Quest for the Masks

Quest for the Masks (also known as Bionicle 1 and Bionicle: The Coming of the Toa in Europe) is the 1981 Vlokozuian science-fiction action tokusatsu superhero film. It is the sixth Technic Heroes installment and first Bionicle installment. Quest for the Masks is considered to be El TV Kadsre's greatest film ever made, and it spanned six sequels, two prequels, one reboot and one remake.

Plot
The Fujioka family members, Icriro, Mizuki, Ren, Jiro and Hana travel to the local hall near El Kadsre City. They soon run into trouble when the mysterious force occur, which almost made Ichiro collide with a truck, then barely getting the group to safety to the hall. As they entered the hall, Jiro encountered Andy, one of his friends, who gave Jiro an audio cassette player and the blank clear compact cassette.

As Jiro enters the restroom, he inserts the compact cassette and played it. However, when Jiro plays it, he hears an unknown man who recorded the tape, reciting a series of incantations, resurrecting the all-powerful being known as the Makuta - alleged to have cast the Great Spirit Mata Nui (a venerated being of whom the island is named after) into a deep sleep. A large group of Rahi crashes the ball party in the hall and attacking everybody in the hall.

Now, Makuta has taken control of the Rahi, the island's fauna, to attack the people and the suburbs of El Kadsre City.

Tahu - Toa of Fire; Gali - Toa of Water; Lewa - Toa of Air; Onua - Toa of Earth; Pohatu - Toa of Stone and Kopaka - Toa of Ice. Carrying formidable tools to channel their elemental energies and donning great 'Kanohi' masks of power, the Toa remember nothing of their former lives except their names. Prior to meeting each other, they rebuild themselves on the seashores and travel to one of the six villages in the country, where they learn of the people's war against the Rahi.

The Toa soon join the conflict, and with the aid of the people and their Turaga leaders, begin searching for more Kanohi masks, each of which possesses a different ability. Collecting six each, they exchange their masks for Golden Kanohi that carry the power of all their former ones and descend underground to face Makuta.

Prior to arriving at the villain's lair, they form two Toa Kaita (titan beings created when Toa fuse together) to challenge Makuta's Manas crabs and battle dark manifestations of themselves dubbed "Shadow Toa". When the Toa arrive, Makuta appears in the form of a Matoran to trick them, but then transforms into a swirling vortex of tentacles and rusty machine parts. They defeat the Makuta by combining their elemental powers onto him.

Triumphant, the heroes return to the surface. But Jamie, having secretly followed the Toa down, discovers a large hive of cocoons hidden away from the battle site. He sees one burst open but quickly escapes back to the surface before he can learn more.

Cast

 * Hideki Hamasaki as Jiro Fujioka/Tahu
 * Jonacus Reinder as Adam Jullen/Kopaka
 * Yasi Tanaka as Hana Fujioka/Gali
 * Sylvester Jalen as Andrea Hashimoto/Lewa
 * Hank Jeroem as Mick Kendal/Pohatu
 * Dean Norman as Jarrod Baxter/Onua
 * Heinrich Hashikawa as Turaga Vakama
 * Bruno Jones as Turaga Nuju
 * Maja Prebensen as Turaga Nokama
 * Taichi Yamaguchi as Turaga Matau
 * Stephan Parke as Turaga Onewa
 * Noach Irwin as Turaga Whenua
 * Andy Wilson as Jamie Howard
 * Antanico Matsushita as Akita Maximino
 * Goro Yukimura as Hiroshi Yoshimura
 * Phillip Stringer as Leo Terrell
 * Zlata Lugnov as Irwin Davey/The Unknown Thief
 * Shota Kita as Yasu Yoshimura
 * Kruku Makusa as Em Yoshimura
 * Darren Nye as Andie Wilson
 * Kornel Sasha as Vít Zelenka
 * Halcyone Ferrara as Aquila Hadaway
 * August Andreasen as Isak Lange
 * Velibor Košar as Bož Bo Petrović
 * Mark Fitzroy as Derrick Jennings
 * Geoffrey West as Andy Patterson
 * Hiroshi Fujioka as Icriro Fujioka
 * Susumu Takahashi as Ren Fujioka
 * Tomomi Koizumi as Mizuki Fujioka

Production and release
The movie was filmed from December 29, 1979 to January 10, 1980 and again from April 22 to August 20, 1980. Elkan thought the film would likely be in development limbo or more likely to be canceled due to the death of Hayato Nakahara, the original actor of Jiro Fujioka aka. Tahu, in which he and his girlfriend were killed in the car collision on January 12, 1980.

Shortly after El TV Kadsre's reaction to Hayato's death, El TV Kadsre found it a struggle to find a better actor who will replace Hayato, so then they invited the group of actors to audition for the role of Jiro Fujioka including Ryoichi Yamaguchi, Kuro Yukimura, Kouki Yamashita, Gerald Hayashi and Donald Hijoshi. The winner of the contest was Hideki Hamasaki, though he said to the judges he never acted in the full-length movie before and he said he was a star of short films.

Reception
Quest for the Masks was met with universal critical acclaim. The film holds 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, 99% on IMDB and 98% on Google.