[HorrorScience] Kamen Rider The Next (2007)

The film I'm going to talk about today is a bit special, since it combines the horror and tokusatsu genres (the typical Japanese superhero films and series) and is also a sequel to Kamen Rider The First (2005) which in turn is a remake of the original Kamen Rider series from the 70s.

Kamen Rider The First He told us that an organization called Shocker kidnapped innocent people, brainwashed them and subjected them to various experiments in order to give them supernatural abilities so that they could commit murders, robberies or any mission assigned to them.

One of the people kidnapped by Shocker was a scientist named Takeshi Hongo, who was turned into the assassin Grasshopper. Somehow, Hongo was recovering his memories and after realizing that he had been turned into a half-man, half-cyborg being, he decided to rebel against Shocker, adopting the identity of Kamen Rider. After eliminating several of the assassins, the evil organization decided to create a second Grasshopper, who after fighting Kamen Rider decided to join their side, becoming Kamen Rider 2.

Having explained this, we can now move on to Kamen Rider The Next, that It's a big departure from the previous film. since it was designed to please the adult audience.

The film begins when a Japanese boy is listening to the song Platinum Smile by his favorite Japanese singer (an idol named Chiharu), something strange will begin to happen in his room and to the horror of his mother, the boy will appear dead in strange conditions. It will not be the only case of this style, so word begins to spread that said song is cursed and listening to it causes death.

Two years have passed since Takeshi Hongo became Kamen Rider and now he works as a high school teacher, where he tries to teach his undisciplined students without much success. In the middle of the crazy class, one of the students (Kotomi) seems to be having problems and Hongo decides to take an interest in her, even though other teachers advise him not to worry too much about his students, it's not worth it.

Kotomo turns out to be an old friend of the famous Chiharu, who has been ignoring her for a long time and she tries to discover the reason, which leads her to contact the president of the singer's fan club, who unfortunately is listening to Platinum Smile in his car and ends up being another victim of "the curse". After learning about the event and the relationship between Kotomi and Chiharu, Hongo decides to help in his own way.

Chiharu, the famous pop star, begins to have strange visions, marks left on her body, the reflection of herself with her face bandaged... and finally the encounter with the mirror image, which turns out to be real and whose intentions do not seem very peaceful, as it chases and attacks the singer, and then throws her from the roof of the tall building in which she lives.

Hongo and Kotomi witness the event, and the dying Chiharu explains to them that she is not really who she says she is, that she was operated on to look like Chiharu and replace her after something terrible happened to her. At that moment some Shocker soldiers appear (apparently new versions of Grasshopper) and Hongo cannot avoid having to transform into Kamen Rider to defend himself against them, revealing his secret to Kotomi.

Now that it has become clear that the story of the curse is true and that Shocker is involved in some way, Hongo and Kotomi decide to go to the end of their investigation and find out what happened to the original Chiharu.

Kamen Rider The Next It left me with a bittersweet taste, well I think the mix between horror and superheroes has come out too forced and the final result does not convince me. The horror story is quite good and well carried out, in fact I think it would have worked very well as a standalone film., without having anything to do with the franchise Kamen Rider.

It's true that making the Kamen Rider stories darker and more terrifying seems like a great idea to me, but in this case I don't think it turned out well at all, maybe it's because I think that the story of a Japanese pop singer and her curse does not seem appropriate to me for a Kamen Rider movie.

Summing up, Kamen Rider The Next It's a bit of a strange movie. has great moments of terror and many scenes of the Riders fighting, it is an unusual combination and perhaps that is why it is worth seeing, although if what you want is to see a recent Kamen Rider movie and you are not interested in horror, or Japanese idols, perhaps it is better to see Kamen Rider The First.

Curiosities about the film:

• In response to the nude scenes and dark story, the director said “we wanted to make a Kamen Rider movie for adults.”
• There is a post-credits scene showing a man playing Pachinko based on the series. Kamen Rider from the 70s, a scene that was included to advertise said machine.
• The actor who plays the Pachinko player from the final scene (Yuki Kubota) ended up playing Kamen Rider Zangetsu in Kamen Rider Gaim.
• The story of Kamen Rider V3 is totally different from the original 1973 version of the character.