Ninja Sentai Kakuranger the Movie Review

One for all, all for one!

In Kakuranger's first big screen adventure in widescreen, which was later remasted in glorious HD, we meet two siblings, a strange looking doll and a Yokai who wants to make his dream town by turning certain objects in miniature sizes! Can the Kakurangers stop him?

For starters, since this is a movie, it lasted for at least 30 minutes including the opening credits. An average episode of the series last for at least 19 minutes including the opening and ending credits. So basically, the movie is two episodes rolled into one. More on the technical stuff in this movie, I love the HD remastering of this movie. It looks really crisp less the stock footage, which was basically cropped to widescreen resolution. To be honest, I hate Toei for not actually putting any effort in making new footage based on the TV stock footage. Seriously, most of the cropped stock footage looked so awkward in widescreen.

More on the technical stuff in this movie, it is said that this takes place between episodes 6-7 and if you are paying attention on the background characters in the enemy's base, you can see the Yokai from the show's 9th episode and the show's 11th episode just standing there. Before talking about the movie, guess you are wondering why this movie lasted for only 30 minutes. It is simply because the running time of the movie is shared with Kamen Rider J and the Blue Swat movie. So yeah, the movie suffers the same situation with summer Super Sentai movies that lasts for at least 20-35 minutes thanks to the Kamen Rider movie.

As for the story itself, it is about two siblings who are living in a large house with their mother. Two strange men warned them that there is a doll that is cursing the house, which leads to a series of bizarre events that happened to them. It's so bizarre that it feels like it came straight from a horror movie. The visuals look really creepy. I mean, the tongue licking scene, the arms on the wall and the pseudo 3D effect when the Yokai popped out in the walls made my hairs rise up a bit! Thankfully, the Kakurangers happen to pass by when this is happening and later end up fighting the Yokai duo.

For the sake of differentiation, I will call them with their names, these two are Hitotsume-kozou, which are basically Japanese Cyclops who likes to play pranks on kids and kidnap these kids. The fight of the Kakurangers with the duo is fine I guess. Aside from seeing that these two can be cunning in battle, we finally learn the names of the individual weapons of the Kakurangers that we barely see them use it in the series. Thanks to their appearance in the movie and how they highlight these weapons, I notice that they are attached to the Shinobi Knuckle. As for each weapon, all of them are awesome less Saizou's. I mean seriously, it is a water gun?!

Because the strange men earlier said that to throw the doll, the kid is convinced but the Kakurangers thought of otherwise. If there is one thing I observed with the doll during the time their house is acting weird, that it actually repelled the disaster to further escalate. Meanwhile, we meet the Hitotsume-kozou duo's boss. Their boss is Onyudo, and he loves to make a perfect town by turning real life objects into miniature figures. Wait a minute, this plot sounds familiar, I think they used a similar plot in Zyuranger except that Zyuranger episode has a kid and that adorable monster maker named Dondon, except this duo are not aware that they are doing something bad.

Speaking of Zyuranger, I can't help but notice that the building destruction footage used in this movie came from Zyuranger! Same goes with the building moving footage! If they cut the flying building thing, it might take me some time to notice that they are using the footage coming from Zyuranger's 1st episode! Now that he has gathered enough buildings and vehicles, the only thing missing is the house owned by the kids. Thus, it is time for the Hitotsume-kozou to begin their second attempt to have the house for the sake of their boss' collection.

Using the little brother as hostage is a brilliant plan, especially if you have an older sister who is so concerned about the safety of her sibling. But before Sasuke, Jiraiya and Saizou arrive to help Tsuruhime, Onyudo finally turned the house small after the older sister threw the doll because of the orders of the Hitotsume-kozou duo. Thankfully, Seikai is in the scene and you can say he basically saved the day in a sense that he is the one who informed the rest of the team on what happened.

Because the Kakurangers followed the flying miniature building, they were able to infiltrate Onyudo's base. As for Tsuruhime and the older sister, they are basically under the clutches of the enemy and basically, these two require rescuing from the other Kakurangers. To be honest, even though she is the leader of the Kakurangers, she is often got herself kidnapped in a couple of occasions.

The infiltration scene in this movie is well done, you can feel that they are indeed ninjas and not just guys wearing colorful spandex and has the word "ninja" plastered in their name just for them to become ninja. What made the infiltration scene cooler is that they are just wearing their standard ninja gear when they are infiltrating the base. Much to the other four Kakurangers' surprise, it is actually a trap set by Onyudo to trap the other Kakurangers so that they can have fresh human barbeque, cooked inside a cage! Wait a minute, this situation sounds really familiar, am I watching Zyuranger episode 1 or Kakuranger the Movie?

Unlike the Zyurangers who are screaming for help, well it was just Dan screaming that he doesn't want to become barbeque, but you get the point. Anyway, this situation showed us Tsuruhime's leadership skills. Like most leaders, she delegates the job and does minimal dirty work (less laundry but that's in a different episode). The ones who did most of the dirty work are the boys as Sasuke transforms into a fire extinguisher! What made it entertaining is the fact that it's Sasuke using his breath to put out the flames!

Now comes the best part in this cage escape scene, destroying the cage for Tsuruhime and the kids. The boys left the cage and they all transformed into different cage breaking tools less Sasuke as he uses his nose to plug in the electric cord to power up Jiraiya as a Rock Crusher! That scene is so hilarious that I suddenly forgot that the movie began with something really bizarre! To add up the comedy, the way the Kakurangers in power tool mode are breaking the cage is basically them biting the cage to destroy it!

Since this method didn't work, Tsuruhime ordered them to use centrifugal force so that the wind can remove the cage for them... and it worked. Wow, the boys suck when it comes to breaking cages since they needed Tsuruhime's help for them for them to free the rest out of the cage. Now that the Yokai failed in barbequing humans, it is time for the Kakurangers to strike back! The fights in this scene are really fantastic, and this scene made me realize that this movie highlighted three Kakurangers in the entire movie.

These three ninjas are Sasuke for his hot-bloodedness and how he acted as the field leader, Tsuruhime because of her leadership skills and how she comforted the kids even though she ended up becoming kidnapped by the bad guys and lastly, Seikai. Seriously, he really stand out in this one thanks to his initiative and that he can actually do great things in battle, such as making better illusions. To put it simply, I slowly like Seikai a bit more. More on the fights, we see Sasuke perform his Doppelganger Technique to confuse his enemies. It worked, but it is not enough to defeat the three of them.

Thanks to Onyudo's illusion technique, our heroes are trapped in some subspace, but thanks to Ninpo: Thunder Wave, they were able to escape this dimension! The move itself reminded me of one Bio Electron move from Bioman less the colorful special effects with more ripple bending stuff going on. After finishing the older member of the Hitotsume-kozou duo thanks to the Shark Driver finisher, it is time for the giant battle.

The giant battle in this movie is fine I guess as they were able to highlight that there are five Juusho in battle. But if there is one Juusho that stand out in this scene, that would be Red Sarudar and Yellow Kumado. Thanks to Red Sarudar's finisher, they were able to defeat the remaining member of the Hitotsume-kozou duo. All that is remaining is Onyudo. After forming Muteki Shogun in that awkward looking stock footage formation scene, Onyudo used his shrinking spell, only for it to backfire thanks Muteki Shogun's defense.

Now that Onyudo is now small, they did something I didn't expect the Kakurangers to do. Use the Muteki Shogun's finisher on one small enemy! I mean, they can finish the guy with a Kakuranger Ball but nope, they need to do that. I know, it is to promote the toys but the guy deserves a mercy kill and not overkill! Oh well, at least they defeated the guy and that's all that matters.

The movie ends and everything is back to normal and the father of the kids will return to Japan after his work overseas. As for our heroes, Jiraiya is kinda jealous about their family that he even said his jealousy in Japanese with some Engrish in it! Wait a minute, Jiraiya can speak Engrish?! So yeah, overall, it was a fun movie and is basically Kakuranger in a nutshell. It has all the elements that made Kakuranger fun to watch and to review at the same time. The Storyteller, the amazing ninja action featuring comic book sound effects and my personal favorite, the balance between comedy and serious.