A couple of weeks ago, Ken “High Priest of Jabootu” Begg, informed me, with some excitement, that Ultra Q had, at least, made its way to DVD in an affordable and well-constructed format. Mit subtitulen, even. My own excitement was dampened a bit by the fact that I had never heard of Ultra Q. A brief search of the internetz (home to all wrong information) revealed only that it was apparently a precursor to Ultraman. (I can take or leave Ultraman, frankly. I mean, I don’t hold him a grudge, but don’t go out of my way for him.)
Let me emphasize that I am not particularly a japanophile. I don’t rate a film as better purely because it’s Japanese. I don’t think that Japanese women are more attractive than, say, Ukrainian or Chinese women (though Korean babes. Yow.) I like Japanese food fine, but frankly, many other Asian cuisines strike me as tastier (Filipino, for instance). I love Kaiju, but not giant robots. I do kind of like J-horror (apparently a minority opinion on this website), but, again, only as horror, not because of its origin.
However, I happened to have some mad money on hand, and the Amazon discount for the full set of Ultra Q was big, and Ken seemed SO excited, that I decided to go ahead and order the dvds. Serendipitously, the day after it arrived, my wife left town which meant that evening I had no one to annoy, except my much-put-upon dog, Naomi. Not expecting much, I popped Ultra Q into the player and had a gander, planning to watch one (1) episode. Lo and behold I ended up watching 5 episodes that night. Then 6 more the next night. You can see how it went.
Ultra Q turns out to be the Japanese answer to Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. Some differences:
First, most (not all) Ultra Q episodes have a recurring cast, consisting of two pilots whose “business” consists of owning one airplane, and a couple of crusading reporters, one of which is a cute but assertive girl. There are also extra characters in each episode – not always to provide a corpse (but sometimes).
Second, all the episodes (so far) have a monster, usually a gigantic one. Twilight Zone rarely had monsters. Outer Limits, in theory, always had their “bear”, but not really. Not always. In fact, reading about the development of Outer Limits, it’s clear that some of the team felt constrained by the “bear” requirement and fought against it, trying to perform more “sophisticated” (and to my thinking, more dull) storylines. Not so Ultra Q. They clearly exult in their monsters.
Third, a few of the Ultra Q episodes are overtly silly comedies, with slapstick jokes, overcranked chase scenes, and double-takes.
Fourth, Ultra Q doesn’t have much of a moral to it. At the start, they do have a brief intrusion of a Control Voice-like narrator who warns you that “your eyes are about to leave your body”. But the moral at the end, if they even remember to do it, is less-than-inspiring. At the end of one show, for instance, the moral was “Every animal has some thing it hates. If you are attacked by a monster, try to find what that thing is.” I know that moral changed MY life.
None of these four features of Ultra Q may lead you to wish to see it, and my goal is to spread the word. So I am going to describe one single episode of Ultra Q, chosen basically at random. Here goes.
THE UNDERGROUND SUPER EXPRESS GOES WEST
Yep. That’s the title. It’s ostensibly about the new amazing Bullet Train, which travels at 450 km an hour (for benighted Americans, that’s nearly 300 mph which is pretty much impossible). We open with an irritating shoeshine boy in a futuristic city. Despite this, the same team gets involved that are in the other, clearly contemporary, episodes. We won’t worry about them though, as they don’t do much this time.
I will say though that THE UNDERGROUND SUPER EXPRESS GOES WEST is a little unusual, because the kid protagonist is somewhat annoying – not supremely so, as in some other Japanese films (i.e., any 70s Godzilla flick), but a little. While little kids often figure in Ultra Q, they are generally pretty much okay kids, who don’t mug too much for the camera, and are naturalistic actors. So that was a relief. Even the kid in this episode is supposed to be annoying.
Another refreshing feature is that the adults are clearly concerned with protecting the children, instead of letting them accompany them on dangerous missions. In GARADAWA, about halfway through the show, the team sees a dangerous flood. Up to then, they had been accompanied by a gang of kids, but as soon as they see danger, they send the kids home with their school principal – and we never see the kids again! They are, presumably, safe at home. In a lesser show, the kids would have promptly gotten into danger, or snuck along secretly behind the heroes, while we, the viewers, cursed their existence. (Instead, two women need rescuing but to be fair, their predicament is clearly not their fault.)
The face of the future.
So, anyway now is the maiden trip for the Bullet Train Inazuma, and to ensure publicity, only reporters are allowed on board. The shoeshine boy really wants to ride the train, though, so he does so using an old Little Rascals gag. One kid rides on the other’s shoulders while wearing a trenchcoat and hat. Japanese security is by all evidence extremely lax. I will say that despite my lambasting the kid a bit earlier, the fact that this is his plan to board the train almost makes me like him again.
How to sneak onto a bullet train.
Meanwhile a mad scientist needs to have his special box containing “artificial life M1” sent by airplane, and he hires the pilot hero to do so. Unfortunately, his idiot assistant, Ippei (portrayed as a brave, if stupid, character throughout the series) has a metal suitcase that looks just like the artificial life box. In addition, Ippei has snuck himself aboard Inazuma (the train) by pretending to be a reporter. Anyway he mistakenly carries the artificial life-in-a-box with him. Incidentally, the scientist makes it clear that the new artificial life should not be allowed out of the box, or it will suddenly grow to great size. Also, M1 artificial life is as intelligent as a human. Got it? OK, let’s go.
Inazuma finally gets going – it travels mostly in tunnels from Osaka to Kyushu, and is propelled by little rockets that stick out of its side, just like a regular train. When they start it up, they say “prepare for take-off” and it is pretty much terrific on all levels.
I want one!
The artificial life subplot seems to be resolved a few minutes into the trip, when they radio the train, and officers find and confiscate the suitcase containing the critter. Apparently it was going to Kyushu anyway, so will get there even faster on Inazuma. They put the suitcase in the train’s safe, which is gigantic, like that of a bank. So that’s that.
In another apparent resolution of a sideplot, the stowaway kids are found out when the “bottom” kid starts arguing with the “top” in full sight of a guard. With that famous Japanese inefficiency, the guard only manages to grab one kid, while the other runs off somewhere on the train.
Meanwhile the train hits a bump or something, and the safe door swings open. Now that’s some crappy workmanship. Also the box breaks and without the benefit of special effects, M1 immediately turns into the world’s greatest bigfoot. Look at this guy – I love everything about him. He is pretty much Japan’s answer to The Giant Claw. I do want to make it clear that MOST of Ultra Q’s monsters are not this goofy. (Goofy, yes. THIS goofy, no.)
Ken wants one!
The absolutely stupendous monster frightens off the train’s engineer, and takes over, messing with the controls and basically screwing up everything. He accelerates the train up to 600 kph (!) The Japanese Transportation Officialdom decides to solve the problem by severing the connection between the engine and the passenger cars. Sensibly, they figure this way the passengers will be safe, even though the runaway engine will wreck. Now the engine rushes ahead at a breakneck pace, leaving the passengers behind.
All but one. That’s right – the shoeshine boy is still in the engine room, with the monster. Mysteriously, the kid initially assumes that the monster is a robot programmed to drive the train, which seems like a stretch. Note that the monster at no point threatens him. It just plays with the controls, makes Chewbacca-like sounds, scratches his head, and is generally cheery. I think it’s meant to be adorable.
Adorable – Japanese style!
Anyway, they ponder for a long time how to save the kid who is now rocketing along at airliner speed with a monster, and come up with a fairly terrible plan. Basically, they have this giant vehicle in Kyushu – looks a little like a bulldozer – which is supposed to stop the engine when it hits the far end of the railway. This reminds me of the final scene Vanishing Point which as I recall did not have a particularly happy ending.
When quizzed, the transportation official claims his machine has an 80% chance of stopping the engine and saving the boy. In a rare show of common sense, when he is challenged, and asked to improve the odds, he says, “It’s running 600 kph. There’s no way to make it 100%.”
Well the kid climbs into the giant safe which is apparently “crash-proof” and everything smashes up in an earth-shattering KABOOM.
As advertised – a KABOOM!
The monster is sent flying into space, as is the kid inside the safe. The kid then opens the safe and looks out at the stars. He loves it. The final scene has the monster speaking (for the first time) and introducing himself by name, while the kid and monster now orbit the earth.
The kid’s capsule and the monster orbiting the Universal Studios logo
Anyway, if you get the idea that this was unrelenting madness, I have done my job. Anyone who would log onto the Jabootu website is probably the kind of person who will now be impelled to rush out and buy it, or at least demand it for their next birthday present.
It’s amazing stuff. With cursed ghost spiders, super-science honey, prehistoric birds, undersea dragon princesses 8 years old, Ultra Q delivers the weirdo goods.
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