Customer Reviews

Mechanical Violator Hakaider [VHS]

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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.

If you liked the look of the Zeiram series, and are insprired by the works of Yasushi Nirasawa, then you'll love this movie. Based on a cult comic book favorite in Japan, Mechanical Violator Haikader is a brilliant take on a popular Japanese anti-hero. An amazing amount of forethought must have gone into this movie which is evident by all of the details in the sets, and robot suits in this movie. Several of the cast members wardrobes are quite beautiful as well. Set in the future after some sort of holocaust, the story centers around Hakaider, a mysterious, leather clad, self professed amnesiac (you learn that through an inner monologue,) you first see chained in the bowels of some non-discript factory by ridiculously large chains. Uncovered by mis-informed fortune seekers, the man in black, without word transforms unseen, in a flurry of quick cuts, and flashes, into one bad mojo robo man. After promptly taking out all of the would be treasure seekers, and relieving them of their weapons, he re-unites with his super charged motorcycle, and moves out. From there the story follows Haikader on his trip of self re-discovery. He quickly winds up at the gates of a neo-eden city constructed, and ruled, by a way to self important, extremely melancholy, foppish dictator. As Haikader approaches the gates at high speed, the security systems alerted to the incoming infiltrator, begin a barrage of fire to detour him, but after a quick transformation he's taking the bullets like a champ, and returning fire with a ridiculously powerful shotgun. At this point, while looking over the shoulder of Mr. Dictator-man watching a security screen, we learn that he was responsible for the construction of Haikader at some long distant point in time when things were not so civilized He was then put in chains, and locked away after he had outlived his usefullness. Haikader, blasting his way through the front gates of the city quickly gets mixed up with rebels fighting against their oppressor, who even goes so far as to regulate personality through radical surgery, and rules by way of cyborg shock troopers that are ever present, and plentiful throughout the movie. The rebels don't know what to make of their new arrival, and after they have seen what he can become, they are even warrier about who he is, and where his allegances lie. This isn't helped by the fact that he barely speaks, and when he does, it is usually a brief sentence that is as mysterious as he is. A cute, but tough rebel girl falls for the dark savior, and has repeated dreams of him as a black knight on a horse come to deliver her, and everyone else from evil. The story climaxes as he makes a solo raid on the headquarters of his creator, a heavily fortified palace, with lots of cannon fodder for him to tear through on his date with destiny. He finds the overlord in his quarters guarded by his angelic influenced robot bodyguard Michael. After some rock-em sock-em robot be-heading action, Hakaider momentarily victorious, is stalled by his creator with the story of his utopian vision. But that's long enough for the fallen Michael to re-group in a massive alternate body, five times his size, equipped with articulated saw blades, and other nasty attachments. But of course Haikader being the anti-hero, defeats the massive robot, and then promptly dispatches the ruler. From there it's the classic ride into the sunset. In truth, the acting is a little weak, the story somewhat slow, and some of the effects aren't that special. But if you like beautiful costumes, and lot's of intricate props, and people, you should really enjoy this movie. There are actually quite alot of movie inspired models readily available on the import market resulting from this movie, the quality and care in the production of the film carries over into these models as well, they are all very beautiful. So if you like angry revengeful robot men wreaking havoc, you'll find a black spot in your heart for this movie.

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?

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 :)

The Hakaider (Mecanical Violator Hakaider) is a strange film, a huge success in Japan, this one will not satisfy every expectation. The main charcter of the film itself the cyberwarrior Hakaider is somehow cool and disturbing. Other characters are flat and badly played. Not that rhis wouldn't be fun. Story focusses on a fictional future where a godlike government rules a desolate city with an iron fist. The leader is an enigmatic angellike megalomaniac without any mercy. The hakaider wants his head. So the battle begins. Always on his motorbike he drives around and kills the angel's soldiers, often in a cruel way. High Speed action and some nice effects for a japanese budgeted movie. From the director who brought you Zeiram 1 and 2 and Future Ninja. See one and you kno'w ém all. It's a sure hit for SF-Action fans who won't expect Armageddon.like proportions,

If you think it would be a good movie to see the Japanese terminator fighting awkward storm troopers with some of the most amazing yet confusing visual effects there have ever been in a movie, then this is the movie for you. Hakaider has many impressive visuals, entertaining action choreography, and if you're into it; unintentionally hilarious dubbing. This film, written and directed by Keita Amameiya, was written for a Japanese super-hero movie show, where he also displayed two Kamen Rider movies, J and ZO. Keita Amameiya took his love of tokusatsu super-heroes and made what can only be described as an anti-hero art film about an android who destroys whatever's in his way. Hakaider himself is based off a villain from an older 80's live-action series, Kikaider, which itself was re-made into an anime and broadcast on the popular cartoon network program, "Adult Swim." The theatrical cut of the film is a much shorter, more compact version that is actually a more entertaining film, despite the fact that the director's cut adds more action scenes, because they add absolutely nothing to the story being told. That being said, this movie has a very shallow story in general. It seems like you can count the number of spoken lines in this movie between your fingers and toes. If you're into sci-fi movies with lots of action and entertaining visuals, this is right up your ally. It's not the most intelligently written film, but it's a for-sure entertainer for action and sci-fi fans alike.

One of the first lines in this movie was "Blow the Gate!" Only they weren't blowing a gate...It was a giant metal door. English voice dubbers are Idiots! Other than the lame voice job, this movie was very entertaining. If you are into robots and fantasy & such. The Michael robot was one of the most beautiful robot suits I've ever seen in a movie. The dream sequence of the main girl character(never caught her name) was also beautiful. Her fairy wings, and that gnarly old tree, then the ghoul that rises from the ground. Wow. They could make a movie just based on that dream sequence! The rest of the movie is your usual gun fights, Cycle chases, then at the end we get some cool stop motion animation. It's not Harryhausen, but any stop motion is Okay in my book! I love stumbeling upon movies like this. I just wish Hollywood would try something different and unique like this. What happened to all the American dreamers?

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.

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.