I just finished watching the entire Space 1999 series this week. I was actually HOOKED... The reviews on Youtube are also OVERWHELMINGLY positive, with a lot of younger fans. I am especially glad they had snagged Barbara Bain to be one of the top stars in the show. She is the exemplar of beautiful combined with class, professionalism, and culture.
Some people may say that this show is cheesy, but let's look at contributing factors like available budget or time frame allotted for production. This one made up for any cheesy sets or special effects with a superb cast and awesome acting. Some people also say that China and Korea makes awesome war movies... Which is true somewhat half the time... Other times we get stuff like THIS:
...Which is cruising at the edge of B-grade space. This is actually based on a popular folktale from the Shanxi region about a group of hunters and local villagers who successfully driven back the Japanese invasion force from Shanxi in 1938, fighting alongside the 8th Route Army. I had been intimately familiar with this tale since I was 6 years old and this had the potential to be made into something far more spectacular, but production went to a local company with extremely limited budget. You can see a lot of effort being used here, especially in the "gun kata" sequence between the 8th Route Army captain and the Japanese captain while they were assaulting the base after neutralizing the minefield. The other fight scenes are also well choreographed, but it just did not come out in the caliber that it should have. BUT, as a movie whose primary intended audience are 7-12 year old boys, it does it's purpose.
