Kamen Rider Trilogy (Standard Edition) [Blu-ray]

What we have here is a set of 3 Kamen Rider movies that came out in the 1990s. For anyone who doesn’t know who Kamen Rider is, he is basically superhero dressed like a grasshopper who rides a motorcycle & fights crime. It’s a long story but basically he was one of many precursors to Power Rangers and has had various different tv series & movies over the decades in Japan. Each of the movies in this set are standalone films that don’t share any continuity & I don’t think are connected to any of the Kamen Rider tv series either. They are basically just short little one-off films featuring Kamen Rider fighting weird(and I do mean VERY, VERY WEIRD) monsters and kicking butt. In fact, the last 2 films in this set, “Kamen Rider 0” and “Kamen Rider J” have very little actual story and really just feel like excuses to show off some cool practical special effects and bizarre creature designs(like seriously, some of the creature designs in these films are really surreal & almost border on nightmare fuel). That being said, the first film in this set, “Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue”, stands out from the other 2 films by not only having an actually decently written story, but it also is much different tonally speaking. Whereas those other 2 films feel more like kid-friendly, power ranger type of films, this one feels much more adult with blood & gore, & even some brief nudity on occasion. It also has a much more darker & grounded story with the Kamen Rider character being given a more “body horror” vibe. Like usually Kamen Rider is always depicted as a hero wearing a campy grasshopper inspired suite that he fights crime in(again, much like a power rangers character), but here he literally transforms into a gross half human-half grasshopper hybrid in similar fashion to “American Werewolf in London” and straight up mutilates & rips apart his enemies. It’s definitely not for kids and feels more like a David Cronenberg type of film with all the body horror elements, and I honestly freaking love it! It’s so unconventional that it works. It’s basically like an R-rated power rangers movie and it actually does have a well written script which utilizes the darker themes pretty well. I really wish the other 2 films in this set had stuck with the darker body horror aspects but sadly they play it safe and are much more conventional to the kid-friendly Kamen rider tv series. They are also not as well written with both “Kamen Rider 0” & “Kamen Rider J” having little to no actual thought put into their stories. They are still pretty fun though, with both films featuring some really creative and surreal creature designs for the monsters that Kamen Rider has to fight and the action scenes themselves are pretty well choreographed & entertaining. “Kamen Rider 0” has a really unique shape-shifting villain that feels like a cross between the “T-1000” from “Terminator 2” & and “The Predator” with some really great practical special effects and even some cool stop motion effects in some scenes. And “Kamen Rider J” features a living bio-mechanical alien fortress that feels like something straight out of the mind of H. R. Giger. That movie in particular is pretty fun just because Kamen Rider actually turns into a giant Kaiju at the end & battles the alien fortress in a sequence that feels like it was straight out of a Godzilla film! So yeah, none of the stuff in those last 2 films make any sense story wise. It all feels like a bunch of nonsense; but it is pretty fun to watch & is certainly never boring. Overall, this set is worth getting just for “Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue” as that film is a genuinely well made body horror action film; with the other 2 films having just enough cool effects & action sequences to be worth watching. Would definitely recommend! I just wish the last 2 had just a little bit better scripts, but still fun watches for sure