Don't Believe the Hype

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The acting in this movie is really good.

As an Anglicised compilation of episodes 1 and 2 of the Japanese children's adventure series"Super Giant", "Atomic Rulers of the World" is likely less than the sum of its parts. Despite a promisingly surreal (if cheap-looking) opening on the "Emerald Planet", in which the hero is introduced, the movie quickly degenerates into a repetitious sequence of chases and fights between 'Starman' (as the hero 'Super Giant' is renamed) and some generic foreign gangsters who are trying to take over the world (starting, of course, with Japan). The dubbing and the music in the English version I watched contributes to the impression that this is just a cheaply-made attempt to cash in on the then popular George Reeve Superman serial. The special effects are awful, and other than the aforementioned meeting on the Emerald Planet, consist of little beyond repeated shots of a flying Starman, silly film reversals, and extraordinarily bargain-basement looking sets and miniatures (such as the helicopter). As Starman, Ken Utsui is stuck in a flimsy caped-costume that becomes embarrassingly transparent when wet and includes the legendary stuffed crotch, an embarrassment with which the actor had to contend for the rest of his career. "Atomic Rulers of the World" was the first of four films adapting the "Super Giant" series, and is supposedly the worst, the next three having reputations for the delirious special effects for which most Japanese tokusatsu, no matter how cheaply made, are known. As such, while not much as stand-alone time-waster, the film may serve as an introduction to more entertaining fare.

An alien superhero called Starman is sent to Earth to avert nuclear disaster by the Galactic Council.Atomic Rulers of the World is an Americanised Japanese movie made by editing some Japanese TV episodes together. It follows the same template as other films made in this exact same way, like Evil Brain from Outer Space and Invaders from Space, both also from 1965. This one is probably the least good of the three, however, in that it lacks the interesting – and sometimes quite sinister – monsters from those other two films and instead seems more squarely aimed at a kiddie audience. This is made more abundantly clear by the appearance of some children in central roles. Starman himself is quite a fun character to be fair but he doesn't get involved with as much interesting action in this one and so this consequently is one mainly for die-hard fans of old Japanese sci-fi.

Although "Atomic Rulers" is pretty bad at times, you cannot completely blame the filmmakers who created this. That's because originally, this consisted of two episodes from a children's TV show--and it was, naturally, in Japanese. Some American folks bought these TV shows, re-edited them and repackaged them as four different movies: EVIL BRAIN FROM OUTER SPACE, ATOMIC RULERS, INVADERS FROM SPACE, ATTACK FROM SPACE. So, while in their original form this might have been a decent kids show when it debuted in the late 1950s, here in a different form and with dubbing, it loses something. Also, interestingly, in the original form the hero was not known as 'Starman' but 'Supergiant'.The film begins like the rest in this series. You get a look at the Emerald World--with its very goofy residents. Again, however, for a kids' show of the time, it wasn't as bad seeing these bizarre costumes. Anyway, these weirdos are worried that the nuclear radiation from Earth could somehow make it across the galaxy to infect their planet! While this sounds ridiculous, understand that Japan had, only a little over a decade earlier, been nuked. So, the proliferation of shows like this and the Godzilla movies make a bit more sense.In this installment of the series, the evil Magolians are planning on taking over the world thanks to their many secret agents and nuclear weapons. And, considering that Starman is definitely against nuclear proliferation, he's out to stop them. Seeing him in his adorable superhero outfit is a bit funny as he really looks a lot like Duck Dodgers of the 25th and a half century! And, being totally geared towards kids, you can understand the annoying cliché of adding a group of adorable orphans into the mix. It's full of silly children's helicopters, guns that fire in a bizarre manner and baddies who seem pretty lame. It's all pretty predictable kid's fare. Yet, oddly, in a kitschy manner, it's pretty fun to watch...and laugh. Not good but not 100% terrible.By the way, I was a bit confused, as two other films (PRINCE OF SPACE and INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN) are nearly identical and yet are NOT part of the Starman series. Confusing...and also very silly when seen today.

It is what it is- and what it is is lots of far-fetched fun. Starman was one of the many heroes who haunted the black and white world of my childhood. I may be misremembering it, but I seem to recall seeing him die in an atomic explosion at the end of one adventure (though I could be confusing it with the final episode of ASTRO BOY). Like ULTRAMAN and ULTRAMAN TIGA and the giant robots RED BARON and IRON KING and GIGANTOR and the child-sized ASTRO BOY (my all-time favorite Japanese import) and all the others, Starman took me away, time and again, to a better world- one where heroes really existed... and sometimes died battling the ever-present Forces of Evil. ATOMIC RULERS OF THE WORLD is better than ATTACK FROM SPACE (in which Starman jams a bad guy head-first into a torpedo tube and then rams a torpedo in after him in what may have been an unintentionally hilarious scene...), but I highly recommend them both for fans of early superhero imports. Not a bad way to spend an evening; not at all.