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| All images courtesy: Toy Robot Video |
Arrow Video subsidiary label Toy Robot Video launches in early-September, with a debut title that has been eagerly awaited by a small but passionate niche of cult-film fans for years: the first ever blu-ray release of 1994’s Guyver 2: Dark Hero. The original The Guyver (1991) has gotten a couple boutique releases now, first by Arrow Video, and then in a substantially upgraded edition by Unearthed Classics (see our review here). But for whatever reason (I suspect both licensing difficulties and source-element quality issues were a factor), Guyver 2 never followed, despite being widely considered by fans to be the superior of the two films. Now Toy Robot Video is finally correcting this longstanding injustice, and they are making it more than worth the wait. Guyver 2 comes to us in an absolutely stacked special edition, loaded with extras, and featuring two separate restorations: a faithful scan of the only surviving film print, and an “enhanced special edition” (much more on that in the section reviewing the disc itself, below – if you want those answers, we’ve got them). This is one hell of a launch for a new label, and a very exciting day for Guyver fans – of whom I am definitely one.
THE FILM:
(this portion of the review originally published June 2016 for our Cult Cinema series)
1991’s The Guyver has always been a nostalgic guilty-pleasure favorite of mine: a not-necessarily-good but very entertaining movie that combines excellent creature effects, terribly ill-advised comedy, and the most extremely kitschy flavors of '90s-ness into a package that is as fun as it is really bizarre. However, as a lifelong fan of the anime and manga series on which the film was based, I am also well aware of just what a wasted opportunity The Guyver was in some ways. Yoshiki Takaya's Bio-Booster Armour Guyver was one of the best anime and manga series to make the jump from Japan to the U.S. in the late-'80s and early-'90s. It should have easily made for an equally excellent big-screen adaptation... if the studio had let co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang and producer Brian Yuzna make the darker and more faithful adaptation that they had wanted. But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had just been a huge hit, and the studio demanded that The Guyver be retrofitted mid-pre-production into a kid-friendly TMNT ripoff, and the tonally-messy film we know and (sort of) love was the result. But not unlike its main character, the franchise somehow survived what should have been certain death, and rose from the ashes of this first not-exactly-successful adaptation to get another chance. When the first film became a surprise cult hit on cable and VHS, New Line was interested in a sequel; and this time the original film's co-director (and fight choreographer and one of its special effects artists) Steve Wang was given full creative control, to follow the darker and more serious vision that he and Screaming Mad George had had the first time around. Wang used the opportunity to course-correct the previous film's mistakes, and create the really good, darker and more serious Guyver movie that should have been made in the first place. In doing so he not only managed to create that rarest thing, a sequel that is better than the original, but something even rarer: a sequel to a fairly questionable film that is genuinely pretty great.
In a then-unprecedented move, Wang's movie was essentially a soft reboot, much along the same lines as the Edward Norton Incredible Hulk or the TV series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The leads were recast, events from the previous film were alluded to, but more as recaps than integral parts to the story, and the whole thing was very much meant to stand on its own as a superior alternative to its predecessor. He didn't even call the film Guyver 2; that title first appeared on the American box art. Instead, everywhere else in the world (including the actual opening credits) the film is simply Guyver: Dark Hero. Wang's half-sequel/half-reboot was a success: Guyver: Dark Hero is not only a vast improvement over the original, but also one of the coolest (and most underrated) superhero films of the 1990s.
This time it is David Hayter (the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid games, and the screenwriter of X-Men, X2, and Watchmen) who plays Sean, the college student whose body has become host to the living suit of armor called the Guyver. With his mental state slipping as the Guyver forces him to feed its bloodlust, Sean searches for the armor's origins in hopes of finding a way to escape it; a search that leads him to an archaeological dig investigating possible alien artifacts. Of course, this also leads him back into battle with the shapeshifting monsters of the Chronos corporation (interestingly spelled Kronos this time around; another sign that this is a rebooted universe). From the very first scene, in which the Guyver brutally deals with a gang of drug smugglers, it is immediately clear that this is a very different movie from its goofball predecessor. It is dark, it is violent (the film earns its R rating in the first five minutes), and it is not messing around. While the first film felt like a harder-edged knockoff of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, the grim and gritty opening sequence of Dark Hero feels more like Darkman, or Spawn. It also introduces a fascinating concept: that the armor is alive, and has a sadistic will of its own that is very much at odds with the well-intentioned Sean. The rest of the film follows up on this change of direction excellently, never shying away from the darker and bloodier side of the anime, and really digging into the more intriguing aspects of the story.
Sean's existential crisis of whether the armor has fundamentally changed who he is - and if so, what it has changed him into - is the emotional backbone of the film. It does a good job of showing how someone's life would be totally upended if circumstances suddenly turned them into a superhero, and even uses some pretty effective body-horror imagery to look at how scary it would be to undergo that transformation because of an external force. The script is far more concerned with sci-fi concepts like this than just being an action movie. Of course, there is still lots of action to be found in Dark Hero - actually, more and generally better action set-pieces than the previous film - but the movie uses the luxury of its longer running time (just over two hours) to develop a very strong story, and dive deeply into the series' mythology and history. Despite being a good half-hour longer than the typical straight-to-video film, it never feels overlong, and certainly never padded. Instead, it has ambitions that go beyond plenty of theatrical films in the genre, and really does justice to the concepts and style of the long-running comic (and the shorter but just as narratively ambitious anime) in exactly the way the 1991 film failed to do.
Of course, this isn't to say that Dark Hero is without flaws. While it is unusually well-made for a straight-to-video film, and manages to stretch its production values far enough that it probably could have carried a theatrical release, there are aspects of the production that occasionally show off its straight-to-video limitations. Its lower budget is evident in aspects of its production: the heavy use of outdoor, wilderness locations rather than city streets or backlot sets, the 16mm cinematography which is occasionally rough around the edges, and the reuse of some of the creature suits from the first film. The acting is also uneven, with a couple wooden performances standing out. However, the performances are probably better than in the first film overall, aside from that movie's bigger names like Mark Hamill and David Gale; certainly on the better end of the '90s-low-budget spectrum. In general the film is able to make up for its budgetary shortcomings with its ambitious ideas, and by using its strengths very effectively.
One of these strengths is its very good central performance from prolific voice actor David Hayter. In the first Guyver, Jack Armstrong had been decent but unspectacular as Sean. Hayter is a major step up, bringing emotional complexity, charisma, and genuine pathos to the role. This more complex take on the character presents Sean as someone torn between conflicting desires to be a hero and just a normal guy, and resisting dark impulses from the armor to be a more ruthless antihero. Hayter plays all three sides of Sean very effectively, and his performance would absolutely be at home in a theatrical film. His voice work for the Metal Gear Solid games and the 1990s animated Spider-Man series (in which he voiced Captain America) has made him a fan favorite in the world of voice acting, but this film makes a strong case that he should get more chances to act in front of the camera.
The most prominent strength of the film, as with its predecessor, is the excellent practical effects work. While Steve Wang may have saved some money by reusing a few monster suits, it was clearly worth it, because it allowed him to put the budget where it really counted: in making the new creatures (and the more otherworldly aspects of their new environment) truly spectacular. The two main Zoanoid villains look awesome – even better than the best creatures from the 1991 film, which were already quite impressive. Their features and animatronic facial movements are extremely lifelike and realistic, and their design strikes a perfect balance between sci-fi and horror archetypes. The suits are worn by some pretty fantastic stunt people too, and the fight scenes between these creatures and the Guyver are more impressive and intricately choreographed than those in the original, with some genuine Hong Kong-style martial arts action and wire work. The film's climactic battle is particularly fantastic, with its hybrid of great action choreography and really badass creature design. Just as impressive as the creatures themselves are the film's handful of sets, which likewise value quality over quantity. The sets do a wonderful job of creating on a grand scale the organic-machinery aesthetic of the Guyver armor itself, and very effectively bring the anime/manga to life. Between these sets and the creatures that inhabit them, you would never guess that this film was made for only a third of the budget of the original: under a million dollars. By knowing where to put that money to the best use, Steve Wang created a film that, while clearly not mega-budgeted, looks significantly more expensive than it is.
Guyver 2: Dark Hero is a perfect illustration of how imagination and passion are so much more important than money when it comes to making a good genre film. This is low-budget filmmaking done right, with a great vision of what the story should be, and the knowledge of effects and design necessary to stretch limited funds to achieve very memorable visuals. It may be rough around the edges in some aspects of its production quality and acting, but it more than makes up for it with the things that it really gets right, like its principal creature and set design, David Hayter's strong central performance, and very good story. This is the movie that 1991's The Guyver should have been. If the original film was this good, or even if it had this tone and understanding of the material, it would have been far more successful, and probably would have spawned a franchise that went beyond just one straight-to-video sequel. As it is, this half-sequel/half-reboot deserves to be more widely-seen than it is, and deserves better than to have the flaws of its predecessor held against it, and I am so glad that Toy Robot Video is finally making that more of a possibility. Even if you've never seen The Guyver, this film is definitely recommended; seeing the original isn't even a prerequisite (although I do love it, in a guilty-pleasure disasterpiece kind of way). If you have seen the original and enjoyed it, you'll find much more to like here, and even if you saw the 1991 film and hated it, this far superior take on the source material may win you over.
The 1990s were famously not a great decade for superhero movies, with only a small handful like Batman Returns, The Crow, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Darkman, and Blade being particularly memorable. Even with significantly fewer resources than any of those films, Guyver 2: Dark Hero is absolutely good enough to make the short list of that decade's most memorable entries in the genre. While it can't touch the excellence of Batman Returns or The Crow, I would say it is at least as good as Darkman, and easily better than plenty of the decade's other attempts at comic book movies, like the big-budget mediocrity of the Joel Schumacher Batman films or Spawn. If it slipped under your radar, now is the time to check it out.
THE TOY ROBOT VIDEO SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY:
Toy Robot is launching their blu-ray line in truly spectacular fashion with this two-disc special edition. As if to deliberately make up for how long fans have been waiting for a blu-ray of Dark Hero, they have pulled out all the stops to give us a ridiculously nice release. The movie comes packaged with a slipcover, and OBI around one edge (collectors of Japanese laserdiscs know!), a set of gorgeous art cards, and absolutely beautiful original cover art on both the slip and the inner wrap. The contents of the two discs enclosed are ridiculously extensive.
The biggest question fans will likely have is, what’s the deal with the two different restorations of the film in this set? Guyver 2 is presented on one disc in its original version, and on the other disc in a new “enhanced version.” This is because, according to Steve Wang in the extras (and Toy Robot’s Cliff MacMillan in comments around the time the disc was announced), Guyver 2 had some major issues with the quality of the source elements that made an HD restoration tricky, and a 4K UHD restoration out of the question. The 16mm negatives for the film have been lost, and according to disc producer Cliff MacMillan, the only surviving film source was Steve Wang’s personal theatrical print – a limitation which further exacerbated limitations with the film itself. Having been produced on an insanely tight budget, compromises were made to get the movie shot, based on the assumption that most people would only ever see the film in standard definition on VHS and laserdisc. It was shot on 16mm, with much of the film using a very high-grain, soft-looking stock that was made to handle low light, since much of the film is shot at night or in dimly-lit sets. Additionally, the movie’s handful of CGI shots were all rendered at 480i for home video, and had to be upscaled for prints. This led to Steve Wang feeling not particularly happy with how the film looked when scanned in HD, since the modern restoration makes extremely obvious the limitations of the source elements that they had counted on 90s home video to hide.
Still, Wang and Toy Robot understood that plenty of film fans are purists who want a movie to look exactly as it always did, and don’t want a revisionist transfer, so for disc one in the set they prepared the best possible HD restoration of the film that is faithful to that one surviving print from which it is sourced, with the same color-grade that fans will remember from VHS, laserdisc, and the long-ago New Line DVD. It’s a very good scan, with strong colors and contrast, a very natural (at times very heavy) grain structure, and a pristine clean-up with no noticeable print damage. But the movie itself often looks soft and sometimes a bit murky, clearly from a source a couple steps removed from the negative, and some of the darker scenes especially suffer from the source limitations. It’s the best restoration possible as-is, and a fine experience to watch, but you can see why Toy Robot deemed it not suitable for a UHD release, and you can see why Steve Wang looked at it and thought “I want this movie to look better.” Still, for the purists, here it is, faithfully presented.
Disc two, on the other hand, is Steve Wang’s “enhanced version,” the result of what he describes as a six-month process to overhaul the movie using various techniques and make it look as good as it possibly can, which he discusses at some length in the commentary. Some might (rightly) call it revisionist or heavily tinkered with, which is why they included it alongside the original presentation and not as a default/only option, and there are places where I think the tinkering went too far, but for the most part this is a much better-looking version of Guyver 2, and while I have reservations about the methods used, the results are pretty impressive.
For starters, Wang’s enhanced edition substantially overhauls the color grade, particularly where brightness and contrast are concerned. He deepens the contrast and adjusts light levels quite a bit, widening the dynamic range significantly, and making some scenes that were previously a bit too dark much more visible, without sacrificing the deep shadows. The colors are kept largely faithful, so if you haven’t seen the movie in some time, it “feels” about like how you remember it. But when comparing the two restorations it is immediately clear that there are major differences – and almost always differences for the better, that make scenes pop much more.
But this is where Wang’s enhanced edition will likely become a bit controversial: he also makes use of AI tools to try and solve the problem of the theatrical print’s limitations as a blu-ray source, and the inherent softness of the film itself. He clarifies in the commentary that no generative AI was used, and that it was entirely AI-assisted human-led tools, which he spent six months working with. And (aside from one cloud of smoke digitally added over an explosion) nothing has been added to the film, and none of the existing effects have been covered or replaced. What he has done with the AI tools is sharpen the image a bit, and reduce the grain, especially in particularly grainy dark sequences. The results are mixed, but generally do result in a cleaner and sharper version of the film. For most of the movie, this version does look quite a bit better. However, from time to time he definitely pushes the noise reduction too far, and the actors’ skin is left looking a tad waxy. That is my biggest beef with this restoration: I wish he had not been so heavyhanded with the noise reduction, as skin textures definitely suffer from time to time. At the very least, though, he is not as heavyhanded as James Cameron’s recent restorations, and there is still some grain and some filmic texture remaining, as he was trying to reduce it, not get rid of it. The use of AI will surely be controversial (I don’t love it, but I do think the distinction that it isn’t generative AI is important), but as far as AI-assisted remasters go, this is definitely one of the better ones we’ve seen. And in this case, I think it’s understandable why he wanted to do this, under the specific circumstances.
Given that the enhanced version will likely be controversial, it is definitely good that Toy Robot led with the faithful restoration of the film print on disc one, and offered the enhanced version as an option and not the default. But that said… for the most part the enhanced version does look a lot better. I wish less (or no) noise reduction had been used, but the revamped colors and contrast look so good that the tradeoff is worth it, and the picture does look a bit sharper most of the time. I think it is a very successful experiment, which resulted in a stronger (though definitely still imperfect) presentation of the film. If it was the ONLY transfer on this set, that would be a problem (again, looking at you, James Cameron), but Toy Robot has included the unaltered transfer for the purists, as well as the version the director prepared, so hopefully everyone should be happy.
Fortunately, no such controversy will surround the extras, which are fantastic. Disc two contains three long featurettes, directed by filmmaker J.R. Bookwalter, featuring interviews with most of the principle cast and crew, which add up to a making-of documentary that’s over an hour long. The interviews with Wang, his creature effects artists and stunt team, the film’s leads, and numerous behind-the-camera creatives are all fascinating. They add up to a very rich tale of the film’s production, which sounds completely insane, with Wang’s team working double and triple shits, wearing numerous hats, and DIY-ing the film’s production design, all to shoot a grand-scale sci-fi epic for under a million dollars. The refrains throughout the extras, echoed by numerous cast and crew members, are “this movie should have been impossible to make for such little money” and “it was an incredibly hard shoot, but one of my favorite films I’ve worked on.” Everyone is very candid, has great stories, and clearly still carries a deep love for the film all these years later. The documentaries also make heavy use of behind-the-scenes footage from on-set. On disc one, that behind-the-scenes footage is presented as a full hour-long reel, in addition to a collection of archival extras.
The film also has no less than three commentaries: one by Steve Wang, one by two other crewmembers who both wore numerous hats on the production, and one by two critics who are both Guyver superfans and series historians. All three tracks are excellent. Steve Wang’s is incredibly informative about the production, and a very interesting and lively listen. The other two commentaries are both very fun and conversational, as two people who both have great fondness for the film chat about it and share memories and anecdotes. With one commentary being crewpeople and the other commentary being fans, these two tracks provide very different insights into the film, and are both great listens.
It all adds up to an absolutely stacked, lavish special edition of Guyver 2 which was more than worth the wait. This is an incredible special edition, and one hell of a way for Toy Robot to launch their video line. The two different restorations each have their pros and cons, depending on whether you want a faithful presentation of a theatrical print that shows its source limitations, or a restoration that looks better at the cost of being revisionist – but the main thing is that Toy Robot understands its audience enough to provide both. The extras are absolutely spectacular, with that three-part documentary that is a must-see for any fan of the movie. And Toy Robot’s special edition package is absolutely beautiful, with very cool artwork that treats the film like the cult-classic it is. This is going to be up there among my favorite physical media releases of the year, no doubt.
- Christopher S. Jordan
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