Karate-Robo Zaborgar

Karate-Robo Zaborgar (電人ザボーガー, Denjin Zabōgā) is a 2011 Japanese film directed by Noboru Iguchi. The film is a remake of the 1974 show Denjin Zaborger.^[1]

Karate-Robo Zaborgar
Directed by	Noboru Iguchi
Screenplay by	Noboru Iguchi
Based on	Denjin Zaborger by P Productions
Produced by	Shinichi Ikeda Yoshinori Chiba
Starring	Itsuji Itao
Cinematography	Yasutaka Nagano
Edited by	Tsuyoshi Wada
Music by	Shunsuke Kikuchi
Production companies	Sushi Typhoon King Records T-Joy
Distributed by	Nikkatsu
Release dates	January 28, 2011 (2011-01-28) (Rotterdam) October 15, 2011 (2011-10-15) (Japan)
Running time	114 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Budget	$3 million
Box office	$162,288

Plot

An evil criminal organisation called Sigma kidnap prominent business leaders to harvest their DNA and only Karate-Robo Zaborgar can save them.^[2]

Production

While working on his television series The Ancient Dogoo Girl in 2009, director Noboru Iguchi said his producer approached him with news that the film adaptation rights for a number of tokusatsu had become available.^[3] Iguchi found that the rights to the 1970s series Denjin Zaborger was available and suggested that he could make a remake of the series into a film.^[3][4]

Iguchi said that compared to his previous feature film works, he had a larger budget and filming schedule to crate Karate-Robo Zaborgar. He said that the film was shot in 26 days, which was shorter than the average Japanese production, but much longer than his previous films The Machine Girl or RoboGeisha which were each shot in about 12 days. Iguchi said the budget for Karate-Robo Zaborgar was "about $3 million" as opposed to the few hundred thousand used for the earlier films.^[3]

Cast

• Itsuji Itao as Yutaka Daimon
• Akira Emoto as Dr. Akunomiya
• Yasuhisa Furuhara as The Younger Daimon
• Naoto Takenaka as Daimon's father
• Hiroyuki Watanabe as Detective

Release

Karate-Robo Zaboragar had its world premiere at the 2011 International Film Festival Rotterdam.^[5]

The international versions of the film are shorter than the Japanese cut. Producer Yoshinori Chiba of Sushi Typhoon told Iguchi to cut the sex scenes or any overtly violent scenes. This was due to the film being sold to distributors in China, who would cut these scenes regardless which led to the production saving money by making one international edit of the film.^[6]

Reception

John Anderson of Variety said the film aimed to be both cheesy and sublime, which he found it "mostly accomplishes" do the special effects work of Yoshihiro Nishimura and Tsuyoshi Kazuno and the "terrific editing" by Takeshi Wada. ^[7] It was later shown in New York at the New York Asian Film Festival in 2011.^[4]