Hirokin

...this is the first of three films I've watched recently that look great, but don't have much else going for it. The story involves our man Hirokin, who is a human that lives on a planet that looks like Earth, who gets involved in a rebellion against the oppressive human regime. In the desert.

Our aliens look remarkably like humans (one even has a Scottish accent) and are led by Agnus McFadyen. Hirokin is the chosen one and blah blah you've heard this thousands of times.

Bad stuff: Far too many over-emotional scenes of people standing around while the music swells, which is all fine if something was going in between these scenes, but there's a lack of action here. So if, like me, you were waiting for Hirokin to man up and starts slashing hordes of bad guys, you're in for disappointment. Hirokin is in fact a bit of a knob.

I couldn't care about anyone in this film. It looked really good though. More action, less arsing around talking philosophy.

When I picked up the "Hirokin" DVD it was solely because Julian Sands was starring in it, and prior to that information then I knew absolutely nothing about the movie, so I had no expectations or beforehand impressions.

"Hirokin" is taking place on another planet where Griffin (played by Julian Sands) is a ruthless tyrant, keeping the natives oppressed and downtrodden. People live in fear and is waiting for a hero to come along. Enter Hirokin (played by Wes Bentley) who have to come to terms with his own heritage before he can save mankind from oppression and strife.

The story told in the movie was nothing new or innovative, it was all stuff that has been used and seen before. "Hirokin" seemed like a mutated mixture of "Dune", "The Last Samurai" and "Star Wars". But oddly enough it worked out well enough. And the movie did suffer from being rather predictable, as you knew exactly how the movie would end right from the very beginning.

The effects in the movie were adequate, though don't expect top of the line, million dollar CGI effects. However, the costumes and the scenery was really great. Especially the outfits of the soldiers serving Griffin. Their armor and outfits looked really nice, and had somewhat of a "Star Wars" feel to it. And the landscape and scenery was really spectacular.

As for the acting, well people did good enough jobs with their given roles, though it is nothing award-winning. And they had managed to get together a great enough ensemble of actors and actresses to play the various characters.

One thing that I didn't fully understand, was the sub-title to the movie; "The Last Samurai". So there are even samurais in outer space? Sure there were subtle references to the samurai and Japanese culture to be seen here and there (especially in the clothes), but it just seemed so misplaced in a Sci-Fi movie.

"Hirokin" is a good enough Sci-Fi movie and does manage to keep a certain level of entertainment and action all throughout the 105 minutes it is running. However, the movie failed to leave a lasting impression for me, and I doubt that I will ever be making a return trip to watch it again, despite being a huge fan of Julian Sands.

The movie seems to well suited for a younger audience, probably late teenagers.

Badly directed with even worse editing this story had a lot of potential. Fails miserably as entertainment, screen play and dialogue are even worse than the directing and editing. Production quality is almost there and the acting looks like it was all first takes with little rehearsal. I also saw bits from other movies, Gladiator, Star Wars a little of Dune. Plenty of good looking sorts in it, but even they can't save this festering mess. It would not have taken too much to have turned this into blockbuster, get Joss Weadon in to rewrite the screenplay and direct. Pay the actors a little more and give them some time to rehears.

Thankfully bought at my local Poundland, I had been tempted by the nice artwork of Hirokin for a couple of years. But a gut feeling was saying wait.

Wait until you find it at a pound, then think twice again.

But I got it. I was expecting Star Wars meets Six String Samurai, but instead got, well, I actually don't know what that was!

Slow, boring and with painfully uninteresting fight scenes, Hirokin plays like a slow burning Japanese samurai epic, well it feels like it in running time, but has the flair of a film students documentary on watching paint dry.

Nope. Just nope. There was no need!

This film's cover caught my eye: I wasn't expecting anything great, but I was at least enthralled to see some samurai dude on another planet hacking and slashing away at some aliens or something.

Surprisingly, there's not much hacking or slashing involved; a few cheap and stupid fights, but nothing more. One of the more inventive scenes involved the fighters chained to a post, and whenever the chain slackened, a big spike would come down and murder a hostage. Aside from that, the film came off as being rather dull.

The story didn't really captivate me either; it's full of dull and lifeless characters, going through the motions of some drama and plot that I really couldn't care about. The movie overall tried to hard to resemble films like John Carter and Prince of Persia, but both are miles better.

This film must have been made on the cheap. It sports okay, but never exceptional, photography and editing. Acting and writing are serviceable at times, but they are often marred with certain levels of cheese, amateurism, or plainness. This production uses a limited amount of sets, props, and costumes. Music is very generic too.

1/5 (Entertainment: Poor | Story: Very Poor | Film: Very Poor)