SUPER INFRA-MAN by Shaw Brothers to be made toy by PLAYTOY x Unbox Industries
Announced during Toy Soul 2016 in Hong Kong last week, was the collaboration of PLAYTOY and Unbox Industries, working with Shaw Brothers on a range of products from their celluloid back catalogue, including horror movies and classic Kung Fu epics. One of the first characters announced was SUPER INFRAMAN aka CHINESE SUPERMAN!
Today we’ll take a short jaunt back in time - oh, about 4 decades back - and have a look at what has gone on before, on the silver screens!
FILM DESCRIPTION: "Imagine pint-sized Godzillas fighting the DC Comic superhero "Ironman," have Shaw Brothers improve on this outrageous mix by adding kung-fu choreography, and then you have Super Inframan, one of the most far-out, fantastical films ever made. Starring the up and coming Danny Lee (who achieved international superstardom in John Woo's The Killer), the film pits Lee as the thunderbolt-fisted Inframan battling maniacal monsters from the Earth's center lead by the evil Demon Princess (Terry Liu). Adding to the psychosis is the fast paced fights choreographed by the acclaimed action director Tang Chia, beautiful camera work by He Lan-shan (Bruce Lee's cinematographer in The Way Of The Dragon), and fights that feature an actor who later starred in kung-fu flicks under the moniker of Bruce Lee."
Directed by Hua Shan (華山), and starring Danny Lee (李修賢) and Wang Hsieh (王俠), “The Super Inframan” (中國超人) is a 1975-film, themed similarly alongside their super-sentai-brethren of Asian ilk - likened to Ultraman and Power Rangers etc!
This is not the first time the characters have been made “toy” though, with Medicom Toy making 1/6th scaled RAH / Real Action Heroes of both SUPER INFRAMAN and SKELETON WARRIOR - back in 2000 - and as well Kubricks/Kooboo figures!
This is the closet / detailed description of the figure I could find on the www;
"Inframan and Skeleton Warrior are probably the rarest Kaiju figures ever released. They are basically 12" scale but with antenna and horns are probably 13" high. I originally heard that they were limited to 300 pieces, other accounts state that they were limited to only 100. It could be that it was 150 pieces of each - I cannot confirm which is the accurate account but they are clearly very rare in any event.
The two figures were released in conjunction with the Asian release of the DVD as a Hong Kong convention exclusive in 2000." (Info & Images via)
Would be an interesting visual dynamic to see what PLAYTOY and Unbox has in store for folks and fans… and based on the vintage styled action toy aesthetic their past releases (with Ultraman and G-Force/Gatchaman), it looks to be exciting times to come!
Hop on over to my PopcornX-blog, where I feature the film IN FULL (with English subtitles) … while we marvel at another character from Shaw Brother’s horror back catalog has to offer: THE OILY MANIAC!!!
