It's hard to deny 2017 has been
something of a rough year for Super Sentai. After Zyuohger
managed to display some surprising depth with a solid conclusion,
Kyuranger popped onto the scene and immediately started
stinking up the joint to the point that I no longer have any interest
in covering it. In fact, I recently checked in on the shows progress,
and guess what? They've added even more characters to the already
bloated cast. Luckily that show isn't the only avenue for fans to get
their fix as there are theatrical films, video specials, and
something wholly new, a Korean addition to the franchise. Let's see
if the land of Kimchi can offer us some salvation from the woes of
Lucky and his space goons.
First and foremost, Power Rangers
Dino Force Brave is a sequel to Kyuryuger, a sentai season
that proved to be highly popular in Korea. The Sentai franchise is
called Power Rangers over there, and no I have zero clue what
they call actual Power Rangers. However I feel it best to
inform you all that I never watched Kyuryuger, so I can offer
no real opinion on how this functions as a continuation. Even with
some vague knowledge of that season I can only judge this on it's
basic merits. To do that we'll have to cover a few production aspects
that are odd to say the least.
When it was announced that this series
would only be 12 episodes long I figured it was a sensible choice to
maintain a low budget and not hold back the premier of the following
series for too long. What wasn't made clear early on however is the
running time for each episode without ads is about 12 minutes. When
you take into account the standard length intros, outros, roll calls
and transformation sequences there's maybe 9 minutes of legitimate
content per episode.
That low running time per installment
means every aspect of the show is very rushed or in some cases
nonexistent. Characters are left mostly underdeveloped, fight scenes
only get so complex, even some of the common tropes of the franchise
are skipped over in favor of the running time. Take for example the
monsters. Usually a monsters design designates it's tactics. For
instance a spider might tie people up in webbing, a musical critter
might attack with sound-waves, you get the picture. Generally the
challenge within an episode is how the team learns to overcome said
attacks. In this show, monsters may have those design elements yet no
time is spent on showcasing unique fighting styles. So everybody
simply has punches, kicks, a couple energy blasts, and maybe a sword
if they're extra special.
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| Explain the arm pads then, ya dink. |
Production wise the show is a mixed
bag. There's a lot of on-location shooting which is nice as the sets
all seem rather small and barren. The action sequences shift between
quite adept to choppy and uninteresting. Most of the costumes are
pretty solid though there is this odd thing where muscle pads are
frequently visible. I've even noticed this with the girl and it's
always goofy looking. Oh and then there's the robots which are decent
looking when it's the standard guys in costumes footage. Then things
switch to outdated CG which allows for more intricate choreography at
the expense of looking like throw-up.
Let's call that enough on production
and get to the story and characters. The story is as straightforward
as it gets. Aliens are coming to destroy the Earth by harnessing the
power of a giant robot dinosaur, naturally a group of youngsters is
imbued with superpowers to strike back against the forces of evil.
Our group of dogooders consists of:
Juyong/Brave Red like most red rangers
gets more attention than the rest of the cast. Thankfully he fits
into the nice guy mold of leaders. He's very upbeat and encouraging
of his team, even admitting where they outperform him on the
battlefield. Could they maybe launch this guy into space to take over
for a certain lucky asshole?
Hyeonjun/Brave Black is your strong guy
with a strong sense of justice and a good heart. That's pretty much
it for him.
Sechang/Brave Blue is a pop star and
supposed ladies man, though he seems far more interested in the
smoothness of his skin, creepy.
Pureun/Brave Green is a spoiled rich
boy in the midst of learning that money isn't everything. Oddly
enough he's the best with guns.
Dohee/Brave Pink is an aspiring nurse
and a fairly standard issue girl who does and likes girly things
other than the color pink.
Juhyeok/Brave Gold is a later addition.
Apparently the long lost brother of Juyong. He's generally
standoffish and mysterious. He's a mercenary who works for the
villains intially as he seems to have some issue with his brother.
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| Any job? Go on. |
While it may sound like I'm picking
this show apart, I'll be honest in that I sorta like it. Not a lot
mind you as there are plentiful flaws, I haven't even gone into how
awkward it is to have such obnoxiously pretty men in the team,
especially during the ending credits dance. But even with everything
wrong during these opening six episodes I found myself getting into
the adventure. Nothing about the show is particularly deep or
interesting. By design it can't be. There simply isn't enough time
for deep storytelling or complicated character dynamics. One might
even question what was the point of making all these new costumes and
robots for so little airtime. The fact is that what is on display
here is at least solid. The characters are two-dimensional but
they're generally likable. Everything about the show is largely the
same, undeveloped but structurally sound.
I can't call Dino Force Brave
the saving grace of this years sentai offerings just yet. There's
still a whole half of the series that could completely nosedive. For
now I'm optimistic that given another shot with some more ambition,
this Korean wing of the franchise could one day produce something
really interesting. We'll check back with the second half soon.
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