Hope the 1D doesn't sound confusing, it could but will simplify it for you. For movie reviews do a pair of posts which means neither are too long and are easier to read, that's the case of this movie so the previous post was part 1C. However there were two movies in these sets of reviews as the second, this movie, was a continuation of the first one. But have them all in order from 1A to 1D, if this is the fourth post you've read then all worked out well....
There are a total of six films but more importantly it was a very popular TV series at the end of the 1950's. Tsueno Kobayashi was the director for the films, he came up with the idea for the Gekko Kamen character. The screenwriter was Yasunori Kawauchi and though it was a TV series the characters/actors aren't the same, for instance Omura Fumitake who played the hero of Gekko Kamen wasn't in the TV series. The subs were done by Noriko and Kingmenu, will give them a B(-) for quality but least three of the films were done so thanks to them for that.
I would give anything to see the original TV series that aired from February 1958 until July 1959. The show was immensely popular as it usually got well over 40% for a rating but there wasn't too much competition back then. Even though the series was still massively popular it was taken off the air for many children tried to duplicate the stunts of the hero Gekko Kamen, you can see where the "Kamen Rider" shows got their name. "Moonlight Mask" was the proper title of the series that had 130 episodes in seventeen months, two episodes aired each week. This was the second Japanese Super Hero with the first being "Super Giant", it wasn't as popular as "Moonlight Mask" but did inspire many other classic Tokusatsu shows such as "Ultraman". Here's an excellent video about the series and also other info about the start up of Tokusatsu kinds of shows back in the late 1950's and what a social phenom "Moonlight Mask" aka Gekko Kamen quickly became, will use both terms throughout the reviews. Even after the series ended there was a movie in 1981, then a manga series and an anime plus so many other things associated with "Moonlight Mask". The video is 31 minutes long but be like me and watch it in three parts of ten minutes, it's extremely interesting and how I love viewing such documentaries such as this one which aren't all that common.
Fumitake Omaru as Juro Iwai aka Gekko Kamen.... Besides being a Super Hero Juro runs his own private detective agency, the next two characters are his assistants. No person ever got on to the fact that Juro and Gekko Kamen were the same person though their voices were the same and that Juro would disappear to change into his hero outfit. Which is right above, the cape and uniform is white while the gloves are yellow, also yellow was his Honda motorcycle though is very close to a Moped. Talked about how Juro used his guns above, he can shoot two at once while riding his motorcycle. Juro helps out the Tokyo Metro Police often and they gave him a special permit for a gun which was very rare back in the 1950's. One other thing is that Juro has 'adopted' a pair of children named Konomi(female) and Shigeru(male), both were orphaned and live at his agency office. For the first film we didn't see much of Gekko Kamen saving the world and even less of his alter ego Juro Iwai. The same applied to film #2 as we didn't see a lot of Juro or Gekko Kamen, kind of like how you wouldn't see much of Superman in the 1950's series until the very end.
Yaeko Wakamizu as Kaboko.... Kan Yanagiya as Fukuro Gorohachi.... Juro's two assistants at his detective agency and both are quite daffy! But least in the case of Gorohachi he is semi-competent and did save the day once for Gekko Kamen. The real name of Kaboko is unknown and what else is unknown to me is if the pair know their boss Juro is the hero Gekko Kamen? For a while towards the end of the first film thought Gorohachi knew Juro and Gekko Kamen were one but after viewing this second movie not so sure....
Ken Sudo as Chief Detective Matsuda.... He's very close to Juro but don't think he knows that his friend is actually the Super Hero Gekko Kamen! Juro often helps Matsuda out on cases though of course more so in the TV series, Matsuda is about a decade older and appears to be competent but too often has to rely on Juro or Gekko Kamen to solve a case. Matsuda is in the middle below, he didn't have a lot of screentime in the movies and think the role was much larger in the TV series.
Hiroko Mine as Ayako Nakajima.... The very attractive(to me!) daughter of the renowned scientist and we never did learn all that much about her. She still lives with her father and though it seems Ayako is much younger than Juro I got the impression he had a bit of a crush on her. Ayako was kidnapped in the first movie for the evil group Skull Mask thought she had her father's plans for the HO Joe Bomb. Ayako did but the dastardly spy ring wasn't able to find them on her and why is in the review. On the right in the first screenshot is Konomi, the girl Juro has 'adopted'. The map Ayako is referring to is where her father hid the plans for the HO Joe Bomb.
???? as Skull Mask.... As I'm writing this first review up still don't know the actor that played this treacherous character who is the leader of this spy/terrorist ring Skull Mask. It is a cool looking 'monster' and in a way have to call him that for I don't think Skull Mask is a human. Towards the end of the first movie on two occasions this fiend ignited a pair of fires, they were lit by flames coming out of his mouth! Besides having many human spies such as Yuri above there's also many Skull henchmen, they wear the mask of a Skull and how are they chosen plus are they also monsters such as their leader? What's also eerie is the third screenshot below, the images of floating skulls appear at time to time and then disappear in a few seconds, it does give this film a creepy vibe and what's the story with them?
I'm not going to give a long history of the series/films in these reviews, there is a fairly good Ja.wiki page to check out for info and here's that link: Gekko Kamen Ja.wiki page . But even that was missing some key details, don't know about the TV series but the info for the six films was kind of skimpy but it was a start for me. By going to a few other sites think I was able to piece together the cast for who played who but it's probably not 100% accurate.... on second thought think it is! The same cast will be in the first two movies, after those will be be reviewing the fourth as it's the only other one subbed and will be doing that about a week after the first two movie reviews have been published.
Main Characters
Shouldn't be too long of a list and of course there probably won't be many(any?) edits needed for these first two movies. But actually there could be a few things in the character's bios that will be updated(there were!), am writing this post up before viewing the second film and will wait until this is finished before moving on to it. There aren't too many major characters as most will be in the first two movies and then disappear, there is one key detail about Gekko Kamen aka Juro Iwai. You will see him in many screenshots firing a pistol, one example is above but the hero isn't a violent man at all. When Gekko Kamen fires his guns it's often to knock the weapons out of his opponent's hands or to warn them not to fire anymore. Gekko Kamen never fires to hurt or kill a criminal and as far as I can tell has never killed a person in the movies or TV series. The hero's motto was he'd rather not see any criminal hurt or killed but would prefer seeing them forgiven and helped. That's not easy to do considering some of the people Gekko Kamen runs up against such as the Skull People in the first two films. In Japanese you've probably figured out that Kamen means MASK while Gekko means Moonlight or a Ray of Light. So "Moonlight Mask" is the English title of the series and movies while in Japan the fans used Gekko Kamen, that's how I'll always refer to the hero.
Jun Usami as Dr. Nakayama.... A very important character and is the father of the next woman. Dr. Nakayama is a very respected scientist who has just created the HO Joe Bomb but it's creation wasn't meant for war. Nakayama wants to use his sought after invention for the betterment of mankind, mainly to help develop new peaceful energy sources and also to launch the first ever Space Shuttle. But of course an evil organization such as Skull Mask wants Nakayama's creation for their own devious purposes, they will keep trying to steal the plans for it which is the main theme of both movies.
Takamura Sasaki as Dr. Akaboshi.... Yasushi Nagata as Dr. Tasaka
In the screenshot below Akaboshi is on the left, of course that means on the right is Tasaka! Both were in the first movie but didn't have much screentime nor were important to the story but that changed in this film so didn't add then in until now. Both have very sordid pasts and neither cleaned up their act though both became very respected scientists. Tasaka during WWII was a double spy and sold government secrets to the enemy(America) and will still do anything for a barrelful of Yen! Such as selling out his friend Dr. Nakajima to the dastardly Skull Mask for 50 million yen but you know how that turned out. Unknown to Tasaka an even more evil person was his colleague Akaboshi who was such an intelligent scientist with many creations. We learned towards the end of the second movie that the wicked Skull Mask was none other than Akaboshi!!!!
Mitsue Komiya as Yuri.... A member of the Skull Mask organization which is an international spy ring and is named after their leader. Yuri seemed to be the most capable spy they had, she was posing as a housekeeper at Dr. Nakayama's house and thanks to her Skull Mask almost got the plans for the HO Joe Bomb. Yuri had bugged the doctor's office and the family had no clue what an evil person Yuri was until Juro Iwai spilled the beans! Yuri also had a brother in the organization nicknamed Tiger who was a capable henchman. When he wouldn't kill his sister for being arrested which is a no-no for the Skull Mask group Khan had stabbed him badly. However in the second movie Tiger did meet his demise from a different Skull Mask thug, Yuri had her revenge and did help Gekko Kamen take down the group though in the process she too was killed.
**** In this second movie, the last twenty minutes, we learned that Takamura Sasaki who played Dr. Akaboshi was also the evil Skull Mask! Akaboshi was such an intelligent and creative scientist, it never was explained why he chose a life of crime? Also never learned how Skull Mask could shoot those flames out of his mouth for he was a human and watching that was kind of cool.
Akira Sawa as Khan.... Is on the right below and is a secret spy for the Skull Mask clan. We didn't see much of Khan who hails from India but he was an important part of this first movie, in the beginning he sent Juro Iwai on a bogus case to India to get the sleuth out of the way. Later on he killed(edit: badly injured) Yuri's brother Tiger after he refused to kill his sister, there is a Skull Mask rule when the police nab a member they have to be killed. Could be by their own hand or someone else, there was no way Tiger could have killed Yuri which Khan knew would happen.
That's it for the main characters and how many can there be for a 52 minute movie? Well, actually two movies of that length or 104 minutes in total. Below is a trailer for the second film but there's also a lot of action from the first movie. On YT there are a few other videos for the movies and/or TV series, if you use the Kanji in this video you can bring up most of those other videos and you can see what a fun movie this was!
These intros take so long to do plus they are hard as I have to do so much research for character names, air dates, then take screenshots, etc. This has been the toughest drama/movie to date for me to find info about as these movies aired 67 years ago but think almost all of the details to this point are accurate. Even though these kinds of posts take me so long to do the above section is also my favorite part of blogging, when a long intro section is complete I think they look so darn terrific!!!! So I don't care about how long it takes to do or that not nearly as many viewers will notice it compared to posts for scantly clad J-Pop Idols! Haven't viewed the next movie yet which picks up where this one ended so unsure of anything in the above section will need any editing for past two of the review, will let you know if there are any changes. Once again I took 98 screenshots for this film and used about five screenshots above which lowers the total for the actual review to 93 photos. So went up to the 48th for the first post and have the other half in this part two of the review. Besides doing my own blogging I also visit other sites and mainly to read up about older shows or movies such as this one. I prefer reading two medium sized posts for a review and bet most reading this will agree with that so I cut one very long post in half. Most reviews I read at other sites are very good but often when one runs on for about 4,000 words with a small amount of screenshots it can get a bit tiring to read and could turn off viewers.
Even though both films only totaled 104 minutes this was quite a project, I go all out when doing posts for dramas and movies these days. Still wish some of you viewers would begin to make some comments on these as I know many visitors do read these. The posts for movies and dramas will never come close to the popularity of posts for J-Pop Idols and others but they have seen such an increase in views the last five years. At one time I was happy to get 125 or so views for these kinds of posts, these days they often get 250-300 and many have even topped 500 views! Don't always do it for dramas but do give grades for movies, this is one of my higher all time grades as it gets a 9.4/10 from me!!!! Can't think of any negatives, do wish the subs were a tad better but were good enough and did thank those who subbed it near the top of the post. That grade is for both movies as it was one longish story and I prefer much older movies such as this one or all of those classic Godzilla, Mothra and other kinds of Kaiju films. Considering these movies were made in 1958 there was still so much action plus quite a bit of intrigue, betrayals and plot twists, if you're a member of Avistaz you can grab the movies there. After this second movie there were four more, I have two but only one is subbed. The review for that will be my next movie to tackle but give me about a week before doing its review it as I need to work on regular posts as I've been shunning those. Besides these two "Moonlight Mask" movies have also watched eighteen others in September, been viewing one a night and have been enjoying this marathon immensely!
Will give a huge thanks to all that read these posts, if this is the fourth one you're reading then you went in the correct order. The titles have been a bit confusing but did explain what they meant in the beginning and having two posts per film makes them much easier to read. So now we're down to 52 minutes to go in this story, have lost count on how many times the Skull Mask group has attempted to steal the plans for Dr. Nakajima's HO Joe Bomb but each time has been thwarted by Juro Iwai or more often his alter ego, the hero Gekko Kamen! The creation is a bomb but only if used for evil purposes, Dr. Nakajima had the vision it's creation could help Earth develop new forms of energy, to fuel the new Space Shuttle program and other things to benefit mankind. But if a terrorist/spy group such as Skull Mask has the HO Joe Bomb it could be powerful enough for them to rule the world! So in the last review Nakajima was feeling so dejected about how things have turned out, at the end of that previous post he and his daughter Ayako have arrived at the Summer house of his associate Dr Tasaka to hide from Skull Mask. Will give that diabolical group credit for never quitting and they will eventually find the esteemed doctor and that's mainly because of Dr. Tasaka, why was explained in the previous post and will touch on it after the below batch of screenshots. While most of the credit for the HO Joe Bomb goes to Dr. Nakajima his two trusted mates at the Space Science Research Center Tasaka and Dr. Akaboshi helped him out quite a bit. Did tell you a bit about Tasaka's evil ways, wait until you hear about Akaboshi which came as a surprise to all and let's finally get to part four of this longish story.... well, actually it's a regular length story but I've perfected the art of making something shortish quite long....
Skull Mask is the name of both the terrorist group/spy ring and its leader. When I refer to the group will underline Skull Mask, when it's the leader I'm talking about will highlight the name in Red.
Skull Mask already knew where Tasaka had hid out the esteemed scientist Nakajima, how will be explained shortly and mainly had Khan tail Tasaka to make sure Nakajima was still there. He was and for about the fifth time Skull Mask demanded the plans for the powerful HO Joe Bomb or the map which led to its secret location, Nakajima said he didn't have either with him. For a long time Ayako had hidden the map in her locket but Skull Mask found it though by that time Juro Iwai had switched the real map with a fake. After that incident Juro figured no one would check the locket again so put the real map back there. At this encounter unknown to Skull Mask and his cronies the map to the HO Joe Bomb was back in Ayako's locket, the group told her they would be taking her father until the map was handed over as Ayako wisely kept her mouth shut about her locket. Not keeping his mouth shut was Skull Mask who revealed to Nakajima that his close associate Tasaka had sold out him out for 50 million yen and the switch of hiding locations that was supposed to take place that evening was actually of Tasaka delivering Nakajima to the Skull Mask HQ!!!! Tasaka rightly knew Skull Mask couldn't be trusted so was carrying a gun but never was able to use it. For when Tasaka took it out he was shot by Skull Mask's top assassin Khan who was standing behind him. So Tasaka was only in the first 15-20 minutes of this second movie but did play such an important role. The Skull Mask group then took their leave, Ayako was told was told she would receive instructions on what to do next in order to save her father. After that departure arriving was the hero Juro Iwai though of course not in his Gekko Kamen outfit. With Juro were his two detective agency assistants Kabuko(woman) and Gorohachi, also there was inspector Matsuda and none of the three had a big impact in this story. A note was delivered to Ayako and above Juro read it out load, she was told to bring the map that revealed the HO Joe Bomb plans to a pier at 3:00 pm or else her father Nakajima would be history!
In that first movie the HQ for the Skull Mask group was a abandoned building but was still in excellent shape, their top spy Yuri had revealed it's location when she thought the assassin Khan killed her brother Tiger but that didn't happen until this movie. The new HQ for the Skull Mask terrorist/spy group was a huge ship named Dokuromaru, that could be an effective place to have your HQ as you could always zoom away if threatened. Much of the action will be taking place on the ship, that's where Dr. Nakajima will be held until Skull Mask can verify his map is authentic. In the top screenshot above you can see that most of Skull Mask's henchmen just wore ordinary coats with a handkerchief/bandana covering their lower face, Juro then told Ayako not to worry as he was disguised as a thug and proceeded to board the Dokuromaru vessel. Dr. Nakajima was being held in a small storage room, that note above was slipped under the door and was from Juro telling his friend tot to worry as he will be freed soon! Did edit these two paragraphs to make them three as they were getting a bit long.
In a huge shock to Juro who had gone undetected was that onboard the boat was their ex-top spy Yuri, she wants revenge on Skull Mask for killing her brother Tiger. We didn't see much of Yuri but in this short scene what a bombshell she delivered to Juro, the identity of Skull Mask was Dr. Nakajima's top assistant and best friend Dr. Akaboshi! That floored Juro and also us viewers to an extent for Akaboshi was a bit older and seemed like a peaceful man but you know what they say about appearances. It also explained how the Skull Mask group knew where Dr. Nakajima was hiding for Akaboshi helped to decide the location! The outfit Juro was wearing had been stolen off a Skull Mask thug, this man's passed out body was discovered and now the dastardly Skull Mask knew there was an imposter on the ship. He assembled his group of a dozen goons, all were told to reveal their faces but of course one person didn't. Naturally that was Juro Iwai, he did eventually tear off his face covering to threaten Skull Mask and dared him to take off that skull mask to reveal his true identity! The malevolent Skull Mask wouldn't do so and shortly after an all out battle began on the ship's deck! The advantage was a heavy one for the Skull Mask group as they numbered close to twenty against only Juro but he was joined by Yuri. Who did show some skills with a pistol but had been hit in the back with a knife thrown by Khan, Juro knew he had no chance and dove into the water. The ship had to be at least a half mile off shore but Juro eventually made it to land, he still hadn't changed into his Gekko Kamen alter ego. The bottom screenshot above shows Juro's two agency assistants along with inspector Matsuda, he knew his friend was in trouble and and sent three police boats to stop the Dokuromaru which is the first screenshot below.
Final segment for these two movies which had one story, what took place in the final 10-12 minutes is right above and the first six screenshots below, the others are more of what took place in the second half of the movie. That top screenshot shows three police vessels closing in on the Skull Mask Dokuromaru ship and this was a cool scene. The crew dumped out many barrels of oil, then they were lit courtesy of the flames that shoot out of Skull Mask's mouth! It was never explained how that was done, at first it made me wonder if Skull Mask was an alien or monster but as we found out it was just a regular human, Dr. Akaboshi. The Skull Mask ship landed on a small island and no name was given, by now the action was well away from Tokyo. The map Dr. Nakajima created was correct, it didn't take long for Skull Mask and his devilish group to find the location. However(!) they were beaten to the punch for the HO Joe Bomb plans had already been taken and the only thing there was a note. It was from our hero Gekko Kamen who had arrived much earlier to whisk the plans away to a different safe spot, yet another incident which made me wonder how and when did Gekko Kamen do such a trick? See that helicopter above(?), it's the second time Gekko Kamen has used it in the two movies and he was approaching this unnamed island. But at first the Hero contacted his close friend inspector Matsuda at the Tokyo Metro Police and gave him the lowdown on everything, the high ranking officer grabbed as many troops as he could and it was off to the island! Also joining the group were Juro's two detective agency assistants Kabuko and Gorohachi, neither had much of a presence in this movie. Same went for Matsuda but the trio do have important roles on the TV series.
Two other times the police had gone up against the Skull Mask group in the two movies, neither of the previous times did they win. But didn't didn't lose either as both times the police were outmanned, not this time and finally it looked like the evil regime of Skull Mask was about to end. All of the thugs were nabbed or shot, Skull Mask tried to keep Dr. Nakajima with him as protection but that didn't work out, as it shows in the bottom two screenshots above and right below Gekko Kamen arrived in that helicopter and finally had the diabolical Skull Mask trapped like a rat! For the first time he tore off that mask to reveal his true self which we knew was the once esteemed Dr. Akaboshi, Gekko Kamen knew of his identity from when Yuri told him that in the previous segment. It was never explained why Akaboshi turned into such an evil person, he was a very skilled scientist and could have made such a positive contribution to mankind. But alas, that wasn't to be and this madman never did reveal any of his reasons to Gekko Kamen. This first and final showdown wasn't a long one and there was never any kind of struggle but one thing was revealed which is that Gekko Kamen tore off his mask to show Akaboshi his identity was Juro Iwai, no one else was in the vicinity so his secret is still safe. Slowly Akaboshi backed away from Gekko Kamen and didn't realize how close he was to a cliff's edge, the Skull Mask leader lost his footing and fell about a hundred feet into the ocean. So will presume the evil Skull Mask aka Dr. Akaboshi is dead but there are four more movies to go in this series!
By now there was only a minute to go in the movie, Matsuda along with Kabuto and Gorohachi wondered what had happened to Juro Iwai. A few seconds later he came ambling down a path and no one has realized that Juro only appears after Gekko Kamen has disappeared, kind of like the 1950's Superman series! Gekko Kamen did leave a note which is the fifth screenshot below, it said he would keep the HO Joe Bomb until the world becomes peaceful enough for it to be used but we know when that means.... NEVER! So ends this semi long review, as I said a few times there was zero filler in the 104 minutes as so much took place and that's often the case for these older films. So a few times I did need to add in a shortish third paragraph to a section but don't think that increased your reading time by too much, actually may do that more in the future. In the posts did give my thoughts and ratings in the intro section, at 9.4/10 it did receive a high grade and it did deserve it, I would give it a 100/10 for how entertaining it was!!!! So thanks a bunch for reading these reviews and still wish I could find a few of you readers who are movie fans but know it's rare for many of us younger folk to enjoy things from the 1950's/60's/70's. Have two other "Moonlight Mask" movies but only one is subbed, that's the fourth which is from 1959 and titled "The Monster Gorilla". That will be my next movie to review and thought may as well get all out of the way, if the others get subbed will do posts for them also. Will have the posts for the next film in about seven days, after that will be tackling a similar set of movies called "Seven Color Mask" and am looking forward to those. Unsure what else may be on the horizon but will keep any movie fans informed of what's coming up in these film review posts.
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