Search - Warning from Space on DVD

Movie Release: 1956 DVD Release: 10/07/2003 Format: DVD - Pan and Scan Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 28 mins Studio: Alpha Video Total Copies: 4 Genres: Science Fiction, Alien Film

Translated into English, the title of this Japanese sci-fi endeavor is Unknown Satellite over Tokyo. The extraterrestrials on this occasion are weirdly shaped creatures with one eye in the middle of their bodies. The aliens take the form of human beings so that they can warn mankind of an imminent disaster: the earth is on a collision course with another planet. Once the creatures have conveyed their messages, a scientist races against time to create a bomb that will throw the other planet off its course. Alas, foreign spies, apparently unmindful that the destruction of earth will affect them too, steal the super-weapon, and the chase is on. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Toyomi Karita - Ginko
Isao Yamagata - Matsuda
Buntaro Miake - Komura

Koji Shima's Warning from Space (1956) never really looked that good in authorized telecasts during the 1960s and 1970s, so it would be too much to expect Alpha's DVD release of it to be significantly better. Actually, it looks about the same as it did 30 years earlier -- a little washed out but decent, and with no significant blemishes. There's nothing to detract from the eeriness of the best sequences in the movie, the transformation scenes in which the aliens take on human form, which have a strangely compelling quality about them. The presentation has a full-frame aspect ratio of 1.33-to-1. The disc opens automatically to a simple menu and the movie is broken down into the standard Alpha six-chapter pattern. There are no bonus materials of any kind, but the movie is good enough on its own merits to justify buying the disc. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide