Kamen Rider ZO (1993)

RIDER!!!!

KAMEN RIDER ZO

 SYNOPSIS
 Images of a grasshopper and the melody of a watch awaken a sleeping man in the forest, who rises with one single-minded goal: to protect a child named Hiroshi Mochizuki. The man is Masaru Aso, the former lab assistant to Hiroshi's father, Dr. Mochizuki. Dr. Mochizuki was exploring a means to create artificial life that would live forever. His first experiment involved turning Aso into a cyborg, leading to him fleeing into the forest.

 Dr. Mochizuki continued his experiments, which culminated in the creation of the Neo-Organism. The Neo-Organism, as these things tend to do, flips out and wants to exterminate humanity, but to do that, it's going to need to get out of the pool its core consciousness is confined to and evolve into a "Perfect Lifeform." Seeking to use Hiroshi as leverage to force Dr. Mochizuki to complete his work, he creates a body, Doras, to hunt down and capture Hiroshi.

 Fortunately, Masaru is on the case, and, able to transform into Kamen Rider ZO, is more than capable of fighting Doras and the Neo-Organism's other servants. Whether he can get Hiroshi to trust him is another matter entirely . . .

 ANALYSIS
 Our first Showa era Kamen Rider. Sorta.

 While technically this movie ran during the Heisei era, it is generally considered a Showa series, partly because the line is drawn with the premiere of Kuuga. It's a minor thing, really, but you'd be surprised at how much people fuss over this kind of distinction. Given that ZO is pretty old-school as far as a power set--no beams, range attacks, or lightsabers, it's more of a style with the early Showa Riders so . . .it makes sense.

 In any event, after Kamen Rider Black RX (the last chronological Showa series) it was decided to rest Kamen Rider on TV and a handful of movies were created in the early 90's--Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue, Kamen Rider ZO, and Kamen Rider J (also the Kamen Rider ZO & J team-up short film Kamen Rider World) to help Bandai and Toei establish their V-Cinema series of direct-to-video movies.

 The director of this film, Keita Amemiya, is a noted character designer and director, who eventually created the darker, more adult-themed show, GARO. Amemiya was doing pretty well about this time insofar as notoriety, as a few of his movies (his Alien/Terminator homage Zeiram and the Japanese steampunk piece Cyber Ninja, to name but a few) were dubbed and released over here (usually showing up in the "Sci-Fi" section at discerning Blockbuster Video stores during the 1990s) Amemiya really gets a lot out of his special effects--in this movie alone, there's puppetry, stop-motion, wire-work, a little CGI, and some really detailed costumes. Whatever the other failings, you're guaranteed the movie will look pretty striking.

 But it might have a story that is either barely there or makes absolutely no sense at all. Amemiya, when presented with a choice between "logic" and "cool image" goes for the later nine times out of ten. (this culminates in Mechanical Violator Hakaider, a bewilderingly insane movie that tanked this whole series of movies for awhile) ZO falls into the latter category--it's basically the first act of Terminator 2 with ZO in the Terminator role and Hiroshi as John Connor. In case the homage isn't clear, Doras spends a lot of time morphing to make it extra plain.

 For a 45-minute film, it's perfectly acceptable even with the plot being very thin gruel indeed. The creature effects are amazing, and even on a budget, the movie frequently creates a dark, Giger-esque atmosphere. The stunt work isn't as explosive as the TV shows tend to be (partially because of the limits of technology--you can't be too rough on a stop-motion puppet) but it's pretty striking and, for under an hour, doesn't require as much of an investment of time to watch as a full series would.

 Oh, and for those of you wondering what the "ZO" suffix means, it looked very close to "20" and ZO was made to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Kamen Rider.

 For such a brief footnote in the larger history of Kamen Rider, ZO has actually had quite an extended life. The movie was chopped up and turned into a full motion video game for the Sega CD in the style of Dragon's Lair, and was even released in this country. I owned the game and  . . .you know how I like Kamen Rider a lot?

 Yeah, I sold that back a month later. It's very hard being a Sega CD owner, is all I'll say.

 Footage from the movie was also chopped up and used in Saban's 1990's Americanization, Masked Rider, most particularly in the first episode. It didn't make that show any less painful, but that's another review down the road when I'm feeling more surly.

 ZO, along with J, also showed up in Kamen Rider Decade, because
eventually everyone did, and from what I've been able to tell is in the upcoming Heisei Kamen Rider Vs. Showa Kamen Riders: Kamen Rider War movie, which I'm really excited about.

 It's . . .OK. The plot's pretty thin, the visuals are stunning, and it's great to see a Kamen Rider show with a bit larger budget than the TV series tend to have. It's not the best, but if you don't want to watch 50+ episodes of something, this is a thing that exists.
 
 NEXT WEEK
 The Greeed have awakened after 800 years and are feeding of the desires of mankind. The only people who can stand against them are Eijo Hino, a vagabond of no fixed address and a flying severed hand called Ankh, who seems to know a lot about the Greed and the Core Medals they're composed of. But it's not as simple as just destroying the Greeed or sealing them up again, not least because Ankh is carrying out a plan of his own . . .
 In seven, count the medals one, two and three as well look at Kamen Rider OOO: