Rite for a Dream II (With Countless Stones in Your Mouth)

Kamen Rider was an extremely popular TV series in Japan in the early 1970s. The series is set in a world terrorized by a mysterious organization called Shocker, which kidnaps people and transforms them into mutants and cyborgs. One of the victims escapes and becomes a hero in the fight against this great danger. He combats the monsters created by Shocker, which bear a striking resemblance to Nazis. In this montage of Kamen Rider scenes, director Meiro Koizumi has cut out all of the heroes and monsters. This means that the threat is never on-screen but palpable nonetheless. The soundtrack plays the religious rituals that can be heard in the imperial palace in Tokyo. It has been forbidden to publicly perform these since the capitulation of Japan in 1945, when the Japanese emperor was forced to give up his status as a god. The tendency towards totalitarianism linked to this status has never really gone away, however. It has just moved out of sight.