The Weekly Ride Review (At The Movies): Kamen Rider 555 20th Paradise Regained

Open your eyes for the 20th Faiz… Ethan’s back with a new Weekly Ride Review At The Movies, this time taking a look at the 20th anniversary movie for Kamen Rider 555. Will it be something they feel as negatively about as the OOOs 10th movie or will they come away with more positive impressions?

This is your spoiler notice. The movie is a direct sequel to the ending of the series set twenty years later, so there will be some spoilers for things that happen in the series as well as me talking openly about the movie’s plot as well. Also, this movie is more graphic than some of the other things I’ve covered up ’til now and gets into some serious themes such as death and a characters attempted suicide. Some reader/viewer discretion is advised.

Recap 

Set several years after the series ending, Mari runs Keitaro’s cleaning shop with his nephew, Jotaro, a somehow alive again Masato Kusaka, Naoya Kaido, and three new Orphnochs. The latter four mainly run the sister location turned ramen shop. Where is Takumi Inui? Well, in some years in between the movie and the show he has vanished, going out for a walk on his own after noticing ash coming from his hand, with Mari being the last one to see him. 

Over the years, the government has enlisted Smart Brain, one of Japan’s largest tech companies and tasked them with eliminating all Orphnochs. Mari and the cleaning shop crew doing their best to believe in the Orphnochs’ potential to live peaceful lives with humans by offering sanctuary to as many as they can. 

When one of the three new Orphnochs transform to save an old lady, she reports him to Smart Brain and he is quickly cornered by Kamen Rider Muez (Rena Kurumi), the captain of Smart Brain’s Ophnoch extermination force and a squad of Riotroopers. Eventually, the rest of the cleaner crew arrives to back him up as he turns into Kamen Rider Delta with Kusaka turning into Kamen Rider Kaixa. They seem to be doing alright against Rena and the Troopers until her partner joins her. 

That patner is Takumi, who transforms into Kamen Rider Next Faiz: an upgraded more modern version of Faiz that’s capable of turning into Axel form and materializing weapons to him at the push of a button on the phones touch screen.

Thanks to some luck, the cleaning crew make an escape. Later that night, Mari is taking a quiet moment by some water when Takumi approaches and gives her the mayo he said he would buy when he left her years ago. Takumi reveals that, when he left that day, he was close to dying but Smart Brain captured him and has prolonged his life. We even see Rena giving him some serum shortly after the fight. He tells Mari to give up on the Orphnochs and lead a quiet life but, as he turns around to leave, Rena, who was hiding in the shadows, strikes, knocking Mari out and having Smart Brain operate on her to trigger the latent Orphnoch gene within her and turn her into the Cat Orphnoch.

In response to Mari instinctively killing the people operating on her when she first transforms, Rena leads a task force to attack the ramen shop, where everyone had been helping out after the loss of one of the new Orphnochs during the last fight.

During the fight, the current president of Smart Brain, Nozomi Kitazaki, arrives and the second male Orphnoch that was at part of the cleaners crew runs up to him asking if his intel was good and if this means he can join them as he doesn’t want to die. Kitazaki kills him with razor wires that come out of his hands. The last of the new Orphnochs to join Mari’s sanctuary, a lady named Kei runs to him distraught. Mari watching this transforms into her Orphnoch form and starts to rampage, briefly realizing what she’s become when Rena starts taunting her, she makes an escape. Her rampage served as cover for everyone else to do so as well. 

The remaining members of the cleaner crew arrive to find Mari hiding. Overcome with her new Orphnoch instincts, she transforms, attacking them and eventually changing target when Takumi arrives, shortly before fleeing. Mari then jumps from a tall building trying to take her own life. As she lies on the floor, Takumi finds her and takes her to a safe place. When she wakes up the two talk, Takumi telling her to live in the moment and when she goes to storm out he drops to his knees and asks her to save him. The two then make love in the Orphnoch forms. Afterwards, the new couple go outside to watch the moon together. The pair are so focused worrying about the other to think about dying. 

They are interrupted when Nozomi, Rena and the Riotroops arrive to kill them. The pair, in their Orphnoch forms, do battle with Smart Brains forces, during which they learn that Nozomi is an android and this is how the government is controlling him. 

The battle moves to the woods and Rena stops just before launching a finisher at Mari and Takumi, due to her feelings towards Takumi. Nozomi stabs her with a tendril made of his razor wire before unfurling it, gruesomely exploding Rena. The cleaner crew arrives and throw Takumi the Faiz Next driver. As he goes to transform, he tells Kusaka to take Mari someplace safe.

After he’s far enough from them Kusaka reveals, while doing the face, that he, too, is an android; one built by Smart Brain to wait till Mari turned into an Orphnoch and kill her. He destroys the old Kaixa phone and transforms into Next Kaixa to attack Mari. 

Meanwhile the Nozomi grabs the Muez driver and transforms. Kei and Naoya eventually get separated and the battle between Nozomi and Takumi leads them to a warehouse (you know the one). After getting knocked out of Next Faiz, Jotaro arrives, bringing with him the original Faiz Gear, which Takumi uses to transform. Kusaka and Mari’s fight also leads them to the same warehouse, where Takumi proceeds to school both of them in a two vs. one fight with Mari helping land a finishing Rider kick. 

In the closing epilogue, we see that Smart Brain has made a several Kusaka androids making one the new president of Smart Brain. He does the iconic ‘Kaixa face’ one more time before we cut to Takumi, Mari, Kei, Jotaro and Naoya sitting down to enjoy a meal together. Takumi and Mari remark that the lifelines on their palm seem way longer now, bringing the movie to a close.      

The Bad

Others have said this but this is the most Inoue movie possible and that’s just something some people are not going to vibe with. Inoue at his best is often somewhat polarizing, especially with his Rider works. While I am overall positive on the film, there are a few things I didn’t like. I do not like the Muez suit: the shoulder pads are way too big and give it all a very robot made out of cardboard boxes energy, if that makes sense? Other than that, I wish we had seen more of the new characters. They felt kinda flat for me, personally. Take Rena, for example. We don’t see much of her outside of her affection for Takumi and her quirk of getting embarrassed when transforming in front of crowds. It would have been nice to see more of her then just that. 

The Good

Pretty much everything else honestly, the fight choreography, the acting, the cinematography are all fantastic. 

Personally, I really like the contrast of the naturally occurring Orphnochs and Smart Brains man made androids. All of the implications of the ending, which did feel like Inoue writing an excuse for Kohei Murakami to come back, maybe even die as many times as writers want, assuming there’s not another Faiz anniversary movie in the future that acts on it. 

While I didn’t like the Muez suit, I will say the Next suits have grown on me a lot since their reveal. The smartphone inspiration being felt in the way the suits try to do everything in one whereas the older Faiz has a lot of accessories. Personally, I hope this and the murder special TTFC mini series isn’t the last we see of the Next suits.      

The Conclusion

I would very much recommend this movie. It just feels very different from other V-Cinema we have gotten recently and I think that might be the heart everyone working on this clearly put into it. It’s just great stuff. Personally, when the subs for this dropped I was having a rough night and hearing Takumi say to live in the moment and the way the movie explores its themes and ideas all really resonated with me in a way I’ll be thinking about for a long time to come. 

What did you think? Did you enjoy the movie? Would you watch a follow up to this with Kusaka as the main antagonist? Do you hope the Next suits come back in more things in the future? As always, I’ve been Ethan: a writer and reviewer opening their eyes for the next Faiz for The Toku Source and I’ll cya next time.