Warning from Space

No, this is not a masterpiece or even good, really. So, we got that out of the way. But I was surprised at how well directed it was and that the Japanese version had a decent script by a good writer, who did several Kurosawa films. But it goes on too long and has no sense of pace. It is atmospheric and it has some good performances. I know there are several public domain versions out there of horrid quality and those terrible version's reviews are, of course, lumped in with these Arrow Blu-ray reviews. Who knows what exists, source-wise, but if you see any review here using the word "restored" stop reading immediately. There is nothing restored about this transfer. It's a nice transfer of a problematic element. Yes, it's MUCH better than what we've had, but real is real. There is a good deal of weird color pulsing in the middle of the film and it's a lot grainier than it should be, but the color is actually reasonably good, considering that a lot of films from this era show up with green or yellow tinges to them, which this happily does not have. Blue skies are actually blue here. As a bonus, you get the dubbed version, which has a different opening and close - otherwise it's pretty much the same movie and the same run time. I like the alien pajama costumes but those poor actors must have been tired after having to hold their arms out for so long. It has a certain charm and it's fun. So, I guess that's a recommendation, eh?

Arrow did everything they could with this one, as they always do. Still, there are times where the image is kind of hard to look at. Lots of damaged and missing frames means there's occasionally a distracting flicker to the image.If you've seen this movie in the washed-out public domain versions that have been out there for....decades, you'll be AMAZED at the colors in this. If this is your first viewing ever, you'll probably find it sub-par. I'm in the former camp so the movie looks more beautiful than I'd ever thought, but it's flawed.It's a fun movie, Japan's first color sci-fi feature, so that makes the whole package more appealing.

I love the film it's a well made classic but this release is just an HD transfer, not a restoration.Video quality is terrible, ruined by a COARSE and RELENTLESS GRAINY texture. Even on Maximum softness settings for player & TV it's too tiresome for my eyes to watch this, just look at my DVD - Bluray comparison.So tired of indifferent Bluray editions....😐

I received the Blu-ray of "WFS" and I tried playing it in my Xbox One and PS4, both of which are Blu-ray drives. Yet the disc would not play in either machine. On the Xbox, I was able to reach the Top Menu but I couldn't navigate to the three options. The film footage in the background is nice in color but HIGHLY granulated. I certainly hope it is not representative of the entire film itself, despite being "re-mastered."My PS4 wouldn't even recognize the disc. Anyone else experiencing these issues?UPDATEUpon suggestion from the Arrow Film Support Team, I updated the system file on my PS4 and installed it. And, voila, the DVD is working fine. Not so much for the Xbox One. It appears, when loading, the Xbox skips the privacy notice and the Arror Film splash screen---and goes directly to the non-interactive main menu.

For years, American fans of this vintage Japanese science fiction tale had to make do with bargain bin releases, usually made from cropped and faded source material. Now we can finally enjoy WARNING FROM SPACE as it was supposed to look, with a sharp image and rich color.Are aliens from space here to attack or assist humanity? Can the people of the earth survive the epic disasters that plague our planet? Get the Blu-ray and find out!

great delivery...great classic!! finally on BLU RAY!!!!!

Originally released in Japan as Uchûjin Tokyo ni arawaru and then exported to parts unknown (well, here, in the US mainly, possibly as revenge over that whole atomic bomb thing), Warning from Space (1956) aka The Cosmic Man Appears in Tokyo aka The Mysterious Satellite aka Space Men Appear in Tokyo aka Spacepeople Appear in Tokyo aka Unknown Satellite Over Tokyo (whew!) is basically 88 minutes of a lot of ho-hum boredom. I'm not kidding, I literally fell asleep during this film. The last time that happened was during the wretchedly awful CGI bloated crud picture Octopus (2000). Am I saying Warning from Space is as bad as Octopus? No, but in terms of a celluloid sleeping pill, the two are certainly comparable.Okay, so what's the movie about? Well, let's see...strange goings on over the skies of Tokyo which appear to be meteors or asteroids or some such thing are actually flying saucers containing very odd alien beings who are basically man-sized starfish with one giant eye where you'd think their stomachs would be...it seems the aliens are from a planet whose orbit is tied to Earth's, and they've come because there's a runaway planet headed for a collision course with the Earth, marking it for destruction, along with their own world. Since their survival is tied to ours, they've decided to try and help us, combining their technology with our...good old fashion Earth work ethic? Really, I am unsure why they even bothered to come here instead to just dealing with the problems themselves. I mean, if they can master interplanetary travel, what the heck do they need with us anyway (actually, we do find out later)? Okay, so the only problem, besides the huge errant planet hurtling through space set to squash us good, is their odd appearance that keeps freaking people out whenever they try to make contact, so they decide to utilize their transmutation machine, which actually changes the aliens' appearance so they can look like us. So anyway, the aliens plan is to get the Earth to use all of its' nuclear weapons, launch them at the rogue planet, and hopefully divert it's course. Seem plausible? Maybe back in the 50's it was...does the plan work? I guess you'll just have to watch and see...So what did I like about this movie? Well, the starfish alien creatures certainly were different, but given that they used a machine to make them look like humans, we didn't see much of them. The special effects we actually pretty good, taken in context with the time the movie was made. And I especially liked the huge chunk of exposition about 50 minutes into the movie that basically defined all the pertinent elements within the film up until that point, disguised as a radio broadcast. This was particularly useful as my attention tended to drift a due to boredom and the fact that I fell asleep for like 10 minutes or so and didn't feel like going back and watching what I missed.Okay, what didn't I like about the film? Well, it ran too long, in my opinion. The 88-minute run time could have been effectively reduced by about 20 minutes and we would have not lost anything important to the story. And let me ask you this...why does it seem like nearly every Japanese movie I've seen has to have some extremely clumsy, awkward, nerdy-type guy with an excruciatingly nasally, annoying voice to act as a sort of comic relief? In this case, the character presents himself as some type of junior reporter type you'd expect to have the nickname of `Scoop' or some such nonsense. I know certain things are universal, but this kind of `comedy' is lost on me. The good news is that character has a very short amount of screen time. At least the cinematic gods were kind in that aspect. Also, proportional to the running time, the story just moved along way too slowly. There were a couple of odd musical segments in the film, but they weren't overly emphasized, thankfully, and kept pretty short. Certain elements of the plot didn't really make sense like if you're an alien and you're changing your appearance to blend in and make contact with specific Earthlings, would you really choose the appearance of seemingly famous pop star? Oh well...also, did you know there was such a thing as the Supreme Headquarters of the World Council? Apparently there is...I have no idea what their responsibilities involve, but I do know they seem to be able to suspend activities in launching artificial satellites into orbit.The quality of the print provided by Alpha Video on this disc is pretty poor, but watchable, especially given the price of the DVD. The movie is in color, but the quality of the color is very poor, most likely due to color in movies was as new and not yet perfected feature back when this movie originally came out. The audio is pretty much in line with the quality of the picture, but again, given the cost of the DVD, I wasn't really surprised. Not much in the way of special features, with the exception of a listing of other releases from Alpha Video including many pictures of the covers of said releases. I give Alpha credit on the marketing of their low budget releases. They may not put a lot of money inside the DVDs, but they sure provide glossy and attractive covers for their releases.Cookieman108

This classic Japanese Science-Fiction film (which was an influence on Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY - at least it's one film he had vivid memories of) is probably not for everyone. As compared to later Japanese science fiction films, it doesn't have a ton of spaceships and special effects --- and I can see how some might be disinterested or even find it cheesy. However, having watched it many times and NEVER HAVING SEEN A DECENT PRINT, it is a real joy to finally watch it as it was intended - and for me at least, it means it's an entirely different movie! So I strongly recommend it to those with an interest in Japanese science fiction films. With aliens designed by artist Taro Okamoto - "Art is EXPLOSION!" - it's a unique 50's Science Fiction film (1956) and it's amazing to see a colourful, clear print at last. Thanks so much Arrow Films.

Nice collector's item! Not as heavy on special features like other Arrow releases, but still worth buying. Arrived faster than expected.

...ohne den Berliner Horrorcrack und Godzilla bzw. Japan Fan Buttgereit wäre ich nie auf die versponnene Perle gekommen. Der Film ansich ist ziemlich dämlich aber die Sternenmännchen reissen so Einiges raus. Habe sehr gelacht, obwohl das Ganze natürlich todernst gemeint ist. Abzug gibts für die Qualität. Die ist bescheiden aber immmerhin noch erträglich. Es handelt sich auch um die Farbfassung. Passt...Ich wollte ihn sehn, jetzt bin ich happy :-)

Great movie! At last in a beautiful transfer. It was like seeing it for the first time.

『宇宙人東京に現わる (大映東京 1956)』の Arrow Video 製BDである。日米共通のリージョンAなので、国産の普通のBlu-rayプレーヤーで再生できる。HD (1080p)、 LBX 16x9 Enhanced 画面比率1.37:1 (スタンダード)、音声仕様：PCM Mono (日本語)、英語字幕の on/off 可。画質は良好で色彩も鮮やかなのだが、フィルムグレインというのか粒状のざらつきがかなり目立つ。フィルムの質感を求めるにしても好みの分かれるところ。これをうざったいノイズととらえる人もかなり多いだろう (実際広義のノイズである)。角川の国内盤BDはどんな画質か、所有していないので分からない。映画評をするつもりはないけれど、小国英雄の脚本はストーリー展開が行き当たりばったりに感じる。島耕二の演出は、時代を考えれば仕方のないこととは思うがいささか冗長で、戦前の監督作『風の又三郎 (1940)』並みのテンポだ。また、宇宙人のデザインはともかく、その着ぐるみが布の素材感あふれるのはどうか。特殊技術・的場徹の特撮は全般的にまずまずだけれど、『メトロポリス (1926)』を真似たと思われる宇宙人から美女への変身シーンは恥ずかしいし、円盤が海上に現れるショットはミニチュア然としていただけない。なお、特典として、スチュアート･ガルブレイス四世によるオーディオ･コメンタリー (英語字幕も無し)、アメリカ公開版、スチール･ギャラリー、日本版予告編を収録。また31ページの写真入り解説書 (もちろん英語) が付いている。実売価格が角川の国内盤BDと変わらなくなってきたので、特典を比べて決めるのがよろしいかと……。