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Starting in on this movie is really hard for me. Partially because I'm in the middle of a massive binge of crazy Japanese movies to empty out my DVD queue and build a nice backlog of these before changing my Netflix plan, and I'm getting a little burnt out. Mainly though it's because I'm sitting here looking at a title screen with big pink letters that say MECHANICAL VIOLATOR HAKAIDER while a happy pop music that honestly sounds way too much Open Your Heart to Me is looping. I mean, that's just wonderful is what that is. So OK, about an hour later (I was doing some other things in the background to be fair)... some space marines are storming a castle. Or I guess maybe they're regular marines. Or just... guys with guns and flashlights. It's... kind of a weird mix of tech levels here. I guess this is actually a prison one of these guys worked at which allegedly hs treasure in the basement but... no, this is pretty clearly a castle. A low budget sucky castle. Also, Quality dub here. Anyway, the treasure turns out to be some dude. And he goes all Sentai, kills them all, then asks the camera who he is. And he's got a big X shaped crack on his chest. The title lives in there. In addition to the amnesiac sentai, there's also a motorcycle chained up in the dungeon here. So, he rips the chains off and drives it out to freedom. I suppose he could have done that at any time really, but it's more dramatic to kill a bunch of thieves first.
Now here's a scientist fleeing somewhere with a metal briefcase. He's being chased by some riot cops or something. Also, I don't know what it is, but something about the specific flavor of cheese everything in this movie has reminds me of Red Dwarf. Anyway, some other sentai keeps the scientist from killing himself when pinned down. I thought it was a girl, but apparently this is "Michael. The one who keeps law and order." So we're doing the whole angle thing then? I guess so, because our amnesiac there just refused to flash his visa at the toll booth operator outside Jesus Town. No really. That's what it's called. Jesus Town. And oh man. Seriously. Red Dwarf. It's uncanny. There's a big goofy cannon on he walls to Jesustown firing at our amnesiac as he approaches, directly hitting him in the face at one point. He's OK though, because he's a cyborg or something. He goes sentai mode anyway though, then pulls out a shotgun that fires a spinning drill at the gates. They explode. Now... wow. OK, we've got Michael's boss here. The leader of Jesus Town, which they keep saying over and over and it never stops being funny. He dresses pretty goofy, and has weird hair, and I thought he had one big angel wing, but it turned out to be a dead vulture on his shoulder. Like, skeletonized, but with all its features still. He's totally the last boss from a mid-90s RPG. Anyway, some storm troopers with motorcycles go charging out of somewhere.
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Now here's a goth fairy tied to a tree. Suddenly, uh.. a zombie with angle wings on its head bursts out of the ground. It's pretty crazy looking. But then some knight comes up and stabs it. Then this girl wakes up from her crazy symbolism dream, and it turns out she isn't a goth fairy, she's some kind of resistance fighter. And holy cow. Apparently what they're resisting is a change in fashion from the md-1980's. Pink head scarves and big hair all over here. Now here's some crazy motorcycle dueling on the highway between, I suppose he must be Hakaider and those storm troopers. Kinda has a terminator vibe to it. Except, again, it still totally looks like an episode of Red Dwarf. Which, again, I don't by any means mean as an insult. This goes on for quite a while. Eventually though we cut back to the resistance... as they wander into the motorcycle duel. This movie is like 10 kinds of awesome. Here's some exploding storm trooper heads... full of feathers! Fairy girl flashed back to her dream. Apparently Hakaider here=the knight who saved her from Jesus-zombie-Death. And OH WOW THIS STORM TROOPER HAS THE BEST VOICE! "You're dooooooomed!" And, Michael's boss, who I'm going to call Jesus because hey, he runs Jesus town, confirms that Hakaider is indeed the main character's name. At least when he's in sentai mode. And he just totally blew some storm trooper's arm off. Also, here's a tank, with a 1980's wireframe targeting computer. Actually, heck, 1970's. It's like straight out of Star Wars.
Also I guess it isn't so much a tank as a van with a big gun on it. After getting shot and taking a nap for a bit, Hakaider blow it up with a shotgun he pulls from that arm he blew off. A bunch of nearby storm troopers catch on fire and... kinda dance around for a while. Fairy girl blows it up a bit more. The rest of the resistance fighters are kinda just around. Later, Michael arrives on the scene. He shuts the eyes of a dead storm trooper. Another one limps up and begs for help. "Why should I help you? Only soldiers who have fought and died deserve to be one of my men." *fingers through face* Also, Hakaider's right hand in non-sentai mode is a transparent plastic thing that looks like E.T's or something. And now it looks all regular. I guess it just needed to regrow its skin. Fairy offers him some bread and tea. Specs sez robots don't eat, and accuses him of being "that sleazy robot." He takes a bite of the bread all Hey! I can eat if I want to! like. Fairy girl totally wants him on their team, everyone else is all "I don't want some crazy robot fighting with us, that never ends well."
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So apparently the reason there's a resistance is that criminals get hauled off to have chips inserted into their brains which really have the same effect as just giving them lobotomies. And Jesus here is SUCH A MID-90'S LAST BOSS! Anyway, he made Hakaider to be his awesome robocop sorta deal like Michael is doing, but it didn't work so well, and some scientists stole him and messed with him some more. "Fight with us! For freedom!" "Yeah, if we destroy parliament, then we'll be in charge!" "Then we'll have all the power!" Hakaider IMMEDIATELY calls out the hypocrisy there and starts smacking them around, but then some storm troopers burst in and we have a big crazy fight. Every resistance fighter except the one we care about is conveniently killed off. The storm troopers all shoot at Hakaider like crazy, then fire a rocket at him which knocks him out the window, then shoots him some more, then fire another rocket. Oh and that one guy isn't quite dead. But they shoot him again, also fairy girl, but only in the stomach, then they start marching out. She says "You bastards." And all like 20 of them simultaneously stop and turn around all indignant.. Then Michael shows up, his hand glows, he grabs her face, she screams. Now here she is walking down this street with the little speech she followed the bastards call out with looping in her head. Kinda like "Lisa needs braces!" "Dental plan!" except it's her own three lines on a loop. Then she takes Hakaider out to "the only oasis in Jesus Town" which has a giant half destroyed uh... colossus of rhodes next to a pond? Can we end the the dream sequence now? Or start one possibly. Back to goth fairy dream land. Knight throws his sword at the ground, it catches on fire and burns down a cross. Then he removes his helmet to reveal the obvious, then suddenly she's in a wedding dress. There's pretty cool music here by the way, and everywhere else for that matter. Seriously, I'm really digging this movie. It's like a hybridization of goofy 80's sci-fi cheese, weird Japanese stuff, and weird goofy british stuff.
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Anyway, eventually Hakaider rides his motorcycle out of dream land, down the highway back into the movie. Woo, more wireframe vision. He lines up a shot to shoot the death star vent on the big building where off duty storm troopers hang out with wires plugged into their heads from across the street. There's reinforcements though. Who are pretty much totally useless. They all fire machine guns at him point blank which does nothing. He gets so bored he actually just takes them out by using his shotgun as a club, and stomping one's head like a grape. Also, did I mention he has the voice of Batou? And kinda looks like Darth Vader? And his legs go VRRT-chunk? He's a pretty cool guy. He stops to rescue some caged up kids on his way to go find and kill Jesus. Then Michael attacks. They wrestle around a lot. And man, he is so Batou. "Justice? This is what I do with it. I burn it. In flames." At which point the flowers he's holding spontaneously catch fire. Then he totally beats down Michael there. When he goes in for the killing blow though, he activates his big pink butterfly wings, and gains the upper hand. Also, when these two punch each other there's crazily echoing CLANG sounds. And lots of VRRT-chunks too. It's super exaggerated and goes on a while. Also, weird. The walls bleed when based in. Or at least, they're full of red tubes for no apparent reason. Well, symbolism I guess, but it's still super weird. Michael pretty much wins, takes his shotgun, unloads it, and smacks him in the face while he's down. But Hakaider grabs the shells, and loads them into the secret backup wrist shotgun he has. He blows an arm off, then rips off that stupid freaking butterfly wing, then snaps his neck, and tips his head off, oh hey, apparently he was secretly a cyborg because it trails some serious gore behind it.
Jesus shows up and asks Hakaider to join him, and together they will plant flowers. He's not big on that. "I am the destroyer. I am the judge." Some robot hand out of nowhere grabs Michael's head and sticks it on something. Possibly this super duper awesome stop motion non-humanoid robot of doom that is seriously all kinds of super crazy awesome in every possible way except the ones it isn't. It smacks Hakaider around a bunch, but then it turns out that X on his chest has a yamato cannon deal in it. Then he doesn't bother killing Jesus because he isn't worth it, but then yeah he does because he pulls a rocket launcher when he turns his back. White light and feathers everywhere. Everywhere. Still. Then he rides off into the sunset. The end.
OK, I love the efficiency of the ending there. No swinging back for hugging times with fairy girl or anything. Just, kill bad guy, leave, done. Now to listen to that sweet sweet title screen music some more. So yeah, that was pretty great. Didn't really do much mechanical violating though. Trailers for things I don't intend to watch on this DVD by the way include Reborn from Hell 2. You know that crazy second costume Mitsurugi gets in Soul Calibur 2 with he bandaged chest and the crazy peacock hair? This is what that's from. And actually Moon Over Tao seems to have exactly enough concentrated awesome and weirdness to make up for production values that would otherwise just be a total total deal breaker, so maybe some day.
