SHIN KAMEN RIDER (2023)

SHIN KAMEN RIDER (2023)

Tagline: Those which change. Those which never change. And those that don't want to change.

(Action, Drama, Bugs) [R]

Note: This movie never got an MPAA rating, but it likely would have gotten an R rating. There is a lot of gore in this, but it’s not overly realistic. 

This is released as a 50th anniversary celebration of the 1971 Kamen Rider TV series which ran from 1971 to 1973. Motorcycle rider Takeshi Hongo ends up being kidnapped by an organization called SHOCKER and turned into an augmented human with a bug-inspired design, but he escapes before they are able to brainwash him into doing their bidding. Hongo ends up meeting the defected scientist Hiroshi Midorikawa who did the surgeries and his daughter Ruriko. It doesn’t take long for them to convince him they can defeat SHOCKER with his super-powered abilities. 

So over the past couple of years, I have been getting more and more into overseas films and am getting more and more used to reading subtitles. This is not to say that I have never watched them in the past, but recently I have just been getting more into them. I didn’t even bother watching all of SHIN GODZILLA because I hated the design work on that giant, slapped-together, pile of bacon with a flip-top head monster that I couldn’t get into it at all. I know that isn’t a popular take, but whatever. The previews for this thing looked so fun that I could not pass it up. What we ended up with was some really cool concepts. 

First off, SHOCKER is an acronym like SHIELD. It stands for Sustainable Happiness Organization with Computational Knowledge Embedded Remodeling and the founder is ultra-focused on basically moving all of humanity into purgatory. It’s not called that in the movie, but that is basically the idea. So the bad guys in this movie are all basically claiming to want to send humans to a consciousness “happy place” thereby bringing themselves happiness. The way they decide to accomplish this is by giving several individuals what are called “Augs” that feed off something called Prana. Prana in the movie is basically like a life force in the universe that enhance your superpowers. Prana is not an eternal force, you can use it up, so you need to continue to get more Prana. I won’t get into spoilers, but we get several fights in this flick with varying “Augs” including a spider, bat, and more. Apparently, the founder of SHOCKER is just super creative, because this dude has creature-themed everything. 

The fights are good, but they are shot super-fast. I really don’t usually mind that, but a lot of this flick comes across as choppy. What this movie did a great job at is the design work, but the CGI is pretty shaky in a lot of the film. This also feels a lot like a POWER RANGERS film made for adults and we get cool motorcycles. When I say adults, there isn’t any nudity, but there are a lot of heads getting smashed like cherry pie filled balloons. Acting wise Sôsuke Ikematsu is solid as Takeshi Hongo (Kamen Rider) and I actually really liked Minami Hamabe in this as Ruriko, but I am not familiar with any of her other work. 

The score was pretty decent, but not great. I think one of my biggest issues is that we are given a bunch of characters we are supposed to care for, but one of them just literally shows up late in the movie and all of our emotions are just supposed to gravitate towards him. The theology behind the antagonist’s plan is so bizarre it’s nearly impossible to identify with what the heck he was even trying to do and why given the motivation they provided. It’s kind of like saying the Cookie Monster wants the entire world to be in a blue dog bowl because monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico and everyone needs to pay the price. Bloody hell. 

Is this movie fun. Heck yeah. It’s also just really nuts and that was at least entertaining. SHIN KAMEN RIDER gets a 3 out of 7. I did love the creativity. 

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