Hakaider (1995)

Created to help control the population of Jesus Town, Hakaider was abandoned and left for dead once his uncontrollable nature became apparent. Now, his creator Gurjev has a new cyborg-enforcer, Michael. When treasure hunters accidentally awake Hakaider from his long slumber, he decides to bring his own justice to Jesus Town.

Recommended for genre fans, all others need not apply.

I dug this flick.

For the uninitiated, this movie falls into the Japanese tokusatsu genre, which in this case means it's a sci-fi/fantasy special effects film.

As for the content, it's cliche, the acting is bad and half of the effects are downright laughable.

That said, I did enjoy the movie, mainly for these two reasons:

1) I totally dug the character designs. They rocked. Watching two bad-arse looking robots duke it out made the movie worthwhile. Fans of Japanese sci-fi and toku character design will dig these guys. (As has been said before, watch for the Kakaida "cameo" at the end.
2) Length. This movie is the perfect length. It clocks in at 77 minutes and that's all it needs. Quick and to the point!

You probably already know if you are interested in this flick or not, but if you can swing the steep price tag, are looking for some cheesy fun, and aren't turned off by the length, I dare say you'll enjoy this.

Recommended for genre fans, all others need not apply. May 12, 2007

Stop That Android!!

Japanese use the term tokusatsu films for what we might call 'special effects' films. Our closest equivalent would be the unending Startrek series (with the addition of some robots in latex suits. The term covers a wide range of sins, from the complex ongoing Super Sentai series to pleasantly simplistic (and violent) films like the one under discussion here - Hakaider. Jinzo Nigen Hakaider (Mechanical Man Hakaider) is loosely based on a previous tokusatsu series about Kikaider - an android superhero. He was one of the villains in that series, but in this film his body is discovered by treasure hunters and is reanimated.

At the start of the film we find the camera following a dark figure wearing a menacing samurai mask as he rides a modernistic motorcycle into Jesus Town. In this post-apocalyptic world, the android finds itself siding with rebels. His opponents are Gurjev, a mad ruler and his android associate, Michael. This is one of those films where the good guy looks like a bad guy and the bad guys are all wearing white suits. The simple plot follows Kikaider as he enters Jesus town and comes in contact with the rebels. When Kaoru, a beautiful young raider, falls afoul of the regime, Hakaider builds a full head of steam and takes on the entire establishment in a series of ever more dramatic confrontations.

This is the second of Keita Amemiya's films, and while it is better made (and less silly) than Zeiram 2, this is the Amemiya film with the least amount of plot and character. Instead it's capital is special effects, costumes, and violence. All of which it does quite well for a low budget thriller. Once again Amemiya demonstrates a flair for scene setting and character design. The downside is his penchant for vacuous dialog but, in the light science fiction of its time, perfection was not an option.

There is a great deal of strong Christian symbolism in the film, which an American viewer may find misleading. As in Evangelion, one has to remember that the Christian framework is as mysterious as the Japanese mystical framework is to us. Amemiya uses Christianity to add mystery and a sense of the occult, not to advocate and religious position. The film is meant to be enjoyed, particularly with a good supply of popcorn, not to make an indelible mark on cinematic history. July 16, 2004

wiseless comments

Well, just try to not be so lame ^_^ Hakaider (aka hakaida) is the evil guy from the early '70s kikaider (kikaida) live shows...so find a coment about terminator,mad max even alien (1979 If I remember it well) is a bit absurd :) Also note that power rangers are a poor (american)version of other oldie japanese "tokusatsu" heroes.
Japanese old character concepts are very imaginative.This is a '90s point of view of an old badass turned into anti-hero. It's big, It's bad, and it's gonna blow away anyone who cross it's path.Also the movie is spiced with some goth,ciberpunk and religion concepts,making goodie-scouts look as not too good boys (same to evil ones in this film)Film plays with black and white concepts.Amusing future action movie that is not a matrixspawn being :) July 5, 2002

This Is Nothing Original

Hakaider is one strange film, but it also appears to be gleemed from several sources. I identified things from "Spawn", "The Road Warrior", "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", "Terminator 2", "Alien" (1 and 2); the list continues ad infinitum. The odd thing is that after a point, all these elements fuse together to be owned by this film in it's own right.
The sets are fantastic, some of the most engaging I've seen (even better than some movies with much larger budgets).
However, the one thing I had a problem getting around were the robot costumes. I kept getting the feeling I was watching the Sex Pistols version of "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers".
This film is large on action and short on believability, not to mention the very bad job on the English subtitles. There were points where the translations made no sense what so ever, sentences were left unfinished and even a very few times when there weren't any.
I spent about [price] retail on this, which is a fair price for this film. Any more than that and I would have been pretty PO'd.
This more of a kids movie, but with some of the graphic violence, consider first what you want the kid exposed to. I won't let mine watch this till she turns 14 atleast. February 23, 2002

JINZO NINGEN HAKAIDER IS A WRECKING BALL!!

Okay, I am a little biased because i'm a huge Kikaider and Hakaider fan, but i have to say this movie was actually pretty good for an early work. They revamped the suit to make it a little more sleek and well, more menacing. The atmosphere prett dark, which was actually a pleasant change for me. Hakaider, who gets awakened by robbers, sets out to jesus town where he fights police androids and meets up with a resistance group. Hakaider takes to a woman in the resistance group; when they are found and almost everyone is killed (except for the girl of course), Hakaider decides to take vengence and heads to the head quarters to fight Michael (or Mikhail or something) to the death.
I really don't call this a feature because it's surprisingly short, but the action is there and will have you slightly giggling through some parts of the movie because of it's wacky violence. There was really no character development in this movie, maybe due to the fact this movie was shorter than trip to the toilet. What was kind of funny was that they really didn't explain exactly who or what he is, except for that sketchy little story at the end. I still have no idea if that is Professor Gill's brain or not, since they revamped the whole origin, i guess not. Also, for those who have seen the series, you can see Kikaiders head in the final confrontation between the two machines, it was an incredible laugh, which makes me wonder, when is there going to be a cool Kikaider movie? January 24, 2002

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