Shin Kamen Raidâ

Shin Kamen Rider (2023) is a movie that I recently watched on Prime. The storyline follows a motorcycle racer who is kidnapped by a man who wants to take over the world. The motorcycle racer escapes but not before getting infected and turned into a super hero mutant driver. With his new powers he will try to stop his kidnapper from taking over the world.

This movie is directed by Hideaki Anno (Shin Godzilla) and stars Sôsuke Ikematsu (The Last Samurai), Minami Hamabe (Let Me Eat Your Pancreas), Tasuku Emoto (And Your Bird Can Sing) and Shin'ya Tsukamoto (Tokyo Fist).

The characters and universe for this picture are perfectly set up. The action scenes initially are great with fantastic kill scenes, gore, flying body parts, everything you'd want from a Kamen Rider picture. The villain had potential too. Unfortunately the content gets a bit too over the top, a bit too over done, and ran out of gas for me. I did enjoy watching it unfold, but it didn't have the same magic as Shin Godzilla.

Overall, this movie had enough worthwhile elements to make it worth a watch but isn't as good as Shin Godzilla. I would score this a 6/10 and recommend watching it once.

The movie starts pretty strong, with a good fighting scene and the introduction of the Shin Kamen Rider who basically pays homage to the original Kamen Rider from 1971. Sadly, after the strong start, things started to go downhill slowly. The plot became cringy and the fan favorite Kamen Rider was more of a secondary character since they were focusing a lot on someone else.

When it comes to the fighting scenes, they weren't good, it's like they were inspired by animes like Dragon Ball Z and Nartuto, it doesn't sound too bad, but the CGI felt like I was playing a few years old PC game. Was it really that hard to make good fighting scenes like in the other Kamen Rider movies and shows?

The cast, the acting, the costumes, the bikes and the music were great, and the kid from The Last Samurai is actually our Kamen Rider.

Unfortunately, I wish I did something better with my time, compared to Shin Godzilla, the movie is a huge letdown. I'm giving it 5 stars because of the nostalgia factor and the positive things i mentioned above. It really pains to give such a low score to a Kamen Rider movie.

Yesterday evening when I discovered this was having an unauthorised (and I'm fairly certain illegal) screening at my local cinema this afternoon, my jaw hit the floor, but I am far from complaining. While he left our beloved Shinji Higuchi to handle directing duties on Shin Ultraman, Anno focused his efforts on Shin Kamen Rider and it's very much cut from the same cloth as its predecessors. Fast, stylish, cartoony and oh-so-charming, it opens with action and never slows down, not even afraid to fully embrace the camp and horrific qualities of its source material.

I'll admit this is the tokusatsu property I am least familiar with (at the time of writing I've seen ZO, J, Shin Prologue and, more substantially, Den-O and Fuuto PI), but even to a more casual fan of the series, you can easily follow what is ultimately re-imaged episodes of the original show stitched together into a movie. I'm yet to watch the original but the number of side-by-sides I was seeing on Twitter after clips of it were leaked, shows that Anno really does take pride in his childhood influences.

Hyped stylised like the previous Shin movies, there's some very overbearing and pretty redundant CGI in places where practical effects would have been preferable and even cheaper, but it fits the same tone and energy of its predecessors. Anno's direction is great and features the same variety of angles and strange composition choices that make these so visually engaging. The hyper-choreographed fight scenes also help immensely, unafraid to go all the way to 11 with squishy violence.

With regular Anno collaborator Shiro Sagisu committed to Shin Ultraman, in steps Anime composer Taku Iwasaki and boy, does he do a stand-up job. I'm definitely gonna have to get the soundtrack to this the moment it's released, so many styles of music all coming together in a seamless blend of beauty.

While I ultimately feel that Shin Ultraman is the best of these Shin movies so far, Shin Kamen Rider is a very close second. Anno goes hell for leather here, amounting to a beautiful love letter to one of the grandfathers of Tokusatsu, having fun but not poking fun and fully embracing his inhuman worldview he's only ever touched upon in previous movies.

This is coming from a non-fan, better known as normie: I think it's pretty enjoyable to watch from start to finish because the movie almost didn't give me room to breath like, dude it's full of action from the Toho logo to credits! Since I'm a non-fan, the things that bother the original fans so much pass me by like wind through canyons, so hey feel free to roast me if you want. CGI didn't bother me that much like in Anno's previous two shins, I mean I could still catch what's going on. Practical effect done rightfully even brutal in some parts, like blood splattering all over the place. I wonder if Anno already had plan to make another shin series of another Japanese IP after this. Shin-Super Sentai anyone?

7.5/10.

As the third of "Shin-" series, it is safe to say this title is much better than "Shin Ultraman" but way less developed than "Shin Godzilla" in terms of story, character and most importantly, relevance to the originals. My expectation had been low mainly because of the heart-broken experience in the disastrous parody of Ultraman by the multi-titles-holder Anno, thus the first sequence in this film surprised and even betrayed me a lot in a good way. Visual character designs are retrospective but fresh (almost as always), and battle scenes are exciting and speedy even though some parts are unrecognizable to see what is going on. If you can swallow some obnoxious fetishized scenes (a strong and straightforward woman& quiet but justice boy, rustic and long wordy scene, smell of woman for example) as his authenticity, it is recommendable.