Director: Kurando Mitsutake
Year: 2023
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Karajishi Kamen: Lion-Girl
Genre: Action/Fantasy
Plot:
During a cataclysmic apocalypse, a series of mutant hybrids of mankind and interstellar beasts arose taking over the planet and intent on using mankind for their own personal use. When a costumed superhero discovers their plans and realizes that her decades of training is the perfect opportunity to stop the deadly creatures, she sets out on a path of justice and vengeance to stop the creatures and save mankind.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable if flawed genre effort. When this one works the best is the massively entertaining over-the-top sense of theatrics on display, not just from the flashy costumes and impressive creature designs but the vibrant and hard-hitting encounters that are featured here. Despite the proclamation that the titular superhero is a master of martial arts, this is eschewed in favor of gunfighting and psychic powers that offer elaborate cheesy effects to pull off correctly as the series of high-energy encounters throughout the second half here propel it along rather nicely.
Beyond that, the film is decidedly decent enough with some flaws here. The complicated backstory for what’s going on, the rules at play within this society, how the various factions are formed, and the build-up of the main superhero’s origins all make this one ar more involved than it needs to be, especially when a preamble or opening narration could’ve fixed wide swaths of this material out of the way so it’s not an unnecessarily overlong length. Some of this is absolutely necessary for what’s going on but a lot of the incidental features here are just pace-killing at its worst which is the main issue here.
Overview: ***/5
Featuring a lot to like about it but still featuring some minor flaws, this is an enjoyable superhero story mixed with the right amount of exploitation elements to help overcome some struggles in the pacing and storyline that are there by necessity at times. Those who are fine with the style presented here, are fans of the creative crew, or are curious about it will find some likable factors here while most others out there should heed caution with this one.
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