“Baby Assassins: Nice Days” Theatrical Poster

Director: Yugo Sakamoto
Cast: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Sosuke Ikematsu, Atsuko Maeda, Atomu Mizuishi 
Running Time: 112 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

Whatever your opinion of director and writer Yugo Sakamoto, what can’t be denied is that few filmmakers are keeping grounded martial arts movies alive quite like he is. In the 4 years spanning 2021 to 2024 his Baby Assassins trilogy has cemented a modern-day iron triangle of action goodness – with the other key players represented by co-star Saori Izawa and fight choreographer Kensuke Sonomura. That’s not counting The Janitor (which provided the assassins their first appearance) and the 12-episode mini-series. Admittedly, everything in-between the action is more of an acquired taste. The first Baby Assassins was an unsuccessful mix of forced quirkiness and abrasive characters, while the sequel struck a much more palatable balance. At the heart of every entry is the pairing of leads Saori Izawa and Akari Takaishi as the assassins of the title, and 2024 saw the release of the third entry, Baby Assassins: Nice Days.

Ditching the more episodic nature of the previous 2 entries, BA: ND (as I’ll refer to it from here on in) opts for a more linear narrative that does wonders for the pacing. For a start we don’t spend any time on the couch of their Tokyo apartment this time around, with the pair enjoying some downtime in the beachside town of Miyazaki, in-between a contracted hit the guild has assigned them to in the nearby locality. Problems arise though when they bust in on their target, only to find another assassin about to pull the trigger and beat them to it. Played by a scene stealing Sôsuke Ikematsu (Shoplifters, Death Note: Light Up the New World), he plays the classic renegade assassin with a passion for killing. His freelancer hitman proves to be a formidable opponent for the pair, resulting in him walking away unscathed, and their target managing to escape.

Displeased with their employee’s performance, the guild sends a pair of senior assassins to join Izawa and Takasihi, played by Atsuko Maeda (Before We Vanish, Masquerade Hotel) and newcomer Mondo Otani, with the foursome’s mission being to kill Ikematsu, and then finish off the original job. As expected, the socially awkward and carefree attitudes of Izawa and Takaishi soon start to clash with the no nonsense approach of their new colleagues, but when it turns out Ikematsu also works for the hilariously named Agricultural Assassin Co-Op, they realise they’ll need to work together to survive.

Sakamoto seems to have realised with the third entry that the recipe needed to be changed up to stay fresh, and by putting Izawa and Takaishi up against the wall from the beginning, it delivers the intended narrative thrust that gradually builds in momentum across the 112–minute runtime (marking the longest of the trilogy). The initial confrontation between Izawa and Ikematsu (which takes place as Takaishi attempts to chase down their target) is both brutal and innovative, with the pair literally fighting as they run, desperately trying to reach a handgun that’s constantly kicked or thrown further out of their reach. It shows all the signs of a collaboration between director, fight choreographer, and star who’ve worked together long enough to start pushing each other’s abilities to the next level, and it’s a delight to watch.

The decision to switch from CGI blood to fake blood is also a commendable one, with the makeup department not shying away from showing the damage that Ikematsu’s barrage of fists and feet take on Izawa, particularly when she’s left a bloodied heap on the floor at the end of their initial confrontation (and this is even before the title has appeared onscreen, which eventually arrives over 20 minutes in!). For the first time in the series there’s a tangible sense that one of them may possibly not make it to the end credits (even though the fact the TV series is set after this instalment acts as a minor spoiler that they both do).

Events transpire to give BA: ND somewhat of an Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday vibe through the direction the plot takes, with the actual target (played by the singularly named Kaibashira – Koji Shiraishi’s Never Send Me, Please) eventually falling under the protection of Izawa and Takaishi. Hunted by members of ‘The Farm’ – the nickname for the previously mentioned Co-Op – the situational humor around the fact those who end up protecting him also plan to kill him once they’ve offed the troublesome Ikematsu delivers the intended laughs (much like the situation Scott Adkins and Perry Benson find themselves in!). In fact it’s fair to say that with this third outing Sakamoto shows a level of maturity when it comes to both the characterisation and the humour, with the latter no longer feeling as forced as it did in the first instalment.

While anyone clocking into any of the Baby Assassins movies (and now TV mini-series) will be doing so for the action, the investment in Izawa and Takaishi’s relationship feels much more relatable this time around, with the danger they’re in allowing both actresses to display a genuine concern for the other. The shift away from the cutesy and quirky actually allows both characters some breathing space to feel more like people the audience should care about, and by the time the end credits roll for the first time I was left wanting more.

However the most important aspect of BA: ND is, expectedly, the action. As mentioned earlier proceedings start off with a bang, and choreographer Kensuke Sonomura does a stellar job of building on the action as the plot progresses. In the same year he’d direct Ghost Killer, which starred one half of the Baby Assassins in the form of Akari Takaishi, for which he also handled the action, and while the fight action was of the usual high quality, one of my complaints was that the gunfights felt uninspired and flat. Not the case here, with a bullet riddled finale executed with creativity to spare, and while no one is ever going to mistake these movies for coming with a high budget, the kinetic energy of the scenes does enough to overlook any minor misgivings.

Where the action truly shines though is when the cast are left empty handed, or at least, armed only with a knife. Stuntman Santoshi Kibe not only clocks in an assistant action coordinator credit, but also makes one of his rare front of camera appearances (the last time was in 2019’s Hydra), playing the most feared assassin from the Agricultural Assassin Co-Op. Given the opportunity to bust out some monkey kung-fu against Mondo Otani in a basement carpark, his agility mixed with the fact he’s fully suited and booted make his brief appearance a memorable one. We need more monkey kung-fu in contemporary action movies (caveat: no references to Steven Seagal’s 2003 masterpiece Out for a Kill allowed)!

Of course the heavy lifting is given to Izawa in the finale, who after taking on a group of assassins in a frantic melee, is finally given the opportunity for a rematch against Ikematsu. Both know how to make Sonomura’s choreography shine, with the fight ensuring we understand she’s the underdog from the get-go, once more clearly being overpowered and outdone by the latter’s aggressive attacks. It’s a knock down drag out affair, and there’s some genuinely hairy moments when it seems a certainty the end is near, which only makes the way Iwatsu and Akaishi end up teaming up all the more satisfying. The culmination of everything the narrative has been building to so far, it ranks as one of the most satisfying final fights in recent years.

The expression goes that the third time’s a charm, and with Baby Assassins: Nice Days director and writer Yugo Sakamoto has very much proven it to be true. At the end of my review for Baby Assassins I concluded that “It’s really not an action movie, so at the end of the day, it’s both ironic and a little sad that there’s not much to recommend outside of it.” Just 3 years later, and the 3^rd instalment not only delivers on the action, but remembers to make us care about everything else as well. Recommended.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8/10

The post Baby Assassins: Nice Days (2024) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Baby Assassins 2” Poster

AKA: Baby Assassins: 2 Babies
Director: Yugo Sakamoto
Cast: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Joey Iwanaga, Tatsuomi Hamada, Atomu Mizuishi
Running Time: 101 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

I confess I wasn’t the biggest fan of Yugo Sakamoto’s Baby Assassins, concluding that the 2021 production “will likely only appeal to those action fans who are willing to wait (or perhaps skip forward) to see Masanori Mimoto unleash under the choreography of Kensuke Somomura.” However I’m all for giving 2^nd chances, and there was just enough potential in the first instalment to make me curious enough to come back for more.

Sakamoto certainly hasn’t been resting on his laurels in the short timeframe between the original and the sequels release, with his seeming ambition to create an assassin’s universe of movies and shorts continuing to grow. Since the release of Baby Assassins he expanded his short The Legend of the Strongest Hitman: Kunioka into a feature length production, and the end result was an entertainingly meta-take on the genre. The story sees Sakamoto cast a fictional version of himself, one who decides to find inspiration to help finish the script for Baby Assassins by following around a real hitman, and the chaos that ensues. Blurring the lines further, 2022’s Green Bullet focuses on six girls being trained to be assassins by the same Kunioka, essentially creating 2 parallel hitman universes – the one Sakamoto created (Baby Assassins), and the one he’s projected himself into! Expect some multiverse madness if we ever get a Baby Assassins 3!

Baby Assassins 2 sees the return of the 2 teenage slacker assassins played by Akari Takaishi (My Happy Marriage, Single8) and Saori Izawa (A Janitor, Re:Born), who since the original has notched up the notable credit of being the stunt double for Rina Sawayama in John Wick: Chapter 4. Sakamoto is back both on director and script duties, and subverts expectations from the get-go by instead choosing to focus on a pair of male assassins. Played by Joey Iwanaga (Lion Girl, Enter the Fat Dragon) and Ultraman regular Tatsuomi Hamada, the opening scene sees one of their hits go awry when their target, who they were expecting to be alone, turns out to have the company of 4 acquaintances. A frantically scrappy fight breaks out as 2 go up against 5, with the pair getting the job done, but not without incurring a few cuts and bruises.

When it turns out they assassinated the wrong guy, the fact that they’re not members of the Assassins Guild means they basically did the job for free. Tired of being freelancers and knowing that the Guild’s membership is full, after hearing a rumour that openings are created when members bite the dust, the pair hatch a plot to off a pair of assassins who are in the Guild, and it’s Takaishi and Izawa who find themselves as their targets. That’s essentially the plot, however much like in the original, it’s not so much the plot itself that provides the narrative thrust, as it is the more mundane daily struggles of Takaishi and Izawa that are expected to deliver the entertainment value.

There was a self-aware level of intended cool and forced quirkiness in Baby Assassins that I found particularly grating, which combined with the fact Takaishi and Izawa’s defining characteristic seemed to be their laziness, felt like there wasn’t much left of redeeming value outside of the action. Thankfully Sakamoto has struck a much more satisfying balance with the sequel, especially in the pair’s characterisation. Takaishi is still loud, but it no longer feels obnoxious, and Izawa here is much more vocal, and therefore feels more like a real character, a stark comparison to her monosyllabic mumbling in the original (and let’s face it, any change that makes you sound less like a female version of Steven Seagal is a plus).

The pairs predicament is essentially the same as before, having been suspended from active duty by the Guild after preventing a bank robbery (getting involved in non-Guild approved hits is a big no), they once more find themselves needing to resort to part-time jobs to sustain an income. While in the original their job hunt came from having to start paying rent once the Guild’s financial assistance stopped on their 18^th birthdays, which served to hardly make them the most empathetic protagonists, the sequel goes for a much more relatable issue – they’ve forgotten to pay the gym memberships they signed up for 5 years ago and only went to once. Much like the original it’s these detours which make up the crux of the sequel, as Iwanaga and Hamada stalk them in the background, a narrative decision that means the 2 pairs don’t meet each other until almost an hour in.

However this time the blasé approach to narrative structure is much more effective. Iwanaga and Hamada’s hairbrained plan to kill another pair of assassins just to get into the Guild is portrayed like any other workplace scenario where employees hope for a promotion. The only difference is in their line of work it involves killing, a fact which is more amusing when it becomes clear they’re not actually all that good at it either. Played off against Takaishi and Izawa attempting to hold down a job dressed up as animal mascots, the idea that Iwanaga and Hamada would rather be in their position becomes increasingly ludicrous.

As expected Sakamoto has once more brought onboard Japan’s busiest action director to choreograph the fights in the form of Kensuke Sonomura, clocking in his first gig in a year which would go on to see him also choreograph Tak Sakaguchi in One Percenter. While the fight action is far from constant, what’s there is all top shelf. The opening scrap that sees Iwanaga and Hamada tussle against 5 attackers in the confines of a cramped unit feels like it’s straight out of a Korean gangster movie in its frenzied desperation. Special mention should go to one of the comedic highlights, which sees tensions boil over between Takaishi and Izawa while in their mascot suits, the result of which sees a tiger versus panda throwdown in the middle of the street. The scene may actually trump Jean Claude Van Damme fighting a penguin in Sudden Death as the greatest mascot fight committed to film (although is there any other competition out there!?).

As in the original for the finale the heavy lifting is placed on the shoulders of Izawa, who this time swaps out Masanori Mimoto as an opponent for Iwanaga, an actor who has a legitimate action pedigree shown off in the likes of Rurouni Kenshin: Final Chapter Part 1 – The Final and Dancing Karate Kid. The one on one delivers the typical Sonomura flair and is satisfyingly lengthy, only really let down by an odd creative choice that interrupts the flow and doesn’t quite work the way it was probably intended. However it’s a minor gripe, and both Izawa and Iwanaga give it everything they’ve got with more feigns that you can shake a stick at, leading to a conclusion that I enjoyed didn’t fall into any typical Hollywood trappings, staying true to the premise of the characters.

Not everything is smooth sailing in the sequel, with any time a gun fight breaks out the inability for anyone to shoot each other, even when apparently shooting at point blank range, inevitably feels slightly off. It may have been forgivable if they were playing any other role, but considering we’re supposed to be watching assassins it makes the issue all the more glaring. There’s also a contender for the most pointless post-credit scene ever, consisting of a conversation that harks back to the kind of self-aware quirky banter that plagued so much of the original, and adds precisely nothing to the experience. Thankfully though there’s always the option to walk away before the scene plays.

All in all though Baby Assassins 2 improves on its predecessor in every way, with the addition of the male assassins being a welcome one, especially Iwanaga who conveys a natural charisma and screen presence that’s often missing from these mid-budget productions. In my review for Baby Assassins I’d debated of what the chances would be of seeing Izawa show off her talents again in the near future, so to only have to wait 2 years again to see her in action is a welcome surprise. Breezy and occasionally bloody, the result is a sequel that’s well worth checking out.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10

The post Baby Assassins 2 (2023) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Baby Assassins” Theatrical Poster

Director: Yugo Sakamoto
Cast: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Mone Akitani, Yukina Fukushima, Masanori Mimoto, Atom Mizuishi, Yasukaze Motomiya, Takashi Nishina, Yosuke Ohmizu
Running Time: 95 min.

By Paul Bramhall 

We can blame the John Wick franchise for the action genres current infatuation with assassins for hire. Following a bombardment of assassin flicks in the 2010’s which came after the release of the original John Wick in 2014, now only a couple of years into the 2020’s and there doesn’t seem to be any slowing down. We’ve already had Maggie Q in Protégé, Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Kate, Karen Gillan in Gunpowder Milkshake, and those are just the ones that immediately spring to mind. Even Japan, a country in which the action genre is usually relegated to the low to no budget arena, has thrown its hat into the ring with the likes of 2019’s The Fable and it’s 2021 sequel, The Killer Who Doesn’t Kill, which features a surprising amount of top shelf action.

In 2021 it was also Japan that offered up Baby Assassins, thankfully not a literal title when it comes to either of the ways it could be interpreted as meaning. The fourth full length feature from director Yugo Sakamoto, Baby Assassins further elaborates on what appears to be a kind of assassin’s universe that Sakamoto has created. His previous feature A Janitor also involves a world of assassins, as do his shorts The Legend of the Strongest Hitman: Kunioka and Heaven’s Rush. Here he takes a pair of actresses who play significant supporting roles in A Janitor in the form of Akari Takaishi (Distant Thunder) and stuntwoman Saori Izawa (Re:Born), and propels them into the titular roles that the title alludes to.

Straight off the bat it’s clear that Baby Assassins shares a significant amount of DNA with 2019’s Hydra. Not only in the fact that Hydra’s director Kensuke Sonomura is onboard here as fight choreographer, and its leading man Masanori Mimoto shows up on bad guy duty, but also in its overall tone and approach. Hydra was more of a small-scale slice of life human drama than an all-out action flick, ironically one that also involved assassins, and Baby Assassins looks to capture the same feel. Takaishi and Izawa play a pair of teenage assassins working for an agency that’s trained them to be effective killers, and even provides them with an apartment in which they live together.

With their 20^th birthdays looming the financial assistance the agency provides will cease, so when we meet them their goal is to find normal part time jobs that can subsidise the assassin work. That’s not as easy as it sounds though as Takaishi is a hyperactive extrovert with zero attention span, and Izawa is a laconic introvert with zero social skills. Basically neither of them is able to function particularly well in everyday society, nor do they have any real appetite to, their default being to spend their days slacking on the sofa and playing on their phones between kills.

There’s really not a lot to Baby Assassins beyond the above description. Whereas Hydra’s deliberate pacing felt like it slowly revealed layers of characterisation and a meaningful plot, here everything is very surface level. To enjoy Baby Assassins will largely be dependent on how much you can swallow the self-conscious quirkiness of everything onscreen. A countless number of scenes are dependent on Takaishi’s abrasive loudness played off against Izawa’s almost inaudible mumbling (I think she studied Steven Seagal’s DTV output for her characters inspiration), and if you find the first few of these scenes irritating, it’ll be best to clock out early.

There’s a self-aware level of intended cool to the script which feels too blatant for it to come across as anything other than exactly that, such as when the pair have a casual conversation about what they’re going to eat later in front of their tied to a chair victim, making everything feel a little forced. That’s not to say Sakamoto doesn’t have any good ideas, with the concept of the agency the pair are contracted to being an entertaining one, and the fact that it isn’t explored in much detail actually works in the scripts favour. In some ways its reminiscent of the concept explored in Korea’s A Company Man from 2012, in which So Ji-sub plays a hitman whose role is portrayed like any other white-collar worker. However as fun as the concept is, the unstructured and loose narrative eventually begins to feel like it needs a reason to exist.  

That reason does eventually present itself in the form of an amusingly progressive yakuza leader, played by Yasukaze Motomiya (Tokyo Dragon Chef), and his yakuza offspring. Keen to make the yakuza a more inclusive place for women to be a part of, the kind of “female-centric business” he decides to explore is that of the uniquely Japanese maid café. His visit to one such café is actually one of Baby Assassins genuinely comedic moments, as the hyper-cheerful and attentive maids gradually begin to test his patience in ways which are destined to not end well. Thankfully Takaishi also happens to be on shift in another of her attempts to hold down a part time job, and when she assassinates both Motomiya and his son, it’s left to the daughter to take revenge.

The daughter is played by newcomer Mone Akitani, who’s entire performance consists of screaming her lines in what could best be described as an assault on the ears. Thankfully this semblance of a plot only appears when we’re already over an hour into the punchy 95-minute runtime, and serves up an opportunity for Kensuke Sonomura and Masanori Mimoto to do what they do best. With Takashi loaded up with a machine gun and a pistol brandishing Izawa, the pair descend on Akitani’s yakuza headquarters to shoot pretty much anything that moves. The sequence itself is perfunctory at best, however its saving grace is that it offers up an extended one on one that pits Izawa and Mimoto against each other.

For anyone who’s seen Mimoto unleash in Hydra they should have a good idea of what to expect here, and Sonomura once more choreographs a stand-out fight scene that’s intricate, fast, and brutal. The fight itself doesn’t quite hit the highs of Hydra’s action beats, with the occasional redundant move being thrown in here and there which I couldn’t help but notice, however it’s still head and shoulders above most modern fight scenes. Izawa more than holds her own, and I couldn’t help but think what it would have been like to see her in a Sonomura choreographed fight against Rina Takeda, back when she was still active in the action genre. It always feels a little too enthusiastic to say “I can’t wait to see what she does next” when it comes to action actresses in Japan, so I’ll simply say that if we don’t see Izawa onscreen again for a while, she can be proud of the fight she clocks in here.

As good as the fight may be, it doesn’t earn enough good will towards Baby Assassins to make everything that’s come before it any more tolerable. While Sakamoto clearly has some creative ideas, his ability to bring them to the screen in a compelling way, at least at this point in his career, feels like it’s lacking. There are certainly hints at a brighter future though. Both Takaishi and Izawa’s characters do have moments which illicit empathy, it’s just that far too much of their time onscreen makes them come across as lazy and directionless, traits that they both seem more than happy to wallow in. While there’s been plenty of good (and even great) movies about the slacker lifestyle, here their constant laying around and laboured efforts to do anything else only serve to make the pace drag.

With its loose narrative, bargain basement CGI blood, high pitched yelling, and low frequency mumbling, Baby Assassins will likely only appeal to those action fans who are willing to wait (or perhaps skip forward) to see Masanori Mimoto unleash under the choreography of Kensuke Somomura. It’s really not an action movie, so at the end of the day, it’s both ironic and a little sad that there’s not much to recommend outside of it.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 4.5/10

The post Baby Assassins (2021) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.