Zeiram 2 (1994)

You may remember Zeiram as the movie that begins as a Sci-Fi martial arts clash between an alien bounty hunter and a mutant super-weapon that suddenly pivots into a Laurel & Hardy duo of dimwits having a Scooby-Doo chase with said mutant super-weapon in an empty warehouse district. More than anything, it was a vehicle for director/character designer Keita Amemiya’s intricate tokusatsu aesthetic, probably one of the most prolific ones in the eighties and nineties (aside from various TV series, he worked on the effects of both GUNHED and Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue, and directed the Ultraman vs. Kamen Rider special), let loose from the strictures of television and plot—but that comic relief twist made it an odd one. Amemiya’s sequel, made three years later, actually streamlines the storytelling in a way that better distributes the action throughout its runtime and integrates all the characters in a more organic way, meaning that it might be a better-constructed film, while still being almost exactly the same.