Eagle 5 Brothers (Compilation film)

In 1978, the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman series managed to be released in South Korea under the title "Eagle 5 Brothers" (독수리 5 형제, Dokksuri Hyeongje)

But two years later in 1980, an unauthorized two-episode OVA was created by a South Korean company as a sequel, summarizing and heavily lifting from Gatchaman II. It was released under the "Eagle 5 Brothers" title, but was also dubbed into Spanish under the title "Space Heroes" ( "Heroes del Espacio"), and alternatively released under other titles including; "Space General Hero", "The Five Eagle Stars" ("Las Cinco Estrellas del Aguila"), and "Five Star Combat Group". As a compilation film, it runs approximately 70 minutes. Both episodes were released together and separately on VHS.

The actual Gatchaman II series would later be imported to South Korea in 1996, also under the "Eagle 5 Brothers" name. Tatsunoko Productions did not get word of the unauthorized film version until sometime in the 2000s, having been unaware of its existence for so long. It is believed that the animation may have been produced by one of the Korean outsourcing studios that Tatsunoko employed for Gatchaman.

Differences in the footage and plot

• Dr. Pandora wears a long, low-cut pink dress instead of her blue jumpsuit.
• Gel Sadora is grown from a young boy named "Marko", instead of a young girl named Sammie. Marko is also brunet, while Sammie had blonde hair.
• Gel Sadora's lips are colored white, rather than there being lipstick.
• Pandora is killed by X firing a deadly laser through her body, rather than being loaded into a rocket that explodes.
• Gel Sadora is killed in a mecha explosion courtesy of the Science Ninja Team, rather than being fatally wounded by X.
• The Snack J is referred to as the "Snack Yumi".
• The team members are only referred to by their Bird Styles, and not by their names. However, due to the above name change to the Snack J(Jun), it may be assumed that Jun may be named "Yumi" in this version.
• Yukari from episode #9 of Gatchaman II has her hair colored brown instead of green, and her tunic is turquoise colored instead of pink.

Dub Name Changes

• Rather than "Comando G" (the name usually utilized for the Science Ninja Team in Spain), the team is referred to as "Escuadron del Aguila", or in English, "The Eagle Squadron".
• X is referred to as "Alec" in the Spanish dub, while Gel Sadora becomes "El Sabar". Dr. Nambu is renamed "Dr. Stark".

Production Staff

• Supervision: I Gyuhong (이 규홍)
• Screenplay: Im Ungsun (임 웅순)
• Edited by: Samjung Planning (삼정기획)
• Producer: Yangseong Ju (양석 주)

Links

• Summary of the "Eagle 5 Brothers" film and screencap comparisons of the Korean rotoscoped footage vs. the Tatsunoko original (Korean).
• Another article explaining the history of the film (Korean).
• Summary of the film (Spanish), includes screencaps and images of the home video releases.