ドジなダメ超人としてみんなからバカにされ、一人寂しく公園で暮らしていたキン肉マン。ある日彼は、キン肉星から迎えに来た使者のミートから、自分がキン肉星の王子である“キン肉スグル”であることを知らされる。両親であるキン肉大王とキン肉王妃が宇宙旅行をしていた際、宇宙船に紛れ込んだブタと間違えて地球に捨ててしまったというのだ。その日から、運命は大きく動き始める。超人オリンピックが開催されることになり、キン肉マンは前チャンピオンのロビンマスクの友情によって、日本代表に選ばれる。勇躍して出場するや、時に大失敗したり、時に臆病風に吹かれたりしながらも、持ち前の強靱な肉体とド根性で大活躍！ テリーマンやラーメンマンといった正義超人たちとの絆を力に、正義と友情に目ざめ、一流の超人へと成長してゆく。
Marcello Mastroianni espies a young woman who is waiting, patiently, by a bridge. Initially he thinks she is one of the ladies of the night but as he passes he thinks he hears her crying. Distressed, she tries to flee from him but he manages to calm her down and they chat. They agree to meet next evening, same place same time - and that's the start of this charmingly simple drama that sees "Mario" and "Natalia" (Maria Schell) begin to confide in each other and cement a bond borne out of both of their emotional desires and frustrations. We also find out just why she waits each night. There are moments of intensity and joy as this story unfolds and we see a love burgeoning. Can it ever result in anything, though? The cold wintery evenings, the snow, the canals - they all add an eerie richness to two potent performances that show the vulnerabilities of their characters, their longings, disappointments and their hopes. Visconti also amiably incorporates a sense of family into the story well too. His being more around the relationship with the loudly omnipresent, but caring, landlady of his hotel (Marcella Rovena) and her's with her ageing grandmother - who rather comically uses a safety pin to adjoin their shirts so she cannot wander off! There is comedy here, but this film also has a sadness to it. Not a melancholic one, more an inevitability that somehow you just know is going to leave one of them quite possibly worse off in the end. Dostoevsky didn't much like "happy" endings - so don't go expecting one here, but there's a delicate chemistry to enjoy between Mastroianni and Schnell.
