The peaceful flower-bandana-wearing Jillucia race have fallen foul to the space marauding Gavanas Empire, ruled by the vicious Emperor Rockseia (Mikio Narita). Hoping to salvage their race and planet the Jillucia summon the powerful Liabe seeds in the hope they will find mighty warriors to come to their aid. Said seeds, accompanied by guardians Princess Esmeralda (Etsuko Shihomi) and Urocco (Makoto Sato), track down a rag-tag group of space pilots and an ex-military commander (Vic Morrow) and his trusty robot, to help save the Jillucia from annihilation. After some convincing and much convolution, the would-be team of heroes band together to fight back against the Gavanas and blast them back into space once and for all.

Fukasaku lends his considerable skill to the big budget sci-spectacle that is equally parts silly and entertaining. While perhaps more renowned for hard-hitting Yakuza flicks along with the seminal ‘Battle Royale’ and its sequel, those films may be worlds apart from ‘Message from Space’, but Fukasaku doesn’t rest on his laurels bringing the same energy he brought to his more critically favoured films to this silly sci-fi odyssey. Certainly, dated in style and execution ‘Message from Space’ is all kinds of camp (the plot essentially hinges on space walnuts finding heroes to save the day!) and far from the kind of hard sci-fi favoured by today’s audience but damn if it ain’t a whole lot of snazzy 70s fun.

Buoyed by Fukasaku’s energetic direction, copious action, and some still to this day impressive special effects, ‘Message from Space’ delights in being two hours of ambitious infectious fun. Sure, some of the effects are very dated (and surely won’t impress the more judgmental modern crowd) but the model work featured (to showcase battling spaceships) is impressive and kinetic stuff. It may not rival the likes of same era Industrial Light and Magic effects but it’s stiff impressive stuff and the model effects create a much more vivid space world and space battles than a lot of modern CGI-infused flicks.

The group of heroes chosen to defend the galaxy (including a young Hiroyuki Sanada) may be shrill and annoying, but they bring the energy and the likes of old hands Vic Morrow (pretty much drinking his way through the whole picture!) and Sonny Chiba (brought in to fight the big bad come the finale!) bring a little gravitas and class to the over-the-top proceedings. Fukasaku packs events with action from epic space battles, explosions, to even a good dose of cool sword fight action meaning the pace never slackens and the entertainment never dips. Kudos also to Peggy Lee Brennan, who while initially annoying as her male counterparts brings a lot of pep and zip as the sole female character of the band of heroes, kicking a ton of ass and flying spaceships with cool zeal.

It may be dated in style and execution and owes a little too much to ‘Star Wars’ (while both were produced around the same time there’s no denying the similarities!) ‘Message from Space’ is still a whole heap of creative fun and shows Fukasaku could lend his hand to big budget spectacle as well as hard-hitting yakuza themed action.