Film Review: HK / 変態仮面 [2013] - Japan' answer to Spiderman

HK / 変態仮面 (Hentai Kamen)
Production year: 2013
Runtime:  90 mins
Director: Yûichi Fukuda
Writer: Yûichi Fukuda, Shun Oguri
Original Creator: Keishu Ando
Starring: Ryuhei Suzuki, Fumika Shimizu, Shunsuke Daitô, Nana Katase

What do you get when you have a closet-masochist police officer for a father and a SM dominatrix for a mother... A superhero that wears female panties on his face! Duh!
Yes, I finally got around to seeing the film I previewed in a previous post, HK / 変態仮面 (Hentai Kamen)! And it was everything I expected it to be! i.e It was AWESOME!!

Hentai Kamen is about the aforementioned highschool boy, Kyosuke Sikijo (Ryuhei Suzuki). Despite having a strong sense of justice, inherited from his father, he is extremely weak. He joins the school's martial arts club in order to get stronger. When he finds his love-interest/classmate Himeno Aiko (Fumika Shimizu) involved in a Bank robbery, in pure desperation he puts on a pair of female undergarments mistaking it for a mask to protect his identity. At that moment, his "hidden pervert power" (inherited from his dominatrix mother) blossoms and he transforms into the perverted masked-superhero Hentai Kamen!

Radioactive spider? meh...

The film is adapted from a very lowbrow manga series published in the famous manga magazine Weekly Shonen JUMP (known for Dragon Ball, ONE PIECE, Naruto, Bleach). Despite the series only lasting one year, it has a substancial cult following. The film whilst capturing the essence of the original manga, manages to be a metanarrative of modern superhero movies, such as Spiderman (HK uses a bondage whip to sling himself around the city).

ARGH! My part in superhero world!

The story and the characters are as hammy as you can get. I guess that is meant to be the point but some of the characterization too poor to reach that "so bad it's good" mark. The notable offender being the Bondage Queen Mother (Nana Katase). Katase, using known for playing an upper-class trophy wife, is playing far too out of her comfort-zone and you can tell.

"I have no idea what I am doing..."

What holds the film together is the lead actor Ryohei Suzuki who does a brilliant job selling the role of HK. His parody performance of the Peter Parker-esque loser protagonist is spot on and his beefcake body looks stunning. In no joke, I think he is deserving of a Japanese Academy Award more so than anyone in these past few years.

dat ass... oh wait...

There are also some underdeveloped plot points that had the potential of being story gems. 3 interesting enemy characters were brushed aside as quickly as they were introduced. There was a very interesting parody of the common superhero dilemma to save 1000 lives or risk losing the lover (HK faces saving 1000 girls from being molested or going on a date with Aiko and *SPOILER* he picks the latter!), but the consequence for his actions pull up short.

Despite some glaring flaws, I must say I did laugh very hard throughout the film. Where it does shine, it gleams so bright that it blinds you. The comedy is very crude and mostly dick jokes. But what do you expect from a movie with this title?

I highly recommend everyone to go watch it so we get a sequel where HK is now a freelance photographer/scientist inheriting a billion dollars from his parents who were killed by a clown as he comes to grips with being an alien.