If you look past the hokey rubber suits, the cheap synth soundtrack and the schlocky dialogue, The Guyver: Dark Hero is a fun and endearing action film. It’s also an example of what can be done on a small budget with a plucky crew, a lot of passion and tons of heart.
Now, Guyver: Dark Hero is over 30 years old at this point. If you are coming into this fresh, unprepared for how rubbery and ridiculous this is, you are already spin-kicking up the wrong tree.
However, for any action connoisseurs or rubber fetishists out there, Guyver: Dark Hero is like watching a 15-rated version of the Power Rangers: replace putties and the rubbery bad-guy-of-the-week with Zoanoids (genetically modified combat monsters), sprinkle in some elbow blades, forehead lasers and buckets and buckets of filthy alien blood.
What doesn’t require a tongue-in-cheek justification is the action choreography, which is where this film shines. Given the intense nature of the source manga and anime and special effects more easily created in animation, Guyver: Dark Hero does a tremendous job of not only translating it to the screen but taking some of the fights to another level. The action, when it does get going, is legitimately top-tier martial arts. There isn’t much of it, but what there is, is very darn good.
David Hayter, later of Metal Gear Solid fame and a writer on the Bryan Singer X-Men films, plays the titular character, the Guyver, whose life mission is to eradicate the Zoanoid scourge from the world. This was one of his earlier performances, so he hadn’t yet built up the gravelly gravitas he would as he progressed into voice acting, most famously as Metal Gear’s Solid Snake. Honestly, for a lot of people, it was mind-blowing to see the face behind one of the most famous video game voices in the history of mankind, but let’s not digress.
Guyver: Dark Hero is a B-movie, soft-focus classic. A legendary Blockbuster Video rental from back in the day and one of the earlier instances of a popular anime being turned into a motion picture. It may be crazy to imagine, but it was way ahead of its time, and it’s not just a silly curio from a bygone era. Its legitimately cool, high-octane action is worth watching.
Blu-Ray Special Features
- Three new audio commentaries including one with director Steve Wang
- New interviews with producer/director Steve Wang, actors David Hayter, Kathy Christopherson, Screenwriter Nathan Long, Composer Les Claypool III and other members of the cast and crew
- Behind-the-Scenes footage from the original shoot
- Archival Making of Guyver: Dark Hero
- Trailers
- Photo Galleries including sketches
Guyver: Dark Hero is available on Blu-Ray from Toy Robot Video now.
