HK: Hentai Kamen
Director: Yûichi Fukuda
Writer: Yûichi Fukuda, Shun Oguri
Based on: Keishū Ando’s manga Kyūkyoku!! Hentai Kamen
Cast: Ryôhei Suzuki, Fumika Shimizu, Ken Yasuda
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
Kyōsuke Shikijō (Ryôhei Suzuki) is a high school student with a strong sense of justice, but unfortunately nothing to back that up with. So when he stands up against bullies, he regularly gets beat up. When Aiko Himeno (Fumika Shimizu) comes to his school, he immediately falls in love. Then Aiko is taken hostage during a bank robbery and Kyōsuke wants to save her. To not be recognized, he wants to pull on a mask, but pulls on a panty by mistake. But through that mistake his superpowers are released and Kyōsuke becomes Hentai Kamen – Pervert Mask.

Hentai Kamen is absolutely insane but in a completely fantastic way. It moves along at a quick pace, is extremely funny and thoroughly entertaining.

Let’s start with the obvious: from a gender perspective Hentai Kamen deserves thorough dissemination. HK receives his power from his mother, a professional domina, and his father, a police man. [Which is already fascinating as his mother’s sexuality is her source of power and how often do you get that in any media?] His superhero costume is something you’d usually expect to see on a woman: he’s practically naked and he wears fishnet stockings. [All that’s missing are high heels.] He poses in ways that is typical for women in comic books.

And him taking on these inherently sexist traits is what makes him a superhero. He puts himself, literally, in the positions of women and that’s what makes him strong. That plus the fact that men are really afraid of dicks that aren’t their own. Man, this movie made me want to write a scientific paper on it.

But apart from that intellectual appreciation of it, HK was just a barrel full of fun. It’s funny, it’s hyper in the best of ways and makes time pass most quickly.

Is it qualitatively the best movie? No. The effects are sometimes extremely cheap and the acting is not really convincing. But it was definitely one of my favorites from the entire festival.

Summarizing: watch it. Have fun.