's been laying in wait for centuries. With the time of her ascension at hand, she's brought with her an army of monsters that she intends to use to unleash a wave of destruction across the world so that she can conquer the Earth and rule the planet. The good people at Science Headquarters are none too keen on Princess Dragon Mom's plan and so Professor Chang (Wang Hsieh of The Sexy Killer) creates a blue print which will allow him to turn one of his comrades into Super Inframan, a cyborg with mighty powers and fantastic abilities. While bring turned into a cyborg might sound kind of crappy, the bonus is that he'll be able to turn back into human form when he needs to so young Rayma (Danny Lee of John Woo's The Killer!) decides to volunteer for the job. He lies back on the table and we see through some really odd animation his transformation into the red metal beetle-ish Super Inframan!

With the bad guys set up and the hero now fully transformed, it's time for action which is exactly what the film delivers as our titular hero moves from one batch of bad guys to the next, whupping them through a clever combination of trick weapons, lasers, gymnastics and good old fashioned kung-fu. Soon Princess Dragon Mom realizes that her plans just might be thwarted so she resorts to more drastic measure when she kidnaps the professor and his daughter in hopes of bringing Super Inframan to her so that she might destroy him once and for all.

While the movie is very derivative of what Japanese TV was doing a few years earlier, the movie is never the less a whole lot of fun thanks to the 'everything but the kitchen sink' attitude that's so prevalent throughout the film. The monsters which our hero has to square off against are plentiful and creative and while, sure, the effects are really hokey by today's standards there's no denying that they've got plenty of enthusiasm and character behind them which makes whatever obvious shortcomings that may be attributed to them not only forgivable but downright loveable! Some of the coolest monsters of all time show up in this movie, from the weird orange spider guy to the crazy tentacle creature and then there's the Princess herself who has no problem whatsoever transforming herself into a dragon to take on Super Inframan before the day is through. Throw in some skeleton henchmen guys, dopey kids characters that feel like they were lifted from a Gamera films and plenty of lasers and crazy super computers and you've got yourself a fine film indeed.

The plot is paper thin and the effects are obviously faked but that doesn't matter. Super Inframan is so fast paced and so jam packed with monster after monster and set piece after set piece that you can't help but love it. Our hero can change size, fly, and more and he uses each and everyone one of his abilities to stop the varied creatures that are out to threaten the world. Dopey? Sure. But it's all entertaining as can be and about as much fun as you're apt to have with a film, warts and all.

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There's good news and bad news about the 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that's been given to Super Inframan on this domestic release. The good news is that it is very clean and colorful and that there's quite a bit of detail in the image, the bad news is that it's a botched PAL to NTSC conversion and so there's some jerking during fast movement and some noticeable trailing going on during most of the action scenes. This is a real shame as it hurts what is otherwise a very nice looking picture. If you watch this on a smaller set you might not even pick up on it but even on a 32" screen it was really noticeable. If the conversion problem hadn't been present there'd be nothing to complain about as things look great when you take that out of the equation – unfortunately, however, it's definitely there.