Supersonic Man (1980)

Spain / Italy, Dir. Juan Piquer Simón

The theme of this week's main article is the reception of superhero films, so as an accompanying clip we present the 1980 Spanish film Supersonic Man.

The responses to this film on the internet, and also from the American distributors of a DVD version, illustrate the ways that differing contexts of reception can change the understanding of a product. A review on the blog Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill! mentions 'laughable dialog augmented by overwrought English dubbing', raising the issue of reception being influenced by linguistic understanding. The IMDB entry on the film uses an American DVD release cover as an illustration, which positions the film as 'A Superspoof of Superheroes'. But how much of this is true of the original production? And how much is this simply another example of genre cinema from one nation being measured against the production and narrative values of a different national industry?