GetPapa
Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible
Tyreece Hulme
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Brennan Camacho
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Kamila Bell
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Kirpianuscus
at the first sigh, it is awful. for the crap story, for the unrealistic fight scenes, for the exile of Wes Bentley in a role so far by him. at the second sigh , a compensation is discovered . Hirokin in reasonable support for remind scenes and characters from many Sci Fi / fantastic movies. John Carter or Dune, off course, but not only. the stories about heroes from the childhood, the brave young men against evil leaders, the fantasy from the decades "50 - "70 are a kind of aura of this modest film about nothing. because all is well known and the only purpose of director to have another title in his filmography. the only real sin - the reference to Japan. Hirokin could have many identities. but he has the bad luck to not be a samurai.
Phil Hubbs
Space samurai on a distant planet says you? yes please says I. The villain played by the dastardly devilish looking Julian Sands?? oh my! this sounds great! Wes Bentley says you? hmm OK not bad, not bad, but I've gone slightly soft now.Plus points...the film looks pretty sweet, its basic with obvious sets and errr...a handful of bad guys, villagers and good guys used over and over but the location work looks nice. Set on the distant desert planet of Aradius you can see straight away certain similarities to many other sci-fi/fantasy films, need I list them? So everything looks very familiar yet admittedly rather nice with use of sunsets, twilight, dusk, early morning etc...the colours and hues are gorgeous at times.Apart from that the film is your standard by the numbers chosen one styled plot line. A lone warrior saves a small tribe of people (aliens that look exactly like humans) from a tyrant human played by Sands naturally. All the bad guys look like Imperial guards from 'ROTJ' and Sands looks suspiciously like Sting in 'Dune'.Its all very clichéd and run of the mill stuff, yet the whole point is lost on me, I have no real clue what's in it for the evil Julian Sands to do what he does. Angus Macfadyen is the Yoda-like Master, the all powerful leader, warrior and rebel who must train the eager Hirokin, cue lots of training montages set against facial close ups and with many shadows and silhouettes.There seems to be a lot more style over substance really, very arty and nice to look at but behind that its pretty crappy stuff really. Doesn't really make much sense, why would a distant planet in the future (or so I assume) utilize the ancient Japanese samurai way of life, war and culture? where do they get their fuel, water and food from? etc...I could go on but I won't.Shame the people/aliens of this poor village seem to totally outnumber the bad guys (but why would they even stay in this village?, the area offers nothing...leeeeave it!!). Oh and this alien race are called Arids. You see what they have done there? Arids...Arabs? or maybe because the planet they live on is arid?...ah beats the sh*t outta me.Its a nice slice of B-movie sci-fi hokum that will please some fans of the genre. Its fun harmless stuff and Bentley does look the part I admit. May I suggest a better choice, if you like sci-fi hokum then I recommend 'Hunter Prey' which is a much better ride.4/10
TheLittleSongbird
Hirokin did have a good idea going for it, unfortunately it now joins the already quite big pile of movies that badly executed their good ideas. The best thing about it is some exotic scenery, but that's it. And even then you can't really enjoy it because the camera work and editing is so lazy and amateurish. The special effects are also rather unfinished looking and like they were shoe-horned in pretty much last minute, and the choreography and fight scenes have no energy or momentum, just clumsily done all round. The music is at best generic, it can be annoying also and it doesn't sound as though it entirely fits with everything else. Hearing the dialogue, I got the impression that the writers didn't bother to make sure that what they wrote actually made any kind of sense, it just rambles on, sounds awkward and often doesn't seem to really mean anything. The story aside from being highly derivative is dull, lacking in any thrills or fun and so predictable to the extent that you are constantly correctly guessing what happens next. There is nothing interesting or likable about the characters here, they are little more than severely underwritten archetypes, especially the villains that are among the most laughable of any movie. The acting is terrible especially the bland and wholly unheroic lead(he has the looks but not the acting chops), even Julian Sands, most likely the most well-known actor in the cast, manages to give a flat and really quite insipid performance. Angus Macfadyen likewise. Overall, Hirokin did have good potential that is wasted by really bad execution. Not the worst I've ever seen, but you'd be hard pressed to find anything redeeming regarding the movie. 1/10 Bethany Cox
nick
I once saw a movie that was worse than this. once. This movie is a horrible amalgamation of Star Wars, The Last Samurai and Gladiator. In the film our hero Hirokin and his wife get captured by an evil overlord named Phoenix. Somehow or another, Hirokin escapes and wanders off into the desert. He meets a fat, balding, Yoda-like guy who teaches him "the way" which is like the force but not really. after He's learned "the way" he "unites the tribes" which turn out to be like 30 people in total. Then he goes back and fights the evil Phoenix in a ring of guards, he kills Phoenix but is mortally wounded himself and dies.In this basic recycled plot, the writer/director sprinkles in some other things that have no baring on the story and end up not being important. for example, a hovercraft that looks like Jabba's barge; An implied love triangle involving Yoda's daughter; two Irish idiots for comic relief and a half hour of Discovery Chanel nature shots. There are blatant ripoffs throughout the movie. The Irish idiots are lifted from Hidden Fortress; They took Jedi robes and gave them unhemmed edges; the ending is from Gladiator, complete with a grassy field vision and to top it all off, a Black Obi Wan Kenobi that had nothing to do with the plot. You could make a drinking game where everyone has to do a shot for every ripped off element. everyone would be too drunk by the end to even notice the gladiator ending.half the budget for set design seems to have been blown on one spiky death machine. One can deduce that from the three shots it's unnecessarily placed in, and also the fact that 90% of the movie takes place in tents. The acting is horrible, The handful of real actors in it appear to not take their rolls seriously (and for good reason) and deliver "non-performances". The editing was amateurish at best, shots were carried too long and dialog scenes were sloppy. I've seen better editing in YouTube videos. The soundtrack was generic, ambient, crap. Overall this movie had no redeeming features whatsoever. there was no single component piece to it that was even passable. whoever told "Alejo Mo-Sun" (writer/director/producer) that he has an ounce of talent in film making should be shot. His mother should be sued for encouraging him to follow his dreams.