alucard_castlevania86 When I first saw the cover of this film, I was really surprised with it since but also extremely happy since it was like a dream come true for me. Kamen Rider has been childhood hero since I was 6 and I'm still very fond of themTo get to this film, I have to stay that it was good but everything just seemed to be like going just too fast and it was more like the creators were focusing on Hongo more than Ichimoji rather than having both of the riders fight along side by side together most of the time. Apart form that, there were also a lot of parts which were not explained in the film like Kamen Rider 2's background, where did he get his bike and what was his real connection to Katsuhiko However, these flaws did not stopped KR : THE FIRST from being a great movie. The love triangle plot between Hongo, Asuka and Ichimoji was great and I really liked the part when Kamen Rider 1 saved Asuka from the spider monster defeating him in the process. The final fight was also great and I really like the choreography crew who worked out so well in making the fights very entertaining. The ending with KR 1 carrying Asuka in his arms on the beach in the end was really romantic indeed (as well as the one when they were riding together on Hongo's bike Overall, Kamen Rider THE FIRST is a great film and should be enjoyable for all the fans and its even better than its sequel THE NEXT. Its definitely something for the fans to enjoy

moonmonday I had heard of this film only after witnessing the true horror that is the more recent series of the Kamen Rider franchise, most infused with far too much pretty-boy angsting by actors who are so poor they couldn't convincingly appear on a soup commercial, coupled with female leads whom we're apparently supposed to consider ingratiatingly cute but who, in fact, are at least as incompetent as their male counterparts in terms of acting. While the traditional Kamen Rider series may not have been masterpieces themselves, many of them at least managed to convey the darkly fascinating world in which the Kamen Rider series is rooted, and to boot they had excellent and exciting fights. Not so in this film, which purports to be an homage to the original Kamen Rider series. In fact, that claim couldn't be farther from the truth.As with many of the more recent Kamen Rider series, this film is one that falls flat on its face for the attempt to inject 'adult drama' into essentially a children's series. And as always, with 'adult drama', the 'drama' in question consists of rather puerile acts and activities, childish participants, and seemingly arbitrary angst that prevents more or less all of the characters involved from being anything approaching sympathetic or interesting. Any real character development is eschewed in favor of attempts at artsy shots and sequences (which the director never once manages to pull off successfully), contrived plot devices that have no basis in the original material this claims to pull from, or totally superfluous scenes that make this seem much longer than its 1.5 hour running time. And in that seemingly interminable time, not one plot point is resolved to any satisfactory conclusion. In my mind, that spells utter failure, and I find it unlikely that this little terror will be sequelized.As with other films of this director, who seems only able to disgrace old and well-respected series with his unimaginative plodding, the focus on the human angst in favor of things actually happening brings down the film considerably. When we do get the marked relief of someone actually fighting, it's over too quickly and usually comes off as boring and too CGed-up to be anything but gaudy and confusing. Further, as usual with this director, unwelcome changes are made to the already perfectly adequate source material and then hastily discarded partially through because, quite frankly, they don't work; perhaps he saw this and decided they should be done away with, but if so he shouldn't have included them in the first place. As usual, a shoddy job.The actors fit into the aforementioned mold of being physically attractive but not much else. Further, every time they're actually required to do anything physically demanding, it's patent that they have no idea what they're doing. They are entirely unconvincing doing anything that doesn't involve sitting around whining, which they don't even manage to do that well; the acting talent gulf in this is obvious when veteran actors, terribly underused and misused for this travesty of film, outshine the entire rest of the cast simply by appearing for a few minutes in a throwaway scene or two. Films like this shouldn't go to the trouble of getting older and respected actors involved with the franchise in question, because they're only potent reminders of superior works. If they believe that it will bring in fans of the original series, they can think again. And while I have nothing against feminine-acting men, I do wish the director had given a bit more direction to some of the main actors who were supposedly very close to some of the generic females that paraded across the screen; they seemed much more interested in each other. While that's not a bad thing in my opinion, we shouldn't then be expected to believe they have any relationship at all with these girls.Movement and so forth also managed to be amazingly awkward, with one scene sticking out where a girl faints in a way so unlikely that it made me laugh. Certainly not the intended tone for that scene, but it unfortunately wasn't the first or only incident of people moving or acting in ways that were incongruously unlikely and implausible. How exactly can people do this? It's through bad direction, and that makes the horrid director's taint on this even more laughably obvious.Honestly, I can only hope this talentless hack is barred from sullying the name of any other old and respected series. Kamen Rider has been slighted enough by the recent series purporting to be faithful to the original source material. They're hardly little more than asinine soap operas with some flashy costumes and the occasional fight. If you're going to claim that your film is a return to the original Kamen Riders' era and tone, at least try to capture it. If this incompetent horror had decided to do his own original Kamen Rider film, it still would've been terrible, but not quite as insulting as claiming he was trying to redo the original series. Anyone who wants a real idea of what the original Kamen Rider series were like should seek out those series and not this pathetic excuse for film-making.

le_chooche Continuing Japaense movie industry's recent exploit of classic tokusatsu (casshar, Tetsujin 28), here comes the (yet another) remake of the Kamen rider series. On the plus side, the cinematography is wonderful. there are quite a few brilliant ideas: Shocker is like a modern Costa Nostra, forcing converts into living a double life. A stable of potentials are kept in a secret hospital for later material. The 2 riders both performs questionable actions as criminals. The creepy agent from Shocker. The taking off of the mask. These are all ideas that could have made up a great script. But sadly the scrip-writer failed to deliver on this one.This could be a great movie, if only the script didn't spent half of the running time on predictable romances by paper cutout characters and badly written cliché' ridden rumination about life, On the other hand this movie offers plenty of unexplained plot lines that just fizzled out, and, Oh, unanswered questions:1) Who got pick for conversion? Why? 2) Do the Inhumans have free will? Or not? What do they got in return for having their body altered? 3) How did Hongou Takeshi beat the need for blood transfusion? 4) WTF did Hongou do to earn him a BRAND NEW bike as a GIFT?I did force myself to sit through it. But boy, it wasn't fun.

jmaruyama Next to Ultraman, Godzilla and possibly Tetsuwan Atom, Kamen Rider is probably one of the most recognized of the Japanese heroes. Ever since his debut in 1971, Ishinomori Shoutaro's insect-themed, motorcycle riding, "bug-eyed" hero has become an almost iconic character to millions of fans not only in Japan but also across the world. The original Kaman Rider series ran for an amazing 98 episodes and spawned a long running franchise which lasts to this day. Nagaishi Takao's "Kamen Rider: The First" is the first attempt to revisit the original hero in nearly two decades (although several "new" Kamen Riders have appeared since). While "Kamen Rider: The First" does a good job at attempting to reinvent and update the original Kamen Rider character for a 21st Century audience, it also tries its hardest to appease fan boys of the original 1973 series (who are now probably now in their early 30s) . The resultant movie is however an odd hybrid that doesn't quite know what it wants to be – tribute, redo or reinterpretation? By looks alone it would seem that director Nagaishi wanted to go with a tribute to original TV story. The subtle changes to the Kamen Rider costumes for example are not striking and stay very true to the original costume designs of the hero characters. The global evil organization "Shocker" is back again as the main antagonist with even one of its original leaders, Shinegami Hakase portrayed by the late, great Amamoto Hideo making an appearance (interestingly Nagaishi's decision to use stock footage of Amamoto in character in the movie parallels Bryan Singer's similar decision to use stock footage of Marlon Brando in the upcoming "Superman Returns" film). There are also other casting winks at the franchise with several actors from other Kamen Rider TV series playing parts in this movie, the other most notable cameo being Miyauchi Hiroshi (who portrayed Kamen Rider V3) portraying Rider mentor Tachibana Tobei.Yet as with Kitamura Ryuhei's recent "Godzilla: Final Wars", KRTF is also quite a bit different from the original (not all for the best). While the original Kamen Riders #1 and #2 were cyborgs, these new "Hoppers" are alluded to be biologically altered humans with no cybernetic enhancements (quite possibly to make them more akin to "Spider-Man"). In fact, much emphasis is placed on the fact that these Kamen Riders needed to undergo periodic "blood transfusions" in order to survive (although it quickly becomes forgotten towards the ending half of the movie).While the opponents are updated variants of his past villains albeit with more modern touches, they are revealed to be just elaborately costumed humans with genetically enhanced bodies, unlike the TV series in which they were altered human fused with the DNA of animals and given cybernetic weaponry.As with some recent Hollywood adaptations of superhero characters ("Daredevil", "Fantastic Four") a lot of the more fantastical elements that made the Kamen Rider TV series so endearing to viewers (the grand conquest schemes, the diabolical costumed monsters, the cheesy SFX, the tongue-in-cheek banter) all seem to be purposely suppressed in favor of more "adult drama" and realism. Unfortunately as was the case in "Fantastic Four", KRTF also suffered from the tweaking. The Shocker organization of the movie seemed more like a criminal cartel or mob than a global menace. I missed the likes of the Ex-Nazi reject Col. Zoru, and the flamboyant, whip wielding crazy Ambassador Hell and the sneering despot Black Shogun. As young and attractive as both Sada and ISSA are they made Shocker look more like the "Brat Pack" than a terrorist threat.There were some missed opportunities with the story as well that I wish were explored further.One of the most interesting aspects of the film was Shockers' exploitation of the characters of Haruhiko and Miyoko. Shocker used their terminal conditions as a meaning of recruiting them into their organization with the promise to ending their suffering. I wish this angle could have been expanded and elaborated further as it brought an interesting dimension to the story. What if Shocker had used the hospital as a front for its sinister recruitment and abduction plans? "Cobra" and "Snake" while not seen much in their "kaizou" (altered) forms are much more interesting if not ultimately tragic villains. In fact their stories made them even more sympathetic characters than the heroes. Nagaishi must have felt a connection with their plights as he devoted almost as much screen time to them as he did the main protagonists (which unfortunately made the heroes even more one-dimensional). It would have been interesting if similar back stories could have been applied to not only Hongo and Hayato but perhaps even to both "Bat" and "Spider", who unfortunately were just relegated to atypical shadowy movie ghouls.The overall acting from all the principals was passable if not undistinguished and the action was serviceable but not extraordinary given other similar films like "Cutie Honey" and "Casshern". I was halfway expecting the almost titanic struggles that faced the original Kamen Riders in their Toei movies of the 70's but alas this newest movie left me somewhat under whelmed and disappointed with its somewhat low key approach.