The Brain-Stealers (1968) - Umetsugu Inoue

​Umetsugu Inoue's The Brain-Stealers is a pulpy Shaw Brothers' spy flick that is a campy, colorful cinematic treat. Inoue's workmanlike direction in Hong Kong is admittedly a step-down from the promise of his exceptional early work in Japan but the Brain Stealers exhibits his penchant for sculpting a vibrant aesthetic with a keen eye towards expressivity, composition, and texture. His ingenuity as a filmmaker is very transparent throughout a 60's pop spy thriller like this, and in moments it's truly a sight to behold. Featuring a familiar conception for many of these spy thrillers of the 1960s - a scientific breakthrough, the global powers that wish to control it, and the agents they deploy in order to secure it for their own interests - The Brain Stealers is heavy on the type of heightened shenanigans one hopes for including Body-swap antics, an underground lair, continuously shifting allegiances, absurd narrative twists, and wonderful gadgetry. Lily Ho as the ass-kicking female protagonist and daughter to the scientist who everyone is after is wonderful here, encapsulating the grace and beauty orthodoxy expects out of the femininity while simultaneously subverting those expectations with the precise physicality and power she brings to the action choreography. I'm basically a sucker for any of these 60's pop aesthetic spy thrillers and this is a fun one!