Well now, this is quite the odd beast. I’ve reviewed Super Sentai, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, anime, and cartoons. But not really anything like this. Hakaider was a one shot film directed by Keita Amemiya and written by Toshiki Inoue for Toei's '95 Superhero fair, where it was shown alongside the movies for Ohranger and B-fighter. What a strange but fun time that must've been.
The film isn't connected narratively to Kikaider and is more of a reboot or original story that simply uses a character from the series, with the assumption that you already know the basic premise of Kikaider. Although outside of Hakider being an android antagonist, there isn’t much one needs to know going in.
Hakaider was notable on several fronts, the most prominent of which was gaining something of a cult status overseas when it was released in dub form on VHS in 2000 by Tokyo Shock. That version along with the DVD counterpart has long since been out of print and is ridiculously expensive. Thankfully MediaBlasters (which owns Tokyo Shock) managed to get a new transfer and release back in March of this year, which is what I’ll be taking a look at today.
The film takes place in a post apocalyptic setting where we find Hakaider (VA:Dai Matsumoto. LA: Yuji Kishimoto) chained up in a long since abandoned prison. He is discovered by a group of thieves who broke in with hopes of finding rumored valuables. The group, panicking at their discovery, attack the android before being viciously eradicated. Hakaider, confused, sets out on his bike for the only nearby civilization of Jesus Town. (Yes really)
Elsewhere, we’re given an introduction to one of our antagonists, Micheal (VA:Kazuhiko Inoue) hunting down an unknown criminal. The android works for the leader of Jesus Town, Gurjev (Yasuaki Honda)
After the excursion we’re presented with an establishing compilation of the local bustling town, showing it as less a paradise and more of a police state filled with armed patrols. Although Gurjev describes it as a modern Eden.
Unsurprisingly, not all are content with this system which leads us to our final character, Kaoru (Mai Hosho).
Kaoru is part of a rebel group opposed to Gurjev’s rule. Lately, she’s been having dreams of a black knight, waking from one such dream as she and her rebellious allies ready for an assault, just as Hakaider breaches the gates of the city. Kaoru and her friends end up surrounded by guards due in part to an increased presence because of Hakaider, although the android is able to kill a majority of the soldiers before being knocked offline and taken to safety by the rebels.
And that's about three quarters of the movie. No really. Barring two other segments and the final battle, that's it. Hakaider is a very straightforward and obviously short film. The main character focus- if you can call it that- is between Kaoru and Hakaider. Mai Hosho is a fun presence that does a lot with very little, trying her best to illicit a chemistry with Hakaider- a character who doesn't talk in their human guise. Among the rebels, she's the most outspoken and selfless, but there's not much more than that. Everyone else is little more than a background character without much elaborated on beyond a few stating what their dreams are. There's a slight indication that some of them are a bit selfish and might have the same mindset as the current rulers, but this is never brought up again because the rebels are quickly killed off by Gurjev’s soldiers as soon as the exchange happens. In fact I actually think more time is spent on them being shot than interacting with Hakaider. After the rebels are killed it's simply a matter of Hakaider and a mortally wounded Kaoru sharing an admittedly nice final scene in an oasis before she passes, leading to the final battle as Hakaider assaults Gurjev's base.
The film is more engaging from a thematic perspective, and in some ways this is a detriment to the film as the characters can fall into the trappings of being little more archetypes than actual characters. This is seemingly something the team behind Hakaider was aware of and it's clear that they're more interested in exploring story staples than well rounded characters within that narrative framing, which makes sense for what this is. This was made not as a full on feature or an adaptation of Ishinomori’s work, but something to play during a festival that hits on several high notes using ideas from those works.
Both from a visual and thematic standpoint, Hakaider makes it clear that it's intentions are presenting those themes with a loose narrative holding them together, almost like a highly polished proof of concept. Characterization is difficult to do in a limited runtime so it focuses on themes such as questioning the ruling authority and what is truly good. In that respect, it’s something Hikaider does wonderfully well. Hell, within the first 10 minutes we're greeted with a group clad in riot gear shooting bullets and tear gas just to take out one man.
Micheal is an even greater visual example. His form is largely silver with gold accents, fittingly angelic in presentation. Even the face is reminiscent of a hero like Metalder or of course Kikaider. But he's a monster using the concept of Law and Order as an excuse for his atrocities. Granted, this is symbolism 101 and the movie is about as subtle as a sledge hammer at times.
Just in case the Heavenly aesthetic in Jesus town was too subtle.
My snark aside, there is an earnest understanding in wanting to represent this brand of philosophy, that justice is a relative term.
In both my Kamen Rider Black and Kamen Rider '71 Reviews, I mentioned how justice can be oppressive, it can be genocidal, it can be atrocious. It's a staple among most of Ishinomori's work and was echoed by many others, such as Shinichi Ichikawa.
The main setting reflects that very notion by being this prosperous divine beacon among the wastes. A safe haven with rulers that claim to cherish life, but not the freedom that it brings. They’re a fascist state covered in a thin veil of virtuous imagery.
The famous line near the end of the film is the purest distillation of all these concepts coming together.
This simple exchange gets to the very core of Hakaider's morality and the film itself. He is a villain or anti-hero only by virtue of being viewed within the law set by Gurjev. But morally, he is, if you will, more justified than the law makers. It's easily the best line of the film and one of my absolute favorite lines from any media.
The screenwriter, Toshiki Inoue, is a well known, beloved and yet equally controversial figure within the Tokusatsu community. Inoue is the son of Masaru Igami, a major writer who worked on all 7 of the original pre-Black Showa Kamen Rider series. Most notably '71, V3, Stronger and New Kamen Rider (Skyrider), for which he contributed a vast majority of the writing. As a result, Inoue has a love of what that era of Rider represented and you often see him incorporate a lot of Showa elements within his writing. He typically bends those ideas in interesting ways, doing full on deconstructions, perhaps most notably in Ryuki. His weakness is a bit harder to pinpoint as it's subjective as anything and varies from series to series. He has a tendency to utilize frustrating story elements. Not necessarily bad or even unrealistic, but frustrating, such as 90% of all the character drama in Faiz stemming from a lack of characters talking to each other. He also does not work well at all with the toyetic nature of modern Toku series. We're not really here to analyze the man's entire writing style and career. His writing is certainly divisive to say the least and I have my own mixed feelings about it, but he also has his strengths and you see both on display within Hakaider.
He has strong convictions and ideas that I adore seeing in this kind of work, but faults of not really knowing how to fill the gaps in between all the symbolism. As well as simply not having faith in the audience to pick up on certain details, leading to overcompensation. A good example of this is near the end of the film when Micheal's head gets formatted to a new body and the visage undergoes a metamorphosis to either look like or is revealed to be a twisted version of Kikaider, which is then decapitated.
It's a haunting scene that works wonderfully on its own. But again, it feels like a lack of faith in the audience to get the parallels that I felt were good enough without that addition.
That being said, I think a lot of how much you enjoy Hakaider is going to primarily be determined by which version of the film you watch. The Blu-ray includes both versions of the film, the original '95 cut at 52 minutes and the '96 Director's cut at 77 minutes, plus the dubbed version of the DC. I highly suggest watching the theatrical cut over the director's cut, at least for the first time. I love Keita Amemiya's work and I have plenty of praise for him, but the extra 25 minutes is mostly of more violent scenes and longer action sequences. Not only that, but the extra footage is typically of a lesser quality than the rest of the film or they go on much longer than needed to the point of being comedic. Comparing the two, it's clear why most of those scenes were cut or cut down. The theatrical version flows much better overall and the rather simple nature is a lot easier to digest and enjoy when combined with the shorter run time.
But it’s also not perfect. If I do give credit to the Directors version, there are a couple of scenes which explain a few things better and while I feel the overall film flows better in the theatrical version, the Directors cut has dialogue and select scenes with more elaboration which do improve the narrative structure. The finale is also one of the action scenes that benefits greatly from the extension; the original is actually really disappointing and lame by comparison. But there’s a lot of fluff to deal with for those positives. If you've ever seen Patton Oswalt's bit about Director's shooting their film all over the place, that's what it's like watching the 77 minute cut of Hakaider. For every thirty seconds to a minute that adds an improvement, you’ll have a minute and a half of Hakaider riding his bike in what was already an enjoyable and long enough action sequence in the original cut. Really the ideal version of this probably should have been about 60 to 65 minutes, maintaining those extra scenes of elaboration and the finale, but cutting the meandering bloat that plagues every other action sequence.
Padding aside, there is a lot of quality here visually and some legitimately great shots showing the high standard of Amiya's handiwork. The man has a great eye for design and dramatic imagery; some scenes play out with no music or dialog, only ambient noise. Although I don’t believe Hakaider's even close to his best early work, it's perhaps the most indulgent. The film is incredibly stylistic and a joy to pick apart. Admittedly some sequences and aesthetics have aged, but a vast portion are stylings I still adore today.
Speaking of, lets talk about the aesthetics because Hakaider himself is a wonderful redesign. Amemiya has a tendency to incorporate organic components into his designs whenever possible, even if the material is meant to be inorganic. In Hakaider’s case, the original already had an exposed brain, which is oddly covered in this version and only shown at certain points. But the part that really captivates me is the face.
Here it’s much more skull-like and he has a constant grimace showing teeth. The yellow zig-zags have become vertical to create a more traditional “tear” seen on many of Ishinomori’s heroic designs.
Micheal, likewise, has a great design. I’ve already talked about the resemblance to more traditional Tokusatsu heroes, but there’s two other details I like that reflect his true nature. One is the wing upon his back, perhaps indicating a fallen angel motif, which if the Kikaider angle is to be believed, is fitting. The other which would be surprisingly subtle is the two small chains at the waist. Given how blatant many of the other visuals are, I can’t say for certain, but with how Hakaider’s introduction was him busting out of chains, it’s fitting that Micheal is shown symbolically bound by them.
Hakaider is, if nothing else, a visual powerhouse that feels very much like a showcase of what the creative team was capable of. There’s several exciting motorcycle scenes, a great moment where Hakaider’s human guise has the flesh stripped from the arm and repairs itself. There’s even a stop motion sequence in the finale.
But this isn’t just a film review, it’s also a look at the Bluray, so let’s take a look at that, shall we?
You have the aforementioned two subbed versions of the film, both theatrical and director's cut. Plus the dubbed version of the director’s cut. This is a new transfer, although I couldn’t find much information about it, but it is most certainly in 1080p. It is very nice looking on a big TV, although I don't think you'll be as wowed by the image quality as some other Toku Bluray releases.
You also, shockingly, have some special features. You have a trailer for the original US release, which is a bit blurry. I can’t imagine there’s a good quality master in existence for it, sadly, but it's nice to have it all its cheesy early 2000s glory. The other, which I believe is new to this version, is a trailer for ‘95 Toei Superhero festival, which was transferred from an actual film. This is where things get weird. On my PS4 it's about 32 seconds and just for Hakaider, it's listed as "Hakaider Japanese trailer". But when I look at the disc through my USB Bluray Drive, I can see the individual files and that one is the full 2:06 trailer.
I legitimately love this interpretation of “heavy armor”.
For some reason this is not accessible though my PS4. You click play and it only shows the Hakaider segment and acts as if that's all there is to show. This is either a glitch with consoles, or someone at Media blasters snuck the whole thing in and kept it secret, possibly because of copyright issues with the footage due to Hasbro owning Power Rangers and Big Bad Beetleborgs.
By the way, I’ve seen some complaints about this being called Hyper Destroyer edition, and while I agree that Mechanical Violator is a much cooler and raw sounding title, the film is still called that. That’s part of the original title card and not something that localization added. The addition of the new subtitle on the boxart is something I actually appreciate because it differentiates it from the old release. Plus it's a pun on Hakai meaning destroy.
Final thoughts.
Hakaider is an enjoyable watch, especially if you're someone like me who really enjoys when a tokusatsu play around with story concepts revolving around morality vs order. The idea that peace isn't inherently a positive as it can be achieved through subjugation and suffering is a story element I never tire of. The visuals are also great and have a certain edge to them you don't get in most productions today. Not just with the designs but the general roughness that almost provides an indie charm.But I do think there’s some faults. Hakider's themes- while enjoyable- are about as subtle as a clown with their cock out. I believe the creative team could have accomplished their intent while still having more than it ultimately does. Hakider is so stoic and, well, robotic, that we really needed more of Kaoru as a surrogate to add some weight to the movie before being killed off. I believe they could have had more story and characterization even with the limited run time of the theatrical version, but especially the director's cut. In fact I know they could have done it because two years earlier Kamen Rider ZO did a similar premise with a shorter runtime.
That said, this is still an enjoyable watch and I’m very happy to have this on Bluray. There's other things I'd recommend getting before this, but it's still worth a watch and at $20 for the Bluray it's well worth adding to your collection. Keep an eye on Right stuf anime, they sometimes have this very set for $14 and as low as $11 which is an absolute steal.
And if you end up enjoying Hakaider then I would highly suggest watching Metalder, which I reviewed here. It's one of my absolute favorites and has some similar concepts but with more character development thanks to being a series. It even had Keita Amemiya on board for the character designs if that’s your fancy.
And if you like what I do, consider tossing a dollar to my kofi page.
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