OK boys and girls welcome to class, how many of you are familiar with the term 'Acid Western'? (Does quick headcount) Good, good, go to the head of the class. For the rest of you the term 'acid western' refers to a film or piece of literature that uses the looks and or tropes of the western genre but also has a lot of surreal imagery and metaphor (hence 'acid'). This genre is different from 'weird westerns' because 'weird westerns' are regular westerns but with a science-fiction or fantasy twist. Whether the creators realized it or not this film is an acid western; structurally it's like any old Tokusatsu film but with a lot of the tropes associated with the western genre, but it also has a lot of surreal motifs and visual metaphors which make it an acid western. The dystopian sci-fi setting only makes it weirder. Set in a distant future where civilization has collapsed, save for this one town called 'Jesus Town' which is ruled by a dictator, a group of thieves break into a vault believing it to contain treasure. They are in fact greatly surprised to find not treasure in the vault but a robotic being called Hakaider (the principal villain from the Kikaider tokusatsu franchise) along with his bike and shotgun and no memory of his past. Once he has been freed he sets out to discover himself only to accidentally get caught up in a rebellion against the despotic ruler of Jesus town. Structurally this movie has the vibe of a spaghetti western like Django or A Fistful of Dollars, a lone stranger with a mysterious past wanders into a corrupt town and sets about righting wrongs, replace the motorcycles with horses and the comparison is complete. This movie is also one of the nicest looking tokusatsu films ever thanks in no part to the director Keita Amemiya who is a notable artist, writer and director who gives his movies a distinct organic mechanical look, along the same vein as H.R. Geiger or David Cronenberg. Amemiya gives the movie a dark but sleek look but also laces it with a lot of strange visuals. For example in this movie white is used to represent the forces of evil while black is used to represent not-bad, Not good per-say just not bad. This movie also has a couple of dream sequences which have imagery like black knights and mummy angels. The final fight scene in this movie is also note worthy for it takes place in a white room and is fought between Hakaider and an evil robot called Michael, seems pretty straightforward but as they fight they keep breaking the walls of the room and the internal mechanisms of the room are red and have a strangely organic look to them so that by the end of the fight the room looks like a Tarantino action scene just happened in it despite the combatants both being robots. On top of all these weird qualities add good action, a kick-ass score, decent acting, and run-time that just over an hour and you get one of my favourite tokusatsu films. It's weird as hell but fun if you know what you're getting into. Recommend for fans of tokusatsu, fans of strange and people who like picking movies apart.
