Invasion of the Neptune Men

Astronomer Shinichi Tachibana has a secret identity as superhero "Iron Sharp" (changed to "Space Chief" in the English dub) and has many children as friends. When they are attacked by a group of metallic aliens ("Neptune Men" in English), Iron Sharp drives the aliens away. The resourceful Tachibana helps develop an electric barrier to block the aliens from coming to the Earth. After several losses by the aliens, they announce that they will invade the Earth, throwing the world into a state of panic. The aliens destroy entire cities with their mothership and smaller fighters. After Iron Sharp destroys multiple enemy ships, Japan fires a nuclear missile at the mothership, destroying it.

• 　Sonny Chiba as scientist Shinichi Tachibana / Iron Sharp
• 　Kappei Matsumoto as Dr. Tanigawa
• 　Ryuko Minakami as Yōko (Tanigawa's daughter)
• 　Shinjirō Ehara as scientist Yanagida
• 　Mitsue Komiya as scientist Saitō

Invasion of the Neptune Men is part of Japan's tokusatsu genre, which involves science fiction and/or superhero films that feature heavy use of special effects.[4]

Sonny Chiba as Iron Sharp fights aliens.

Invasion of the Neptune Men was an early film for Sonny Chiba.[5] Chiba started working in Japanese television where he starred in superhero television series in 1960.[5] Chiba continued working back and forth between television and film until the late 1960s when he became a more popular star.[5]

Invasion of the Neptune Men was released in Japan on 19 July 1961.[2] The film was not released theatrically in the United States, but was released directly to American television by Walter Manley in 1964.[5][6][1][7]

On October 11, 1997 the film was shown on the movie-mocking television show Mystery Science Theater 3000.[8] In his review of the film, Bruce Eder of AllMovie described the episode as a memorable one, specifically the cast watching the repetitive aerial dogfights between spaceships, and one of the hosts remarking that "Independence Day now seems like such a finely nuanced movie".[7]

The film was also released as Space Chief, Space Greyhound and Invasion from a Planet.[1]

In later reviews of the film, Bruce Eder gave the film a one-star rating out of five, stating that the film was "the kind of movie that gave Japanese science fiction films a bad name. The low-quality special effects, the non-existent acting, the bad dubbing, and the chaotic plotting and pacing were all of a piece with what critics had been saying, erroneously, about the Godzilla movies for years."[7] The review referred to the film's "cheesy special effects and ridiculous dialogue taking on a sort of so-bad-they're-good charm", and described the film as a "thoroughly memorable (if not necessarily enjoyable, outside of the MST3K continuum) specimen of bad cinema."[7]

In his book Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, Stuart Galbraith IV stated that the film "had a few surprises" despite a "woefully familiar script".[5] Galbraith noted that the film was not as over-the-top as Prince of Space and that the opticals in the film were as strong as anything Toho had produced at the time. Galbraith suggested the effects may have been lifted from Toei's The Final War from 1961.[5]

• List of Japanese films of 1961
• List of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes
• List of science fiction films of the 1960s

• Invasion of the Neptune Men at AllMovie
• Invasion of the Neptune Men at IMDb
• Invasion of the Neptune Men at allcinema in Japanese
• Invasion of the Neptune Men at Japanese cinema db in Japanese
• Invasion of the Neptune Men at Kinenote in Japanese