Shin Kamen Rider Prologue started development as soon as Black RX finished in 1989. Originally it was pitched in a Manga format similar to how ZX was, but that idea was quickly scrapped. Ishinomori's son, Joe Onodera, wrote a hook while his father worked separately on a synopsis for a new project: Kamen Rider Gaia. Eventually, Junichi Miyashita would join Onodera to develop a more proper script, taking some concepts from Ishinimori's Gaia work- some early iterations even had the main character called Gaia before settling upon Shin.
Rather than a series, a movie was proposed, and Toei's release of Lady Battle Cop in 1990 would help spur interest in developing a direct-to-video Kamen Rider film.
Some of the earliest ideas were a bit out there. The first was of a man Cosplaying Kamen Rider and is injured saving someone, eventually somehow becoming a real Kamen Rider. Producer Shinichiro Shirakura shot that down immediately, requesting something more traditional. Although Ishinomori seemed really intrigued by the original pitch.
Still, Ishinomori had to approve of the direction, and going back to basics again wasn't what he had in mind, at least not exactly. They already did that with Black, after all. If Black was a return to form and Rider 1 was the basis for which all others branched out, then Shin would be the roots of the metaphorical tree. A true Kamen Rider 0. Ishinomori wanted Onodera and Miyashita to explore the Kamen part- the mask and the horror it hides. Resulting in a Rider without a suit or belt, the monster lay bare in its most basic iteration.
Now, Shin is a bit of a unique thing to review because it's technically incomplete. This was meant to be the opening to something that might've had two to four more parts, hence the prologue. That said, I can still review this for what it is- which is an introduction laying the groundwork. Now, let’s get into this properly.
Kamen Rider Shin primarily follows Shin Kazamatsuri (Katsuhisa Ishikawa) a former motorcycle racer who has given up his dream to assist his father, Daimon Kazamatsuri (Akira Ishihama) a geneticist working for The Institute of Super Science Technology (ISS) on enhancing humans to overcome various diseases and ailments- Shin being their greatest success yet.
With that success comes internal conflict. A Fellow scientist on the project, Onizuka Giichi (Kouki Kataoka) wants to progress further given the promise Shin has shown. The program has three stages and Shin is currently on level 2. The third and final phase would typically be reserved for someone with damaged or unhealthy cells. But for the sake of the project, Onizuka wants to go further, despite hesitancy from Kazamatsuri due to previously fatal failures on past subjects. Shin himself is willing to continue, but his father forbids it.
Later, Shin is enjoying his first outing in a long while at a gym with fellow ISS colleague, and love interest Ai Asuka (Yumi Nomura) After their workout, Shin turns his attention to recent events in the local paper covering a string of recent murders.
The news reports seem to indicate someone or something bestial is on a killing spree. Despite Shin’s isolation, the details in the paper seem oddly familiar and he’s able to fill in the blanks to a disturbing degree. Shin has been suffering from strange dreams of being a monster attacking people at night, waking from one such nightmare earlier that day. The correlation between this and the news is more than a simple coincidence.
That night, Shin refuses to sleep, drinking an entire pot of coffee before going out for a late-night jog. On his jaunt, he notices Onizuka going into a nearby warehouse. Sneaking in through the roof, Shin finds Onizuka experimenting on himself, which inexplicably causes Shin to convulse and fall, divulging his location.
But before Onizuka can react, the warehouse is assaulted by a group of well-armed, black clade soldiers who begin firing upon the scientist. Shin passes out from the strain and wakes up surrounded by the corpses of the attackers- remembering snippets of the event as if he killed them.
The following day, Shin confronts Onizuka in his office. Although coy, he eventually pressures Onizuka in revealing more about the research.
He doesn’t lay everything out, but he does explain to Shin that his research was focused primarily on insects, in particular Grasshoppers, and their psychic ability to communicate. He envisions grasshoppers as perfect beings, a hive-mind with him acting as the brains. Onizuka says that one day, Shin will come to understand what this research means.
With only a partial explanation, Shin heads back to the warehouse hoping to find more answers. But when he arrives, he discovers the entire place is vacant without a single trace of what was once there. However, a mysterious woman soon approaches Shin, introducing herself as Sarah Fukamachi. (Kiyomi Tsukada)
She doesn’t reveal much, only that she wants Shin’s help and is planning to destroy the organization behind the ISS. Any questions are cut short by an assassination attempt. Fukamachi manages to get Shin out of harm’s way as she takes down the rather sloppy sniper. The assassin, Goushima, falls several stories riddled with bullets, only to awaken moments later.
Shin returns to the gym in an attempt to clear his head. Ai and his friend Yuuki arrive, although this does little to help Shin mentally. He ends up lashing out and having a breakdown, still convinced that he is responsible for the string of murders.
Yuuki departs, leaving Ai to take care of Shin herself, which does seem to work in a weird way, though I’ll touch upon that more later.
Shin returns to the lab the next day (despite an earlier warning from Fukamachi) noticing the absence of Onizuka, Ai being candid when asked about him.
Wanting answers, Shin sneaks into the facility at night, suffering several quick but massive headaches along the way. He powers through and notices a convoy leaving the premises. Shin follows behind on his bike when suddenly the entourage is run off the road by Fukamachi’s people. The soldiers open fire, Fukamachi herself blowing up the truck containing Onizuka- who has transformed into a grasshopper form.
Shin is drawn towards the dying creature, feeling his pain which triggers a brutal transformation within himself.
But before the soldiers can take action against the now monstrous Shin, Goushima barrels through the group, making a B line towards Fukamachi. Despite being shot in the head, it does nothing to stop the man who promptly attacks the agent. She’s saved by Shin and in the ensuing struggle, Goushima transmogrifies into a more cybernetic form, engaging Shin until Fukamachi fires upon both of them with a Flash launcher- Shin narrowly escaping. In the end, Fukamachi allows Shin to escape, where he makes his way to a nearby road and is discovered by Ai, who takes him to safety.
Shin- having returned to his human form, confronts Ai about what’s really going on.
She reveals all that she knows. ISS is just a small part of a much larger organization, one with hands in all facets of life; Politics, Economics, Pop culture, and Science. The ISS’ true objective was to create cyborg soldiers like Goushima. But they weren’t perfect, they tended to be unnatural and sloppy on tasks requiring more finesse. This led to the development of level 3 cyborgs like Onizuka and Shin.
The manner in which this was applied wasn’t cleared from up top, but Onizuka’s unorthodox methods upon himself and Shin were tolerated due to promising results, although Shin’s alterations were unknown until more recently.
Ai is remorseful over her involvement and intends to set things right. She insists that Shin’s mutation can be reversed at the lab, setting off to discuss the matter with the head of the ISS, Iwao Himuro (Daijiro Harada)...and things quickly go south. Upon arriving at the facility, she’s apprehended and thrown into a cell with Mr. Kazamatsuri.
See, the success of Onizuka’s experiments cannot be understated and the organization behind the ISS is still very interested in pursuing his research. But now that Onizuka is dead, their only other sample (and a better one at that) is Shin. Additionally, they’ve been keeping tabs on Ai and are aware that she is pregnant, something even Ai was unaware of.
Shin is drawn to her location, sensing her distress through a link not dissimilar to the one he had with Onizuka.
Shin rescues both his father and Ai, narrowly missing Fukamachi’s men, who are assaulting a facility and killing everyone on sight. For some reason, Shin and company ignore a massive hole in the wall as a means of escape and instead are cornered by Himuro, who shoots and kills Ai. Shin transforms and kills Himuro, has a final battle with Goishima, escapes with Ai’s corpse, and is captured along with his father by ISS agents in a copter which is quickly shot down by Fukamachi.
A final scene shows Shin carrying Ai’s body in a tunnel as a psychic projection of the mutated grasshopper baby is shown, just as I’m wondering WTF those last 30 minutes were.
So before I get into my thoughts properly, let’s address the elephant in the room. There was and to some extent still is a belief that Shin wasn’t well-received upon release. That it was too much of a deviation from prior iterations and obviously too violent to capture new fans- that last bit being the only true statement and also irrelevant given the intention of the film.
I’ll admit, the false narrative surrounding it isn’t something that’s hard to believe, it does sound logical to some extent. It was a couple of years after RX; done as a direct to video movie which is safer than a series; never got any sequels, and what followed was a much more traditional Rider. Hell, one of the things I used to see was that the Doras in ZO was meant to be a stand-in for Shin. Narratively, the Doras is essentially a perfected or true version of the same project ZO was from but is ultimately defeated by the more traditional rider incarnation.
I couldn’t find any official word on that being the intent, of course. Keita Amemiya was simply the SFX supervisor and designer on both Shin and ZO. The dude just makes freaky looking shit, that’s all there is to it.
The reality is that Shin’s reputation at the time was relatively fine, at worst mixed. Shin did remarkably well on video and critically it wasn't anything horrid and even decently received by what few contemporary reports I could find.
Nowadays with twitter and such, you can see magazine scans of otherwise once-obscure fan events where Rider fans make their own suits which are quite frankly not far off from how horrific Shin would end up being. So this idea that going balls out with the horror would cause problems for the older fans is just ridiculous.
But with that out of the way, does this mean the Shin is, in reality, a misunderstood gem?
But let’s address some of those positive aspects first.
Firstly, Katsuhisa Ishikawa is excellent in the role. His performance isn’t drastically different from what was in fashion at the time; his overall energy is actually fairly similar to Kurata. He’s got the same strong intensity and a wonderfully stern stare. I actually looked into his filmography to see if he’s ever done Yakuza films because he’s got the look that’s perfect for it.
His only shortcoming here is more so with the movie itself and it being a prologue. He doesn’t get to stretch out much, but what chances he gets are solid. He’s able to convey anger and sadness effectively- which is rider 101.
Secondly, they do a pretty damn good job capturing that basic core of the franchise without feeling overly familiar. Shin was never meant to be a back-to-basics, but it does still have those elements of rouge science, conspiracies, a tragic hero, etc. But it does so in such a way that there’s just enough going on that it sets itself apart from what came before and in some ways even afterward. It doesn’t revolutionize the franchise the way Kuuga and Ryuki would, but it’s a nice enough departure that’s still in tune.
The general themes of a monster going against its creation along with Onizuka’s God complex tying in with a loss of individuality are all things I find legitimately fantastic.
Visually the film is wonderful, though the general look might come as a shock- and I don't mean the suit design, but we'll get to that. No I mean the movie itself is relatively simple looking for the most part. It's in 4:3 and the aesthetic isn't that more advanced than your average Kamen Rider episode. But I don’t say that as a knock against the film, it’s just a fact. I don’t have much to criticize for most of the cinematography or effects, actually. There are only a few moments that I would call egregious, including one where the Camera loses focus, a mannequin is used to terrible effect during Onizuma’s death, and there’s a part in the final battle where footage is repeated very poorly.
But most of the film looks fine and in some areas ridiculously good with some fantastic moody visuals. You give me a Rider shot like a cryptid and it’s hard to complain.
Speaking of, the real star is the Rider himself. Shin is one of my absolute favorite designs and it's obvious they sunk a lotta effort and money into, well, everything about him. The mouth splitting open, the eyes, the way the head pulsates. It’s the one element that goes above and beyond your standard special effect on a TV show.
The transformation is one of the most horrifically unsettling sequences I’ve ever seen for the franchise. It truly emphasizes not only the emotional but the physical pain of being a rider.
As much as there is to love about the Shin suit, I also think the in-between moments are good as well. Yeah, sure, you can tell when it’s just a rubber replica in most instances. But the sheer detail put into them is still astonishing. Just look at how they replicated Ishikawa’s teeth.
Ishinomori wanted a grotesque monster, and they most certainly delivered on that front.
I’m an absolute sucker for monsters and body horror, and when it comes to Riders, fucked up bug men is my jam. Just inject that directly into my veins.
Cyborg Soldier level 2 (Goushima) is the only other suit/monster we get and he certainly makes an impression despite the relatively simple design...but it’s primarily because of what he reminds me of. Cause I swear this design had to inspire Mr. X in Resident Evil. I mean look at this:
The freaking remake version looks even more like him.
I know I'm not the first to point this out, but it's impossible not to mention.Given that a number of Biohazard writers also worked on Winspector (Which was just a year prior to Shin’s release) I wouldn't be surprised if they saw this and took inspiration.
There aren't many action scenes in Shin due to the nature of the picture, but I do enjoy what's here. Chances are you’ve probably seen the infamous decapitation scene, but the fight sequence leading up to that is actually pretty good. You see Shin get hurt several times and heal, Goushima gets his eyes gouged out, and his arm gets caught in an electrical box.
But I actually want to point to the earlier scene with Himuro. Because as far as I know, it's perhaps the only time we've ever seen a Rider go after a regular human, and...it's brutal.
When you think about how strong Riders typically are, punching with literal tons of force- it's usually happening to other monsters that can take it. But this? Himuro gets tossed around like a rag doll. Shin isn’t the best at hiding wires or dummies, but this sequence actually made me briefly wonder if suit actor Jiro Okamoto wasn’t just that fucking strong.
This is actually my favorite moment of the film. It isn’t heroic or triumphant, it’s sad and full of anger. The music is perfect and I believe the most ideal track for Shin. The movie’s official theme is ‘Forever’, but to me, this will always be what I think of. This is Kamen Rider Shin distilled into one perfect moment.
All that said, Shin has a very flawed narrative and confused direction.
While the presentation is excellent in some areas, the mystery surrounding the killings and Shin’s dreams are handled pretty damn clumsily. It's not the worst part, but it’s perhaps the most perplexing for the wrong reasons, because the mystery, well, it isn't really much of one. The thing is, I'm not sure if they were intending to fool the audience or not. When Shin is in the warehouse with Onizuka and passes out, it's obvious it's Onizuka given the POV shot starting from his location and not Shin’s. We’re still not sure how Shin is seeing Onizuka’s POV at first or why he has those dreams, but then that mystery is almost immediately answered shortly after with the whole psychic grasshopper spiel.
Now in fairness that's still an angle that can work. Hell, entire franchises are built upon the audience knowing something the protagonist doesn't, that's what How Catch'ems are. But for that to work you have to make solving the mystery still captivating, the character’s journey intriguing… and it just isn't with Shin, it's mediocre.
But I think a bigger issue is that Shin doesn’t seem to know how to approach its narrative. Sometimes it’s a shlocky monster movie without committing, other times it feels like they intended on doing something more sophisticated and complex with a slow burn and philosophical elments- a bit of an odd choice for a V-cinema, but sure. And hey, both those things can work together.
To its credit, I do think Shin introduces a lot of big concepts in a short amount of time. Yet it also comes off as if they were biting off more than they could chew in some respect.
Much of the run time is spent on introducing CIA agents, the deal with the lab, the conspiracy, the mystery of the dreams, and the organization behind all of the above, then they have to squeeze in the stuff with Ai, the baby, and so forth.
We have more time for more characters and twists, but not time spent on actual character. Even at an hour and a half long it feels like there’s just a tad more info than what should’ve been in a prologue- at least for a story of this magnitude. It almost feels like they wanted to do a big character drama that ended up as a sloppy melodrama by accident.
As for the character moments that are present, well, they’re often rushed through despite a theatrical length.
Now for the most part I think it's perfectly fine in a multi part story. Anyone that needs more development can get it in part 2 assuming they’re still around. I’m not exactly upset at Yuki or Onizuka not having more screen time and depth, they serve their purpose well.
But I do still think it is a fair criticism to think that Shin could have at the very least developed the relationship with Ai, and it’s that last part that is the crux of Shin’s story.
Perhaps the best demonstration is when Shin is at the gym after the attempt on his life. That part of the plot outline is not all that abridged. They go from Shin seeing Ai and Yuki, to cutting to the three on a floor having juice and Shin saying he's a murderer. It's 0 to 11 in a snap, and the way it’s edited and plays out just doesn’t work for me. It's a shame because you can see the increments of what the intent is, and the acting itself is good.
You have a man who feels he isn't in control of himself, lashing out at his friends because he's terrified that they could be hurt by his own hands. Tensions run high and it's meant to bring Ai and Shin closer together. There's just not enough done to earn that emotion because the characters, particularly Ai, don’t have enough development or chemistry with Shin for the scene to hit the way it should. I cannot stress enough how much this needed land but doesn’t.
A lot of the emotional drama in Shin hinges on her relationship with him, but the two barely have any meaningful scenes before the friction between the two is cranked way up at the mid-way point. Both actors are talented, but they’re given the emotional depth of a carpet stain.
The most romance that happens is them skinny dipping and showering together, which feels like an embarrassing misconstrued idea of what an adult relationship is, and an indolent way of sexing up the film.
And just to be clear, yes- even if it did work it would still be shitty that Ai is fridged. But at least there would be some weight behind it.
Now the second half is quite a bit better, although there are still some issues given the shakey setup, resulting in many of the good aspects still being built upon an uneven foundation. Despite that, the latter part really gets going with Shin finally transforming, the conflict with Ai, Kazamatsuri being blackmailed, and the whole deal with the CIA. The overall pacing is better, and there are even some legitimately good and even heartwarming moments.
The scene where Ai hugs Shin is perhaps the most noteworthy, and it's ironically a relatively simple concept to grasp. She's hugging a monster because she recognizes it's still the man she loves, and the visual contrast of the monstrous suit adds a surreal nature that I don't think has ever been captured again. Moments like that are what I would have liked to have seen more of and I think demonstrate Shin at its best.
He's human, yet not. A monster, yet not. All of this was acknowledged with a hug which is easily the most convincingly loving thing that happens between Shin and Ai.
The scene afterward where Ai reveals the true goal of the ISS is also good, just short of great. Yumi Nomura is giving a damn good performance as Ai spilling her heart out to Shin. But it feels like too little too late by that point. Had I been more invested, I’d probably be praising this as the highlight, because the reveal of Ai spying on Shin recontextualizes earlier scenes as foreshadowing. You’ll notice that she is in fact keeping tabs on him at the beginning of the film, sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly.
I love that attention to detail. The film has other moments like that too. Throughout we see what at first might seem like just random stock footage of vague cell research- then realize it’s Ai’s pregnancy developing at a rapid pace.
Another highlight is Fukamachi who had great potential because she is against killing Shin. There's a brief scene where she's arguing on the phone with a superior and attempting to reevaluate the situation to simply capture Shin since he helped her against Goushima. Of course, that falls through and she still ends up following orders. But we never see her outright die in the movie, only wounded, and that offers up an engaging dynamic between the two in a sequel that never was. Maybe she remains reluctant towards killing Shin, maybe it gets harder as time goes on and the Organization becomes too much to handle. Let’s not forget she also killed Shin’s father when she shot the helicopter. There’s a lot you could do with that and I was interested in the what-ifs.
Frankly, the movie has some truly fascinating and outright bizarre ideas that I would have loved to have seen more of. For all the criticism I have regarding Ai and an uneven story, there are still signs of what could have been under different circumstances.
The really esoteric stuff with the baby is so goddamn weird that I can't help but like it in a weird way and want to see where it would go. It’s like nothing else the franchise has had before or since, for better or worse.
I'm ultimately left with very mixed feelings about Shin’s story and it’s frustrating.
I legitimately do love Shin as a concept and there’s a lot there I adore. I love the idea of a Rider being betrayed by a romantic interest who feels guilt over their actions. I love the idea of Kamen Rider being a fugitive hunted down by world Governments and shadow organizations. I love the tragedy and the utter weirdness of everything. f I give Shin credit on anything it's that it feels very unique and ambitious.I don’t think there’s a single idea in Shin that I’m against, but the execution leaves so much to be desired and it largely comes down to too much emphasis placed on the wrong areas and asinine choices.
Shin's biggest problem isn't that it's graphic or mature, or even that its concepts are bad. It's that a lot of the story is poorly told or executed, primarily in the first half which over complicates things when simplicity was needed most of all.
Quite frankly, it feels like something written by someone used to drawn-out serialization rather than what was essentially pitched as a direct to video miniseries. I firmly believe Miyashita was an ill-fit for the type of story Shin was striving to be. At least within in the format.
Junichi Miyashita is fully capable of drama and mystery, his work on Winspector and other Metal heroes is proof of that. But writing for a series is quite a bit different from a movie, and Shin often feels like 6 episodes worth of story crammed into an hour and a half. The end result is brief snippets of a dozen different ill-defined concepts that confabulate layered and confusing with deep and engaging, littered with awkward exposition heavy dialogue.
So I guess there’s one more thing I need to address which is if Shin was actually relatively well received and it did well financially, why didn't it get a sequel? Truth is, a lot of V-cinemas get dropped sequels, or they just say shit without any intention of a follow up. Remember how I mentioned Lady Battle Cop earlier? That film ends with a "to be continued" but also never got one.
For Shin, however, there were intentions for a possible follow up, the general idea being that over 3-4 more movies he would gain a proper bike and the usual Kamen Rider appearance, possibly looking like the concepts Ishinomori had for Gaia.
But they never got much further than that. The closest they ever got to a proper sequel was a pitch for Shin meeting the previous 11 riders, which frankly sounds terrible as a follow-up and not dissimilar to what they already did with RX. But that was thankfully brushed aside for ZO, which I think was the better outcome.
Although I think Shin has many issues, it’s also not offensively bad, just misguided. I look at it like reading one chapter of a book; anything that's a problem could be rectified or at the very least overshadowed by better material. If nothing else, I wish they could have continued the story in a Manga format or something, just to give proper closure.
At the same time, I don’t even think the team had much of an idea on where to go, given that the vast majority of the cast is killed off. It feels more like the concept of doing something with big overarching twists and turns, as opposed to actually having those ideas from the start.
I would not be surprised if Bandai and Toei looked at it and realized what would be needed in a sequel just wouldn’t be worth it. Given the bubble bursting and the strong possibility for diminishing returns, they were likely right.
Still, you're probably never going to get anything as high concept as "psychic mutant grasshopper baby" in Kamen Rider again. That alone is worth a recommendation just for the sheer oddity of it all.
Who knows? Perhaps one day we’ll get a miniseries remake of Shin not dissimilar to Black Sun. The format would certainly work a lot better nowadays.
Before I go, I would like to give a thank you to Coop Bicknell, who wrote a fantastic article about the production of Shin Kamen Rider. It came just at the right time for me and was invaluable both as a reference and providing sources to many of the stories I’ve heard prior, but could never confirm. (Reading google translated Japanese sites isn’t exactly ideal after all). If you get the chance, give it a read yourself, it goes in-depth on all the names involved with the production from producers to SFX sculptors and operators.
Next time, well, I might have a small surprise for a review. But the next full review will be to tackle my favorite Heisei Rider series: Kamen Rider W.
I’m sure everyone is tired of my droning on about iconography and the core of Riders blah blah. And honestly same. But I want to get one more review about that and W is the perfect one to leave out on before moving on to something else.
Speaking of moving on, I have a tumblr now. I'll do a proper post about this once I get that blog up and running proper, as it's empty at the moment. But suffice to say, this site is infuriating to use and obviously, it's never going to get fixed. So, posting on tumblr is a lot more appealing. It cannot be worse than trying to insert a jump break on here.
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