A year ago, Sean Barker (David Hayter) became host to the life form of unknown origin. Invading his body, this organism takes control of him when need be, encasing him in an organic armour and giving him incredible strength, speed, and combat skills – he becomes The Guyver. Sean and the Guyver had fought and destroyed the Chronos Corporation and their army of Zoanoids – seemingly normal humans who can turn into powerful and hideous beasts on command. There goes the Guyver now like a cut-price superhero to stop some nefarious drug smugglers who have intercepted a shipment of dolls. Their brilliant idea? Melt the drugs into plastic, mould them however you like, and then when you melt it down apparently its 100% pure, yeah, 100% pure plastic full of drugs you morons. They pay for their stupidity dearly when the Guyver kick’s their dumb asses and slashes their leader’s throat with the swanky blades that come out of his armoured elbows. Guyver continues the cheapo superhero theme buy using a laser to write his name on the wall, cheesy as hell but it did the job of introducing us to the character. Back at home Sean comes across a trashy TV show which talks about an alleged werewolf attack, the brother of the victim saw what looked like a normal man turn into a monster, and he also shows the reporter copies of cave paintings he found which he claims are connected to the monster. Sean is shocked when he sees the cave painting approximations, which in fact closely resemble sketches he has derived from his own dreams. Feeling there is a connection between the paintings and the Guyver, he sets out to Utah where the caves are currently under the study of a very tight-lipped archaeology team. Presumably at some point the Guyver took over, got drunk, and crashed Sean’s car because he hitchhikes the whole way to Utah, eventually arriving at a small local store where he just happens to run into Cori who works at the archaeological dig. After showing her his sketches, she reluctantly agrees to take him to the site even though logic dictates that this guy is a grade A nutbar and should be avoided like the plague. Once at the site, Sean is introduced to Cori’s father Dr. Marcus who runs the operation, and he also meets the decidedly suspicious representatives of the corporation backing the project, led by a snivelling little runt called Crane. Sean is perturbed by the cave paintings he sees, and even more so by the skull that’s been unearthed that looks decidedly Zoanoid-like.

Sean almost strains out an emotion when that night he and Cori are talking, but Sean’s procrastinating over telling Cori why he’s there is interrupted by screams. The brother of the ‘werewolf’ victim has brought a journalist back to the place the attack happened. Cori runs back to camp to get help and Sean goes to the scene of the crime, whipping out the Guyver armour as he goes. On the scene his worst fears come true, it’s a Zoanoid and a nasty one too, looking like a cross between a gorilla and a rhino. A battle between the two is inconclusive though Guyver gets a good few licks in with his blades and the Zoanoid flees when he hears other people from the camp approaching. One of the other camp members, Atkins, acts suspiciously – picking up a piece of armoured skin from the Zoanoid that the Guyver cut off. A short time later Sean comes across Atkins talking to somebody on a radio, Atkins suspects Sean has something to do with the attacks and doesn’t trust him. Crane has to answer to his boss over the Zoanoid troubles who is in fact the head of the Chronos Corporation! Sean now knows of the Chronos involvement here, but now they know that he is there too and they have not forgotten what happened a year previous. Later than night, Sean sleeps but the Guyver is very much awake as the two points on the back of his neck through which the Guyver breathes begin to pulsate quickly, and a great crack shoots up the cave wall, revealing something hidden beneath the rock. The thing is discovered and slowly dug out and it is in fact some sort of huge organic-looking spaceship. Atkins, who is in fact working for the government, takes Sean aside again to quiz him about the Chronos Corporation and reveals the truth – it was only the L.A. branch that the Guyver destroyed and that they’re in fact a multi-national company. Things get a great deal more complicated when the entrance to the spaceship is uncovered and somehow the Guyver causes it to open. Sean realises this is his chance to find out just what this thing inside him really is, but its clear that Chronos will want the ship for themselves to use whatever weapons might be found inside. In fact, on the first exploration of the ship Cori discovers something, another dormant Guyver unit, and it has now fallen into the hands of the Chronos Corporation.

Hoo boy, this film sure is fun! This film still has little in common with the Japanese sources beyond the Guyver, the Zoanoids, and the Chronos Corporation, but a great effort has been made to make this stand apart from the first Guyver, and in the process a much better film, though still flawed, has come into being. The most notable difference between this film and the first is the very different style of the action between the Guyver and his Zoanoid opponents. Rather ham-fisted and unimaginative in the first film, here Wang employed the services of the pioneering Alpha Stunts team led by Koichi Sakamoto. A group of Japanese stunt men, Alpha Stunts was formed out of a love for the visually impressive and extremely physical Hong Kong action style, they trained under some of Hong Kong’s best stunt co-ordinators before moving to the United States to ply their trade. The action scenes fit the Hong Kong style pretty well while still taking into account the size and strength of the Guyver’s monstrous enemies – the Zoanoids are slow and can’t match the Guyver’s amazing speed, but they can take a great deal of punishment from our armoured hero. Wires are put to great use as the Guyver leaps 30 feet into the air or is sent flying from an opponent’s attack. While the large frames of his opponents mean we don’t get any full-on martial arts action until the greatly entertaining final reel, the choreography and execution is excellent (particularly when considering heavy restrictive costumes being worn by the participants) and must have surely been a big influence in the later Wang/Alpha Stungs collaboration, the Mark Dacascos-led Drive. The soundtrack must also be noted as its surprisingly good. Written by Les Claypool III, it has a strong main theme and fits the frenetic action well without being melodramatic, it doesn’t sound cheap or rushed at all and adds a good deal of much-needed legitimacy to the feature.

Aside from the impressive action sequences, considering this is a film about a man being encased in alien battle armour and taking on humans that transform into monsters, the special effects and costumes are extremely important. Things have certainly taken a step up from the first movie and are extremely impressive considering the meagre budget allowed the picture. The Guyver outfit is excellent, a million miles ahead of the one used in the first film, slimmer and less bulky and all the right bits stick out in the right places. It also allowed the wearer to still perform extremely well which would need a great deal of work going into keeping the suit as light and flexible as possible, and the results are extremely satisfying. The Zoanoid costumes are a different matter however and vary wildly in quality. The first Zoanoid we see, the previously mentioned gorilla/rhino hybrid, is actually a very nice piece of work with a fully moving mouth and the stunt actor inside the suit does well to give the beast some personality. Crane’s Zoanoid form is also quite good, and the eventual second Guyver suit used is quite impressive too suffering only from some rather wobbly arm-mounted blades. However the rest of the monsters are a pretty mixed bag, some look like they’ve been recycled from the first movie but all of them have a great deal less facial articulation and look a lot more silly and fake, also not showing any distinct personalities. However considering the very limited budget involved they still do their job and the chances are you’ll be enjoying the action too much to pay much attention to their cheesy suits. As for transformations, Wang is very sparing using only a couple of cheap morphing tricks but largely keeping the physical changes off-screen and instead focusing on the shocked expressions of the people looking on, much cheaper that way. The Guyver’s changes happen mainly off-screen also, though there are a couple of neat shots of the various sections of the armour fanning out from Sean’s back, something that I actually prefer to the armour coming up out of the ground as seen in the anime and manga. Its still quite obviously a low budget b-picture, but the Guyver suit is of such excellent quality it alone gives the film a better look and could certainly compare with the costumes of far bigger films. Though most of the sets are quite simple sandy or wooded terrain, the sets built for the interior of the alien spaceship are quite impressive too with a very organic, vaguely Giger-esque theme. Wang certainly worked some minor miracles with his limited budget.

However this is unmistakably a b-movie, and it really shows in the writing and acting. The story is an intriguing one looking into the origins of the Guyver and his Zoanoid enemy, but the film is littered with hammy dialogue and odd plot holes, like the relationship between Sean and Cori which goes from Cori thinking he’s a nut, to them holding hands and being cute a mere two nights later without any explanation. There are other odd ambiguities too such as the alleged ‘taking over’ of Sean’s body by the Guyver. At the start of the film Sean says how the Guyver calls on him to fight and kill on its behalf, but there are few other examples of this control the Guyver exerts except for some minor hints at Sean’s anti-social lifestyle thanks to the alien armour. In the Japanese versions we are shown the personality of the carrier of the Guyver slowly becomes overpowered by that of the alien organism, but here Sean seemingly calls the armour at will without any hints of a conflict of interests between himself and the Guyver. Despite the weak protestations to the contrary, the Guyver is portrayed as just a moody superhero rather than a man trapped in some sort of Faustian pact. Of course this isn’t helped by David Hayter’s cringe worthy performance as Sean Barker. David may have seen some success as a voice actor for the Metal Gear Solid games (though his performances in those are still pretty suspect) and as a writer of screenplays such as the X-Men movies, but a leading man he is not. His unintentionally amusing attempts at emotion hurt the idea of the conflict between the Guyver and Sean just because Hayter can’t really express it properly, he just looks confused or screws his face up in anger, thank god they put Sean in the Guyver armour from time to time to give us a break. The rest of the cast is similarly bad over or under-acting accordingly, and Kathy Christopherson as Cori makes for an attractive but very irritating female lead, so much so you just want one of the Zoanoids to shut her up permanently.

Definitely a cheap b-movie, Guyver: Dark Hero has pluses and negatives that will adversely affect how much people will enjoy the film. Many will be turned off by the poor acting, writing, and the iffy monster costumes and will find this film difficult to enjoy because it comes off as so damn cheesy. However, those with a higher tolerance for these things will find much to enjoy – Steve Wang’s direction is inventive and solid giving the excellent Alpha Stunts team plenty of space to show their stuff with some engaging and technically sound action sequences. Wang also shows much promise with such a limited budget, no doubt foreshadowing his making of the excellent Drive three years later. Fans of that movie will want to check this out, as will anybody who likes a good b-movie monster romp with plenty of imagination and high-octane action.