I’ve never paid too much attention to the Kamen (Masked) Rider phenomenon. I was more or less aware that the show existed, but never had any interest in it until Hideaki Anno announced that after the first two films of his trilogy of “Shin” movies — Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman — he would give Kamen Rider the same treatment.
But I suppose I would probably have continued to ignore the franchise (well…besides Anno’s take on it) if it weren’t for the fact that Keita Amemiya directed Kamen Rider ZO.
Amemiya created some of the most outrageous tokusatsu films out there, which are filled with absolutely indescribable creatures and machines, which go through all sorts of gruesome transformations, somehow or other ending up uglier every single time they do.
Which is quite a trick when you consider just how ugly some of them were to start with.
He’d started out working at Den Film Effect, a Japanese special effects firm which had done a lot of optical effects for Tokusatsu films and television, then directed the utterly insane videogame adaptation Cyber Ninja in 1988 (he might also have been the director of an earlier short TV film called Red Crow and the Ghost Ship, but this is far from clear). After a slight detour into a Metal Hero franchise, Amemiya followed Cyber Ninja with his most famous film, Zeiram.
Two years and a hitch on the latest Super Sentai show later, Keita Amemiya got a chance to direct a movie based on the legendary Kamen Rider franchise.
As you‘d expect, he created an outrageous version of the franchise just as full of insane and disgusting creatures as his first two films.
A man wakes up in a pit where the roots have grown over him, a strange vision in his head.
Then he transforms into an insect-like masked rider.
Who is a hybrid of grasshopper and superhero.
The Rider knows he has been called to protect a young boy, but he quickly learns that the boy is the son of the doctor responsible for his transformation into the Kamen Rider.
And that the creature which comes after him is another, far more dangerous creation of the same scientist.
Kamen Rider ZO is, in fact, an origin story, but it isn’t the origin of the Kamen Rider — there is no such origin story, nor can there be one (at least as the series now stands) as all the series seem remarkably separate from each other. Nor are they separate in merely in the design of the Rider himself (which varies radically, far more than Ultraman ever has) but in far more fundamental ways. While in ZO the rider is a genetically engineered superhuman, apparently created from a dead body, in the next Kamen Rider film Amemiya directed, he was instead a reporter killed by aliens and resurrected by Earth Spirits.
And, in the original series, he was a cyborg who escaped the control of the evil, Nazi-like group Shocker which had created him, and then set out to destroy the group.
Exactly the same, right?
ZO (and if you look at the Japanese title, this is not meant to be pronounced “zo” but as “Zee-Oh.” Well, “Zed-Oh,” but who’s counting?) is surprisingly short — less than an hour long — even though Toei released it into the theaters. Admittedly, this was part of a festival honoring the anniversaries of a number of other Tokusatsu series.
While the original Rider mask had big insect eyes, with an almost robotic looking jaw below in a much darker color, this version looks very much like the face of a grasshopper, with a yellow muzzle and no obvious jaw.
But, as you’d expect from a film made by Keita Amemiya, the creatures and the effects are the real standouts, with the most shocking moment coming when they encounter the bat creature, who has eyes on his hands.
And yes, one does think of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which used this same detail on one of its creatures — but did so thirteen years later.
I’m sure that’s just a huge coincidence.
For all that this is supposed to be an entry into a children’s show, there is lot of violence, a lot of very scary creatures, and an appalling fate for one major character. There are also a lot of very dark themes at work here, as the rider has to wrestle with the questions of who he is; a child is under constant threat; and a character suffers the consequences of his obsessive pursuit of his researches. People die in awful ways, monsters pursue a young child, and the rider himself is beaten and battered, has painful visions and must face an opponent who is much stronger than he is.
But then, I’ve been told that the Kamen Rider franchise has always been darker than Ultraman.
By this point in the series (or would you call it a meta-series as it is composed of a series of unrelated series in their own little universes?) the television market had failed, there was no new Kamen Rider series, and the entire enterprise gasped its last (original) breath with three theatrical films (of which this is the second). They are often skipped in official lists of Riders, and all fell a little further from the standard version of the show.
Mind you, it is dizzying to try to make sense of the Kamen Rider franchise, as there have been so many series made, so many different versions of the characters or revivals of past Riders.
But in the end, that doesn’t matter as ZO is very much self-contained, with the hero and his main adversary all tied up within one single storyline.
And, I’ll admit it, I like the idea that, with a combination of clever tactics and sheer determination, the badly outmatched rider manages to hold his own in the fights.
Oh, well. It’s a bit goofy, and rather familiar over all. But Amemiya gave it lots of atmosphere, some awesome low budget practical effects, and a few appallingly awesome creatures to create a singularly dark tale about a superhero who has overcome his own tragic history before he can save others.
Curiously, the film does not feel at all rushed or short despite its Fifty minute runtime. I suppose it helps that, rather than give us a traditional origin story, Amemiya chose to dump us right into the middle of things, and only gradually reveal what is happening. It’s a strong start, and gets us to the action that much sooner.
It’s an interesting film, one which has the weird feel Amemiya created in so many of his films, as well as his approach to the editing and composition.
Not to mention all those creatures.
It’s an impressive little film, but it helps if you already love the franchise or Keita Amemiya’s other films.
Or have a deep predilection for icky and disgusting creatures…
rivets on the poster 