While America was experiencing Beatle-mania, Japan was experiencing Venture-mania. In that respect, "Beloved Invaders" could be compared with "A Hard Day's Night" except that it tries to pass itself off as a legitimate documentary, despite the fact that there are writing credits.
That notwithstanding, one does not see this film for any "plot" the film may contain but for the live performances therein. And I do mean live. Unlike "A Hard Day's Night," the Ventures are not simply lip-syncing their studio recordings. Even the opening credit sequence, which shows how records are made, has a live performance of "Out of Limits" playing over it. Every song is live and sounds so much better than the album versions, which were pretty good to begin with. To sum up, you get to see Nokie Edwards play lead for the Ventures at the pinnacle of their careers.
Now the bad stuff, of which, thankfully, there is not that much. The Ventures buy fish, play pachinko, and generally do stuff to show how they're one with culture. Maybe, but who cares? Just play, man! Also, it's in black-and-white, which I am generally not opposed to, only here it can be distracting. One final thing about film is that it's only available in Japan. The version I saw was dubbed in Japanese. All in all, the live performances make up for anything unlikable which can easily be fast forwarded through.
That notwithstanding, one does not see this film for any "plot" the film may contain but for the live performances therein. And I do mean live. Unlike "A Hard Day's Night," the Ventures are not simply lip-syncing their studio recordings. Even the opening credit sequence, which shows how records are made, has a live performance of "Out of Limits" playing over it. Every song is live and sounds so much better than the album versions, which were pretty good to begin with. To sum up, you get to see Nokie Edwards play lead for the Ventures at the pinnacle of their careers.
Now the bad stuff, of which, thankfully, there is not that much. The Ventures buy fish, play pachinko, and generally do stuff to show how they're one with culture. Maybe, but who cares? Just play, man! Also, it's in black-and-white, which I am generally not opposed to, only here it can be distracting. One final thing about film is that it's only available in Japan. The version I saw was dubbed in Japanese. All in all, the live performances make up for anything unlikable which can easily be fast forwarded through.
