Post by Yuri Petrovitch on Apr 19, 2014 14:40:41 GMT -5
KAMEN RIDER J
SYNOPSIS
Once every thousand years, the Fog Mother, a gigantic cybernetic monster awakens. The last time she walked the earth, she consumed the dinosaurs and caused their extinction. Now, she prepares to devour all of humanity to feed her murderous hunger.
Resurrecting her three children--Garai, Zu, and Agito (no relation to the later Kamen Rider) to gather human beings for the Mother to feed on, Kana Segawa, brother of noted environmentalist photogrpaher/activist Koji Segawa. In an attempt to rescue Kana from being sacrificed to the Fog Mother, Kouji dies and is resurrected by the race of human insectoids known as the Zu. They imbue him with the J Power--energy from the Earth itself, and give him the ability to become Kamen Rider J, the Zu (and by extension the earth's) ultimate champion, a warrior so powerful, his very creation causes the Fog Mother agony. Guided by talking grasshoper Berry, J must battle the children of the Fog Mother, rescue Kana, and end the threat of the Fog Mother once and for all.
ANALYSIS
If that seems like a thin synopsis, it's because Kamen Rider J is pretty straightforward (it's only 47 minutes, and most of those are fight scenes) Koji shows up, dies, gets resurrected, gets his powers, and then fights the Fog Mother's children, before battling the (literal) big boss herself. It's pretty thin gruel, but you have to admire the relentless pace of it.
The third of the 90's Showa movies, Kamen Rider J is very much of a style with its predecessor, Kamen Rider ZO--in fact J was initially supposed to be another ZO movie, with J representing an upgraded form of ZO, hence why the suits look so similar. Ultimately, J was spun off into his own Kamen Rider, though he and J would team up in the 5-minute 3D short Kamen Rider World, fighting Kamen Rider Black's Dark Rider, Shadow Moon:
J shares many of the same personnel as ZO--the director is again Keita Amemiya, who also provided the character designs for the monsters, which are fantastic, blending organic monster and animal motifs with Amemiya's Japanese steampunk obsessions of the time. J benefits from some more intense stunt-work and setpieces than ZO did (ZO, if you'll remember, seemed a bit too obsessed with symbolism over action, a balance which J goes the other way with--it's all action, little symbolism and as minimal an exposition as possible) and feels like it has a bigger budget to show off than ZO did--it certainly looks a lot more lush and expensive than ZO did.
Also, for fans of film scores, Kamen Rider J's theme is pretty much the end credits music for Blade Runner, only sped up with more traditional intrusments. There was a certain mania for this kind of "borrowing" at the time.
J has had some longevity since his appearances in the 1990s, mostly own to his singular ability to grow giant-size like Ultraman. J shows up in two of the Kamen Rider Decade movies, and showed up in the teaser footage of Heisei Kamen Rider vs. Showa Kamen Rider: Kamen Rider War in a good bit where current rider Gaim attacks him all Shadow of the Colossus style.
J is probably the best of the 3 90's movies, possibly because of the three it plays it the safest. It doesn't try to be too dark and Serious, like Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue, nor does it try to be set-bound and pretentious, as ZO did. If you want a good straight-ahead Kamen Rider movie to kill an hour with, this is a pretty good bet.
NEXT WEEK
The Government of Darkness (or GOD for short) is an organization bent on controlling the world. To further their plans, they want the cyborg technology that Keitaro Jin has perfected, and are willing to murder his only son, Keisuke. Near death, Keitaro rebuilds his son into a weapon that can destroy GOD--a being far beyond GOD's kaijin or and ordinary cyborg--the Kaizorg. In seven, journey back with me 40 years as we take a look at Kamen Rider X: