Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue.

More Kamen Rider, go!

Shin is intended to be a 'true' depiction of what Kamen Rider was meant to be, grounded in reality, more horror than action, aimed at adults and of course, ultra violent. Although there is nothing particularly original about Shin's story, it reimagines the usual Kamen Rider story in the context of body horror, being reactionary to things that are still relevant today like AIDs and Cancer which makes it a bit more thought provoking than your usual gritty reimagining. Well, at least that is true for maybe the first fifteen minutes before the film quickly descends into pure chaotic nonsense. With the whole prologue thing it's clear a lot of stuff here is just set up for stuff to be explored in a TV show that never happened, so a lot of the story really just doesn't work on its own here.  

The one good idea in this movie though surrounds our Rider himself, Shin. The aspect of the body has always been a central part of Kamen Rider with Riders being cyborgs to monsters, usually vaguely related to insects and even more commonly not that different at all from the monsters they are fight. Shin almost takes that completely literally turning our Rider into a grasshopper monster, rather than someone in a fancy more human like suit to safely differentiate who are good and who are evil. And luckily, although the effects are largely atrocious, all the suits are awesome.

Sadly the film has barely any action at all, with most action sequences over in seconds and constructed with a budget that I could probably find in my small change jar. I mean sure there is the CIA and the evil Organisation shooting at each other a lot, but stuff actually concerning our Rider transformed and kicking butt is a rare occurrence indeed. If there was one film that could do with a remake, this is certainly it, so many great ideas wasted.  

What doesn't help is all the unnecessary crap added into this to try and make it 'gritty' and 'edgy'. The film is ridiculously gory, adding buckets and buckets of red paint to the fighting to stand in for blood. You would think if they were going to add unnecessary gore, they'd at least put some effort into it but regardless, fountains of blood feel completely out of place in a movie like this. Just like all the pointless fanservice and general nudity. Who the hell watched Kamen Rider and thought the two things it needed was gratuitous gore and shower scenes? Oh right yeah, fourteen year old boys...

Plus the characters are awful, I'm not sure if the script is bad or if it's just the actors but most of the emotional moments are so poorly realised they give the audience no reason to care and fall completely flat. You need truly award winning actors to do anything with this dialogue, so I can only blame them so far.

So do I recommend it? Shin is a terrible film, combining a nonsensical narrative with a movie aimed seemingly at fourteen year old boys. You deserved a much better film, Shin.

Think About It!

-Locke

'What would you rate, Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue'?