“Ghost Killer” Theatrical Poster

Director: Kensuke Sonomura
Cast: Akari Takaishi, Mario Kuroba, Masanori Mimoto, Sora Inoue, Akaka Higashino, Naohiro Kawamoto, Hidenobu Abera, Naoto Kuratomi, Satoshi Kibe
Running Time: 105 min.

By Paul Bramhall

A lone figure in the darkness of a deserted marketplace alley faces off against 3 masked attackers, fending them off set to the rustle of their clothes, the shuffle of their footwork, and a flurry of quick, precise strikes. Within seconds the choreography on display can be identified as the work of Kensuke Sonomura, an action director who’s been active since the mid-2000’s, acting as the action choreographer on the likes of The Machine Girl and Deadball. However it was with his 2019 directorial debut Hydra that he really cemented his distinctive style – one that dials back action scenes to their purest form, absent of any kind of soundtrack, and relying purely on the movements and sounds of the performers onscreen to create a sense of conflict and danger.

It’s a style that’s immediately recognizable in the same way that the Jackie Chan or Donnie Yen style of choreography comes with its own distinctive DNA, and Sonomura has found a muse for his onscreen mayhem in the form of Masanori Mimoto. With a choreographer-performer relationship dating back to the likes of 2010’s Alien vs. Ninja and 2013’s Bushido Man, it made sense that Sonomura cast Mimoto as the lead for his directorial debut, and he’d crop up again in Sonomura’s sophomore crack at sitting in the director’s chair with 2022’s Bad City. They say third times a charm, and in 2024 Sonomura has returned to the role of both director and action director with the release of Ghost Killer.

The lone figure that opens Ghost Killer with the marketplace fight scene is also Masanori Mimoto, and after disposing of the trio of assailants, he finds himself on the wrong end of a bullet. Playing an assassin for hire, his untimely death sees him harbour a grudge, one that prevents him from entering the afterlife until justice is served. Thankfully an opportunity arises to do exactly that when a college student discovers the casing of the bullet that delivered the kill shot, which allows Mimoto’s spirit both to communicate with her directly, as well as (and more significantly) possess her body, providing a vessel for his considerable fighting skills. Played by one half of the Baby Assassins, surprisingly Sonomura has chosen to go with the non-stunt performer of the pair, and cast Akari Takaishi as Mimoto’s only way to continue communicating with the world of the living.

It’s a familiar setup, riffing on the likes of Hong Kong’s Where’s Officer Tuba? and Taiwan’s Kung Fu Student from the 1980’s, transplanting the dynamic of a martial arts savvy ghost possessing an unexpected member of the living to the streets of modern Japan. While it’s Takaishi who takes top billing, Mimoto can essentially be considered a co-star, since there aren’t too many scenes when he’s not by her side or being called into action. Takaishi isn’t the only link to the Baby Assassins trilogy (and now a TV Mini Series as well!) though, as apart from all of them featuring Sonomura’s action direction talents, it’s also their director Yugo Sakamoto who’s penned the script for Ghost Killer (one of the funniest lines has Takaishi suggest to her roommate that they could “…watch those three shitty movies we talked about.” – a clear in-joke referencing the Baby Assassins trilogy).

The result is one that makes Takaishi’s struggling college student feel like a not-too-distant incarnation of her Baby Assassins character, and how much you enjoyed her character in that series will be a strong indicator of how much you’ll enjoy Ghost Killer. Living in a state of perpetual exasperation even before she realises there’s a ghost following her around, her frazzled state is one we spend the majority of the 105-minute runtime with, and if your sense of humor isn’t in tune to the constant outbursts of flusterment, it could come across as a little grating. Much like Saori Izawa provided the counterbalance in Baby Assassins, its Mimoto’s sardonic hitman that takes on the same role here, strolling around with a blood-stained sweater where he got shot, and reluctantly coming to accept that his hitman days are over.

Their relationship acts as the anchor to Ghost Killer’s tried and tested plot of an assassin who’s been wronged by the agency he provided his services to, heading to the inevitable confrontation between former (well, actually dead) employer and those he used to work for. Able to possess Takaishi’s body by clasping hands, soon she’s putting the beatdown on her friend’s abusive boyfriend, and confronting cinnamon sniffing influencers with a tendency to spike girls drinks to take advantage of them. The fight that takes place within the confines of a small bar against the latter also acts as one that sets the rules for the possession plot device, with Mimoto realising he needs to keep his opponent in a choke hold 30 seconds longer than usual due to Takaishi’s “skinny arms”.

It’s a smart angle to take possession trope from, with a lethal hitman having to adjust to applying his skillset in the body of a female college student, but it’s not one that Sonomura sticks with. By the time we get to the finale, an uninspired shootout sees the scene alternate between having both Takaishi and Mimoto appear onscreen, however when it comes to the inevitable one on one, Sonomura wisely givens centre stage to Mimoto. It’s a decision which will likely split audiences down the middle, and I can imagine for anyone watching Ghost Killer who doesn’t have a vested interest in the talents involved, the sudden departure from one of the most interesting plot points will likely seem like a criminal oversight. For those that do (and if it wasn’t clear already, this is the category I fall into!), then the fact the decision means we get a rematch between Mimoto and Naohiro Komoto makes any narrative misdemeanours forgivable.

The finale of Hydra gave us an uninterrupted 4-minute showdown between the pair, and here it ups the ante by stretching their fight out to 7 minutes. Their rematch serves to once more show why Sonomura is one of the best fight choreographers working today, with the fight seamlessly transitioning between knife work to empty handed strikes and grappling, and while the finish doesn’t have the same sense of catharsis as their confrontation in Hydra, it still delivers. Sure, it makes no sense whatsoever that it’s actually supposed to Takaishi who’s on the receiving end of Komoto’s blows, but then again if the rules were being strictly adhered to, the fight would probably have been over in 2 minutes.

Despite ending on a strong note, as the end credits rolled there’s an undeniable feeling that at 105 minutes, Ghost Killer is a tad overlong. The 75-minute runtime of Hydra feels like the perfect sweet spot for Sonomura’s directorial talents, with Ghost Killer’s mid-section suffering from a lack of narrative thrust that makes the time start to drag. While as an action director Sonomura is a master at being able to inject tension into the fight scenes, when it comes to doing the same for the more dialogue driven and dramatic elements of the story, for the most part these scenes come across as flat and pedestrian. Much like in Bad City, the runtime would have benefitted from leaving some of the more superfluous characters on the cutting room floor in favour of being leaner, in this case an apprentice hitman played by Mario Kuroba (Hard Days, Sadako DX) could easily have received the chop.

Despite Akari Takaishi receiving top billing, Ghost Killer feels more like it belongs to Masanori Mimoto. It’s his character that ultimately gets a narrative arc to conclude his story of a ghost with a grudge, while Takaishi’s character serves little purpose beyond acting flustered and delivering some rather laboured attempts at comedy. If you’re able to sit through the latter, then you’ll be rewarded with some of the best action of this decade from the former.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10

The post Ghost Killer (2024) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Bad City” Theatrical Poster

Director: Kensuke Sonomura
Cast: Hitoshi Ozawa, Tak Sakaguchi, Masanori Mimoto, Rino Katase, Lily Franky, Katsuya, Akane Sakanoue, Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, Yasukaze Motomiya
Running Time: 118 min. 

By Paul Bramhall 

On paper Bad City is one of those movies that has all the right ingredients to cook up the perfect yakuza action flick. The sophomore feature from stuntman and action choreographer turned director Kensuke Sonomura following 2019’s Hydra, just like with his debut here he also takes on the role of action director. V-Cinema legend Hitoshi Ozawa (Score, Spare) is on leading man, producer, and writing duty, very much making it somewhat of a passion project for the now suitably grizzled 60-year-old star. We get Tak Sakaguchi (once more billed as Tak ∴, as he was in his ‘final’ action movie Re:Born from 2016) playing a silent knife wielding killer, and Sonomura re-teams with Hydra leading man and Japan’s leading action talent (and in many ways the successor to Sakaguchi) Masanori Mimoto (Baby Assassins, Enter the Fat Dragon) to show off his moves.

From the start it’s clear Bad City is much grander in scope than Sonomura’s debut in the director’s chair. Whereas Hydra was very much a self-contained story with a limited cast of characters and a runtime of less than 80 minutes, Bad City ramps things up in every aspect, creating a sprawling tale of corruption and gangsters involving a plethora of characters which unfolds across 2 hours. The plot sees Ozawa as a former detective who’s been imprisoned on suspicion of murdering the son of a powerful Korean gang boss, played by Rino Katase (of the popular Yakuza Ladies series from the 80’s and 90’s). However there’s more to the situation than meets the eye, with Katase unaware there may be treachery within her own ranks.

When the head of a conglomerate with links to the underworld (played by Lily Franky – Yakuza Apocalypse, As the Gods Will) announces he’s running for mayor, he partners with one of Katase’s underlings to green light a residential area for redevelopment into a casino resort, a plan that Katase’s son was opposed to. Knowing Ozawa was heavily involving in bringing down the Korean gang before, an ambitious prosecutor organises for him to be released on temporary parole, partnering him with a trio from the violent crimes unit – played by Katsuya (Midnight Swan, The Blood of Wolves), his partner played by Masanori Mimoto, and as with so many of these movies, the obligatory female newbie, played by Akane Sakanoue (Your Eyes Tell, Back Street Girls: Gokudols).

While these tales of gangster backstabbing, usually both literally and metaphorically, were once a staple of Japanese cinema, from their heyday in the 70’s through to their V-Cinema rebirth in the 80’s and 90’s, there’s little doubt that it’s been Korea which has picked up the slack in the 21^st century. It’s worth mentioning because it’s more recent Korean productions that feel like an influence on Bad City more so than Japan’s V-cinema era. The plot plays out like a mix of 2017’s Asura: City of Madness and 2021’s Paid in Blood, with Ozawa’s relentless cop coming across like a grittier, less humorous version of Ma Dong-seok’s one-man wrecking ball from The Roundup franchise (or as one character puts it, he’s “foul mouthed, violent, and has no sense of propriety”). That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and few would disagree that any yakuza flick which opens with a bathhouse slaughter isn’t off to a strong start.

The initial momentum though isn’t one that Sonomura is able to maintain for the duration of the significant runtime, an issue mainly derived from the fact there’s simply too many characters in the mix. Ozawa makes for an effective anchor, and whenever he’s onscreen his gravelly voiced presence and weathered features serve to propel the plot forward. The issue is there’s several scenes that don’t involve him, as we spend time with everyone from the violent crimes unit trio, the Korean mafia, a rival yakuza gang, the mayor, and the prosecutors who are trying to orchestrate everything behind the scenes. In the hands of a stronger director the various factions could probably have been juggled to effectively crank up the tension, however Sonomura isn’t quite there yet, and the result is a stop-start feel to the pacing.

Thankfully Sonomura’s far more competent when it comes to the action side of things, and while we know the combination of him and Mimoto results in magic, Bad City marks the first time for him to collaborate with Tak Sakaguchi in the capacity of choreographer and performer since 2011’s Deadball. Sakaguchi’s silent knife wielding assassin is arguably a scene stealer, and there’s a legitimate argument to be made that he’s playing the same Reborn Ghost character that he portrayed in 2016’s Re:Born. Once more he’s able to dodge bullets, and there’s no doubt that the fighting style utilized is the same Zero Range Combat System. Thankfully the opportunity isn’t wasted for a Mimoto versus Takaguchi showdown, with a brief mid-runtime skirmish giving way to a 2 versus 1 showdown during the finale, as Mimoto teams up with Sakanoue to take him down once and for all.

Incorporated as part of a broader action sequence that encompasses the best part of 20 minutes (and really should have been the finale, however the narrative somewhat shoots itself in the foot by continuing for another 15 mins once it wraps), it’s a sequence which serves as a microcosm of Bad City as a whole. The strength of Sonomura’s choreography style for me has always been the way he’s able to incorporate little moments of hesitancy between 2 opponents that seem perfectly natural, and really serves to add a heightened sense of realism to the fights he constructs. They’re moments that as a viewer make you physically tense up, making you feel like you’re part of the fight yourself, however such moments require the extended takes and sole focus on the scene so as not to dilute any of the tension, elements that we’ve become used to from Sonomura.

Here he tries something different, first with a massive group brawl which sees Ozawa and his crew take on a small army of attackers, and it doesn’t quite hit the mark. The use of a large open space seems to work against the more intricate choreography Sonomura is known for, and with Sakanoue in particular the moves still feel rehearsed, a few beats off from looking like they have a natural flow. The smaller fights the sequence segues into fare far better, with Ozawa getting tangled up in a desperate stairwell brawl, and eventually facing off one on one against Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi (Bushido Man, Tokyo Tribe). Ozawa executes the choreography admirably considering his age, creating the best fight of the movie, however the fact that each individual action scene is intercut with the others (including, most criminally, cutaways to a non-action scene) unfortunately act as a distraction to the flow of the fights rather than complimenting them.

There’s a sense of if a little more time had been taken Bad City would be up there with Hydra, which while much smaller in scale, clearly worked to its advantage when it came to crafting the action sequences. Here Sonomura has understandably looked to scale things up, and by doing so has unfortunately proven the old adage that bigger isn’t always better. However his ambition is admirable, and as a sophomore feature Bad City is far from being a bad movie.

Strip it down by 30 minutes so we get more of Ozawa front and centre, lose some of the more superfluous characters altogether, and give us a face off between Mimoto and Sakaguchi without interruptions, Bad City would be a lean little gangster flick with some of the best action this side of the 2020’s. As it is, we get an enjoyable attempt at a yakuza epic that doesn’t quite match its ambitions, but still delivers plenty of gravelly voiced machismo and punches to the face.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10

The post Bad City (2022) 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.

“Hydra” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Kensuke Sonomura
Cast: Masanori Mimoto, Miu, Tasuku Nagase, Takaya Aoyagi, Takashi Nishina, Satoshi Kibe, Kensuke Sonomura, Tsutomu Uchigasaki, Naoki Hayashida
Running Time: 75 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Ask anyone about the best martial arts movies from Japan during the 2010’s, and chances are the unanimous vote would go to the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, the adaptation of the manga that spanned 2012 – 2014. The reason for why these movies are so revered is interesting, in that their aesthetic completely disregards the traditional chambara conventions, in which one swift thrust of the sword would end a duel in an instant, and instead looked towards the Hong Kong action aesthetic for their inspiration. This was due to the presence of Kenji Tanigaki as the action choreographer, a long-time member of Donnie Yen’s action team, and while purists may have cried foul, it was also a reminder of how the rhythm and speed of the Hong Kong action style is a joy to watch. Tanigaki isn’t the only one with a love of Hong Kong action though, and at the tail end of the 10’s, another little seen contender arrived in the form of Hydra.

While it marks the directorial debut of Kensuke Sonomura, similar to the likes of Sam Hargrave, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, Sonomura has an extensive background in fight choreography and stunt work. Fans of Japanese action may recognize him as the kung-fu fighter from 2013’s Bushido Man (which he also choregraphed), however for most they’ll have likely experienced Sonomura’s work behind the scenes as the choreographer on the likes of Alien vs. Ninja, The Warriors Way, and most recently on John Woo’s Manhunt. Personally I’m always a fan of when an action director decides to helm a movie, as regardless of how good or bad the final product turns out to be, usually there’s at least some knock out set pieces to enjoy.

However Japanese indie action has hardly had an easy ride. In a country where action is at the very bottom of the list of genres that bring in the bucks, most productions that market themselves purely on their action content usually come hamstrung with a microbudget which would hardly cover the cost of a California roll on a Hollywood filmset. Anyone who’s seen a Seiji Chiba flick will feel like they’ve visited the cave where half of most of his movies seem to play out in themselves, and the fact that it seems a struggle to even properly light it doesn’t do the action any favors. So understanding that Hydra was a similarly budgeted production, regardless of Sonomura and his casts talent, expectations were understandably set low.

I refer to the cast, because Hydra features some of Japan’s best action talent in front of the camera. Masanori Mimoto is probably the hardest working guy in Japan’s action scene, and if you’ve seen even a handful of action orientated Japanese movies made in the last 15 years, chances are he’ll pop up in them somewhere. From the aforementioned Alien vs. Ninja, to playing the yakuza in Bushido Man, the frog (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen it) in Miike Takashi’s Yakuza Apocalypse, and alongside Tak Sakaguchi in Re:Born. Mimoto has also dabbled in Hong Kong work over the years, from a minor role in the Michelle Yeoh action vehicle Silver Hawk in 2004, to more substantial roles in recent efforts like God of War and Enter the Fat Dragon.

Mimoto plays the main character in Hydra, named after a small snack bar he works in as a chef. His occupation is significant, as it plays to one of Hydra’s biggest strengths, in that it doesn’t feel like an action movie at all. After a strong opening which sees a character brutally assassinated in the middle of relieving themselves (as messy as it sounds), and a pulsating synthesiser soundtrack which plays over the neon lit credits, Hydra settles itself into a low-key slice of life played out through the microcosm of the snack bar. With the bar acting as a self-contained environment, conversations play out over glasses of whisky between the customers and the 2 staff – the bar owner, played by newcomer Miu, and the waiter played by Kamen Rider regular Tasuku Nagase. Mimoto plays the cook as mostly silent and slightly awkward, but the trio are clearly close, with the added element of Nagase harbouring a crush on Miu.

Sonomura proves surprisingly capable for a first-time director, with a solid understanding of how to create a slow-burn narrative. With a punchy 75-minute runtime, the opening 10 minutes are entirely dialogue free, relying purely on the visuals to tell the story, and for the first 45 mins we spend it mostly in the bar, establishing and understanding the relationships between the trio. Crucially, we learn that Miu was left the bar by her father, who disappeared 3 years ago, and was acquainted with Mimoto. It’s revealed Mimoto used to work for a clandestine group of assassins, their mission to right the wrongs of the world, but due to a promise he made he’s been living a peaceful life as a chef. It didn’t work out for Steven Seagal, and it won’t work out for Mimoto either.

While the plot of a former assassin being brought back into the game is as clichéd as it gets, having been used in everything from ancient China in Wu Xia, to contemporary America in Broken Path, the unassuming nature of Hydra and Mimoto’s performance make it work. Most importantly, the set-up leads to 2 blistering one on one fights that populate Hydra’s final 30 minutes. The action comes with a triple threat of choreographers, with both Sonomura and Mimoto pitching in, along with Naohiro Kawamoto (who, keeping with the Bushido Man theme, played the Bojutsu Master). Kawamoto gets to play the villain of the piece, a rival from a not so righteous group of assassins, and he features as an opponent in both fights.

The fights are some of the best I’ve seen since The Raid 2. What’s even more amazing is that they feature one of my pet hates – the ‘soft’ sound effect which mostly sees the sound design use realism over exaggerated hits, an element I usually find problematic, see City of Violence as a classic example. However here it doesn’t act to the fight’s detriment at all, partly because the pace is so fast it’s impossible to take in all of what’s happening on an initial watch, and that’s with no undercranking. These guys move like lightening, and the throwdowns incorporate everything from knife fighting to jiu-jitsu, in some cases even a screwdriver. The exchanges are lengthy in a way which recalls the golden era of modern HK action flicks in the 80’s, but given a contemporary touch that arguably owes a nod of gratitude to the work Donnie Yen did incorporating MMA with the likes of SPL and Flash Point.

When Mimoto goes up against Kawamoto in the finale, it’s an exhaustive uninterrupted 4-minute showdown, and acts as a healthy reminder that it’s still possible to create a fight scene in 2019 that gets the adrenaline pumping. In a way it reminded me of the no frills confrontation in the finale of Revenger from 2018, which saw Bruce Khan go up against Park Hee-soon. If the current trend is heading towards fights which are lengthy, feature long takes, and rely purely on the performers physical skill to pull them off, then count me in.

For some Hydra will definitely be a headscratcher. It’s best approached as a low-key slice of life drama, one that just happens to have a couple of awesome fight scenes thrown in, than an out and out fight flick. The latter will inevitably result in disappointment, but the fact that Sonomura seems to understand how much more rewarding action is when it has a slow lead-up, means that despite its low budget Hydra feels much more like a real movie than many of its indie peers. It may not have been by design that the time spent between the characters in the bar turned out to be more interesting than the plot about assassins, but in a way that makes Hydra a happy accident. A reminder to any action filmmaker that a solid narrative combined with a couple of high-quality action scenes, is always going to trump one which aims to assault the audience with constant action and little else. Hydra comes with a strong recommendation.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10

The post Hydra (2019) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Re:Born” Theatrical Poster

Director: Yuji Shimomura
Cast: Tak Sakaguchi, Yura Kondo, Takumi Saito, Mariko Shinoda, Akio Otsuka, Orson Mochizuki, Kenta Akami, Masaya Kato, Rina Takeda, Saori Izawa
Running Time: 100 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

The swansong of Tak Sakaguchi (here billed as Tak ∴), Re:Born has certainly had one of the more interesting journeys to the screen. Having been plucked from Japan’s underground street fighting circuit by director Ryuhei Kitamura to headline the 2000 cult hit Versus, Sakaguchi has maintained a constant presence in the Japanese film industry, but has rarely matched the popularity of his debut. The closest he came to replicating the success of Versus came in the form of 2005’s Death Trance, which was helmed by the fight choreographer of Versus, Yuji Shimomura. Still, many of his fans were willing to bide their time in the belief that Sakaguchi still had another worthy action flick in him, until in 2013, their hopes were seemingly dashed forever when he announced his retirement from the film industry.

However it was a retirement that didn’t last long, when in 2015 Sakaguchi issued a statement in which he confessed to being so surprised by the number of fans that reacted to his plans of retirement, he decided to make one last action movie, just for them. His exact words were that he planned to “create the very last and most superb action movie with my utmost power and passion, for the sake of a closure to my entire career.” The man he went to in order to help him achieve his dream was Yuji Shimomura, and together, they began to work on what would become Re:Born.

This is of course the clean cut version of the story. Actually Re:Born could well be speculated to be the offshoot of a long gesticulating project between Sakaguchi and auteur director Sion Sono, titled Kenkichi, that somehow never came to pass. While some said the Sakaguchi featuring segment in Sion’s Why Don’t you Play in Hell? was likely all that was left of the project, here Sion also receives a credit under the mysterious title of ‘Collaborated with Original Draft’, so it seems likely that Re:Born was also once planned to be Kenkichi. Either way, it’s good to see Sakaguchi and Shimomura together again, having last collaborated together in the capacity of star and action director on the 2011 Sushi Typhoon flicks Yakuza Weapon and Deadball.

Despite both titles being announced in 2015, Re:Born shares a lot of similarities with the Mo Brothers Indonesian action movie Headshot. Simply swap Iko Uwais’ character with memory loss with Sakaguchi’s who wants to forget, and the nurse who restores Uwais back to health, with a young girl that views Sakaguchi as her uncle. The core structure of a group of assassins trained since birth to kill, only for one of them to recognize their humanity and rebel, remains the same. However neither Headshot nor Re:Born are the first movies to use this trope (Broken Path immediately springs to mind), and thankfully both Sakaguchi and Shimomura seem to be aware of why audiences are checking in.

That reason is of course for the action. Despite Sakaguchi’s authentic fighting credentials, it’s never been his action performance alone that’s drawn audiences to his movies. We all know it takes more than being able to bust out a move to be a movie star, and Sakaguchi has that ‘more’ factor. He comes with a cocky swagger, and a striking look perfect for the camera, a combination that likely played a part in the successful timing of Versus, made in an era when Asian action movies in general were going through a drought. When Shimomura last directed Sakaguchi in Death Trance, it was sold on the novelty that Sakaguchi was going to be wearing a special type of padded glove, one that allowed him to strike his opponent full force, and Re:Born comes with a similar novel premise.

Rather than a piece of apparel, the selling point here is that of a newly developed fighting style, made especially for the movie, called the Zero Range Combat System. Created by combat strategist Yoshitaka Inagawa, who also plays Sakaguchi’s main opponent, the style focuses on dispatching enemies as swiftly as possible, usually with a series of bladed weapons (from extendable shovels to Silat style curved daggers). Taking on the role of Combat and Tactical Supervisor, Inagawa choreographs the action along with Sakaguchi and Shimomura, and proceedings get suitably bloody in the latter half of Re:Born once the young girl Sakaguchi is the acting guardian of is kidnapped by the bad guys.

Much like in Death Trance, Shimomura imbues Sakaguchi’s character with a certain legendary mythos. Characters sometimes speak of a rumoured super soldier by the name of the Reborn Ghost, a killer so skilled no one has ever seen him, yet he’s known to have operated in wars as far back as Vietnam. Of course, as the head villain himself says, if the myth was true he’d be an elderly man by now, so it must simply be that – a myth. Or is it, and does Sakaguchi have some kind of connection to this Reborn Ghost? He plays his weary former soldier as a kind of ungodly cross between John Wick, Rambo, and the Glimmer Man – appearing from the shadows, most at home amongst death, and able to dodge bullets. Literally, I mean this guy dodges more bullets than Neo.

It’s a quirky trait, and one that was played strictly for laughs in Yakuza Weapon, so to see it taken so seriously here is tricky to ascertain exactly how much we’re supposed to buy into it. Indeed Re:Born’s tone is a serious one, with the first half spent on serious stuff that doesn’t necessarily gel together, or even mean anything once we get to the action packed latter half. Sakaguchi’s talk with a psychiatrist, his heavily scarred ex-teammate who wanted to die on the battlefield, and his friendship with a local bar owner are all setup as meaningful interactions, but are all but forgotten about once we move into Sakaguchi and Shimomura’s favorite locale – the forest. It’s fair to say that characterisation wasn’t high on the agenda for Re:Born, despite the longer than standard lead-up to the good stuff.

Some characters could arguably have been left out altogether. Two comrades Sakaguchi gets teamed up with, half Japanese half African American actor Orson Mochizuki, and Kenta Akami, serve little purpose. Mochizuki is particularly irritating in his constant switching from English to Japanese within the same sentence, especially when the English is “aaaaaight.” By enlarge, the bad guys, despite sporting cool names like Fox, Eagle, and (wait for it) Abyss Walker, serve as fodder for Sakaguchi’s blur of stabbing and slashing. However despite the only real threat to Sakaguchi being Inagawa’s psychotic super soldier, the action scenes still deliver the required thrills, even if they are edited a little too quickly.

The trio of Sakaguchi, Shimomura, and Inagawa were clearly eager to show off their Zero Range Combat System. This is no more apparent than when Sakaguchi finally clears the forest and arrives at the bad guy’s base, only for him to tell Mochizuki to go ahead, just so he can go back and finish off the enemies still lurking in the woods, even though it’s completely unnecessary. Completely unnecessary, but it does allow for some more outdoor mayhem. Unfortunately despite the intensity of the action onscreen, it’s frequently dampened by composer Kenji Kawaii’s terminally dull score, which rarely matches the tone of the scene. Music can be a powerful accompaniment to any fight scene, however here it’s unfortunately a good example of how a soundtrack can impact an action scene negatively.

Thankfully we do get a one-on-one finale of Sakaguchi versus Inagawa, which provides one of Re:Born’s few empty handed fights. It’s interesting to say the least. Armed with a weapon, the movements can best be described as a kind of crinkly clothed samba (you’ll know what I mean once witnessed), but empty handed it kind of resembles an amateur capoeira practitioner who got drunk and decided to bust out a few moves. I admit the scene drew a laugh out of me rather than the desired thrill, but it still deserves points for originality.

Despite not having the strongest narrative, in the context of Sakaguchi’s career it arguably provides a worthy swansong. The Japanese action movie has already been dead for a long time, so any attempt to breathe some life back into it was never going to be a big budget affair, and that’s clear to see here. But for those who enjoyed the likes of Bushido Man and Sakaguchi’s other movies, there’s little to complain about. Throw in welcome cameos from fellow Japanese action talent such as Masaya Kato (Mark Dacascos’s opponent in the finale of Drive), and Rina Takeda (providing narration only as the older version of the young girl), while Sakaguchi’s career didn’t go out with a bang, it definitely did go out with a knee driven knife to the throat.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10

The post Re:Born (2016) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“God of War” Theatrical Poster

Director: Gordon Chan
Cast: Vincent Chiu, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Yasuaki Kurata, Regina Wan, Keisuke Koide, Wang Ban, Wu Yue, Jiang Luxia, Liu Junxiao, Micheal Tong
Running Time: 90 min.

By Kelly Warner

Ming soldiers advance on a fortified gate. Blood from a previous battle runs like a stream over the mud. Thousands of Japanese pirates wait on the other side of the gate, their latest attempt at a land grab to expand the reach of the Japanese empire. Sammo Hung’s General Yu leads China’s Ming soldiers on the offensive; his attacks are by the book, his timing predictable. General Yu is an old man fighting old-fashioned battles against an enemy that’s ready for the new world. Defeated once again, General Yu retreats back through the mud and the blood to find that his replacement is waiting back at camp.

Enter Vincent Zhao’s General Qi, war tactician and future national hero to China. He’s young, even-tempered, and dangerously smart. Qi takes one look at the pirate’s gate and breaches the Japanese defenses on the first go. Yu soon joins Qi and together they get the pirates on the run. The battle is over but the threat remains, and it’s clear that Qi, not Yu, should be the one chosen to chase the pirates back to Japan.

It’s an exciting first act full of action, war tactics, and some unexpected characters. The film sets a realistic tone with graphic violence and an emphasis on strategy. But then the first act ends, General Qi is tasked with training an army for the express purpose of defeating pirates, and the film gets lost in a sagging middle section with no surprises for almost a hour straight. The all too common appeals to patriotism also repeatedly rear their head during this section. It’s not offensively bad but you do notice it–more on the level of Michael Bay than The Founding of a Republic. The extended moment when family members see their men off to war plays a bit like an ad for joining the military.

General Qi may be a national hero in China, and as such Chinese audiences may not demand much character development. However, as someone unfamiliar with and with no attachment to Qi’s accomplishments, I feel the film never makes him into an interesting character. I don’t know his story well enough to accuse the film of hero worship but all the signs are there. Qi is a brilliant general, Vincent Zhao’s (True Legend) martial arts skills make him a formidable fighter, and he has just enough issues with his wife to establish that he’s married to a woman as tough as he is. The shortcomings in writing Qi might not have been so noticeable if the second act of the film wasn’t such a slog – and if the second act wasn’t carried almost expressly by Qi, making us miss the other, more interesting characters we were introduced to in the first act.

Sammo Hung (The Bodyguard) makes a strong impression in a dramatic role as the unimaginative, but no less dedicated, General Yu. Sadly, he exits the film early. The best performance comes from Yusuaki Kurata (Fist of Legend). The veteran actor plays the leader of the Japanese pirates as a student of war and the perfect nemesis to General Qi. Unlike many Chinese historical dramas, the Japanese are not depicted as outrageously evil men. They’re the bad guys, no doubt, but an attempt to give them an honest portrayal goes a long way to enhancing the dramatic tension.

After a dull middle, things pick up again in the action heavy finale. The fights, both big and small, are well filmed and expertly played. There is a moment—what I would call a medieval jet ski action sequence—where the attention to realism falls away. But the moment passes and we’re treated to a thrilling final act between Qi’s men and the last of the pirates.

God of War is not everything I could’ve hoped for from a Gordon Chan historical epic with this kind of cast. But it’s definitely not bad. A sizeable step above many other similar films to come out of China recently. Zhao is great in the action scenes, Kurata is excellent as the villain, and the attention to strategy in the battles makes for a welcome change. If not for the sagging middle, God of War could’ve been great. As is, there’s still enough recommend it to curious viewers.

Kelly Warner’s Rating: 7/10

The post God of War (2017) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Yakuza Apocalypse” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Hayato Ichihara, Riko Narumi, Lily Franky, Reiko Takashima, Sho Aoyagi, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Yayan Ruhian, Mio Yuki, Masanori Mimoto
Running Time: 125 min.

By Kelly Warner

Even in the wild and diverse filmography of director Takashi Miike, Yakuza Apocalypse is one weird movie. What’s interesting is how it keeps its lunacy hidden away like a dirty secret until you feel like you’re settled in for a crime/horror hybrid, then WHAM! the movie loses its mind, there’s blood bank bad guys knitting sweaters in the basement, a woman’s head springs a leak, and a giant frog monster (“the world’s toughest terrorist”) comes to town and ruins everybody’s day. Truly, from the very beginning it was clear that Yakuza Apocalypse was going to be different – in the opening, Lily Franky’s gang boss character gets shot a hundred times, kills dozens of bad guys, and then goes to suck blood from a woman’s neck to regain his strength – but nothing in those opening moments can prepare you for how completely unhinged Miike’s vision soon becomes.

Takashi Miike, the man behind such bizarre features as The Happiness of the Katakuris, Gozo, Zebraman, Visitor Q, and Izo, is no stranger to weirdo entertainment. Since going mainstream and directing big budget action movies, game adaptations, and remakes of classic samurai pictures, the extreme features that Miike built his name on have come with less regularity. Maybe he was itching for a chance to do something wild again, because Yakuza Apocalypse is filled to the brim with crazy ideas. The film won’t work for everyone, but for the right audience Yakuza Apocalypse rarely goes five minutes without another moment of WTF bewilderment and hilarious insanity.

Young mid-level yakuza Kagayama (Hayato Ichihara) wants to be just like his boss (Lily Franky) but has no idea that his boss is secretly a vampire. When villains from the boss’s past come asking him to return to the fold, the boss refuses and is murdered as a result. In his dying moments, the boss passes on the vampire blood to Kagayama, thus empowering him with super strength and cursing him with a thirst for human blood. Thing is, when Kagayama inevitably bites people to drink their blood, they don’t just become vampires… they become yakuza vampires. And that’s the main joke at the center of the film. It’s clear from the very start that Miike basically has zero interest in either staying true to vampire myths or creating his own. Sure, there’s plenty of blood drinking, but this is a movie about yakuza, not vampires. The “plot” comes together when Kagayama’s old crime family tries to push civilians around, only to find that the civvies are recently turned yakuza vampires – basically it’s become a town full of thugs, with the yakuza vampire gene spreading like an obnoxious plague. As you’d expect from Takashi Miike, the film is violent and sometimes quite disturbing, but he manages to mine a surprising amount of hilarity from the concept.

Hayato Ichihara (All About Lily Chou-Chou) is cool as Kagayama but there’s not much more to his character other than that he’s really cool. Lily Franky, best known for comedies and dramas such as 2013’s Like Father, Like Son, is not who you’d expect to play a badass gangster, but he pulls it off by simply not trying too hard. Also among the cast is The Raid’s Yayan Ruhian, here playing a martial artist working for the bad guys. Often dressed like a nerdy tourist, Ruhian is a fun addition to the cast as he gets to have a couple decent fights and also play some comedy.

There’s a lot of fun to be had in Yakuza Apocalypse but it’s never very clear what the stakes are. The weird bad guys hang around even after killing the boss but… why? What’s their plan? They’re at odds with Kagayama, but it’s never clear why they want him dead or what they hope to achieve. In the finale, things truly take an apocalyptic turn, but the reasoning for this is also a mystery. At some point, half-laughing and half-mad, I screamed at the TV, “What the hell is going on?” Merely 30 seconds later, the film’s know-it-all character echoed my question by crying out, “What is happening?!” When the film’s know-it-all master of exposition is clueless, that’s your sign that the film is just winging it from that point on.

Miike seems to understand that he’s taken the concept just as far as it can go in the end. Right as the film goes completely over the edge, it cuts to black and rolls the end credits to the tune of Japanese hard rock band Knock Out Monkey. We’re denied a “proper ending.”

However much I enjoyed the movie, however much I might’ve laughed at times, there’s no denying that some of the film comes across as half-baked. And that’s disappointing, because much of the rest of the film shows some kind of deranged inspiration. The lack of clear goals for the characters, the lack of a true ending, and a few questionable inclusions hold Yakuza Apocalypse back from being a complete success.

I liked this, I did. It’s one of those movies where I kind of wish I could turn off my inner-critic and just enjoy the film for what it is and forgive it for what it’s not. And if you’re not lucky enough to connect with the film’s deranged sense of humor, then you’re going to be even less forgiving than I am. Yakuza Apocalypse is a dark comedy for a very particular sort of audience member. Working like a live-action cartoon brought to life by a mad man, it’s a one of a kind film, and it wears its flaws out in the open for everyone to see.

Kelly Warner’s Rating: 6.5/10

The post Yakuza Apocalypse (2015) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Bushido Man” International DVD Cover

Director: Takanori Tsujimoto
Cast: Mitsuki Koga, Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, Masanori Mimoto, Kentaro Shimazu, Kazuki Tsujimoto, Ema, Kensuke Sonomura, Masaki Suzumura, Naohiro Kawamoto, Marc Walkow, Yasutaka Yuuki, Takashi Tanimoto
Running Time: 88 min.

By Kelly Warner

Bushido Man: Seven Deadly Battles kind of surprised me. I wasn’t expecting much from the film — the average ratings are weak, the title is silly, and the plot description is somewhat generic. However, less than five minutes in we’re introduced to a martial arts master with the most cartoonish mustache imaginable – and the master’s key advice to his pupil is that to know his enemy, he must eat like his enemy. It’s pretty obvious from the get-go that the next 90 minutes are about to get weird and that the movie is something far stranger than its title, plot description, and cover art could ever hope to suggest.

Our hero Toramaru (Mitsuki Koga) is something of a modern-day samurai. He travels all over Japan to fight the greatest warriors of multiple fighting styles so that he may take their mysterious, priceless scrolls back to his master Gensai (Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi). As the movie begins, Toramaru has returned to Gensai and tells each fight story to his master. Before each bout, Toramaru followed his master’s advice and pigged out on whatever food best represented his opponent’s spirit. It’s silly, but that’s just what kind of movie this is. Toramaru is essentially a copycat fighter: he comes to know his opponents so completely that he adopts their strengths, styles, and favorite foods in order to vanquish them.

We see Toramaru’s fights, travels, and dining experiences through flashback. On his journey he must match up with many diverse opponents, including a blind swordsman, a yakuza knife fighter, a kung fu master, and a gunslinger that loves all things American. Some of the fights are played for laughs, but the others are rather impressive, showing off athletic skill and frenetic energy.

To some extent, the film is little more than a highlight reel of various fighting styles. Beyond Toramaru and Gensai, no other character receives more than a couple lines of character development. Certain actors make the best of their limited screen time – most notably Kazuki Tsujimoto as the blind swordsman – but when their fights are done, the characters are almost immediately forgotten. There’s very little substance to the film and those looking for plot or purpose should look elsewhere. However, if you come in with the right expectations, I think you can potentially find something to enjoy here.

What’s interesting is how director Takanori Tsujimoto (Hard Revenge Milly) plays things somewhat straight at the beginning, then lets his creation gradually go crazy as it passes the halfway point. Understand when I say that Gensai’s cartoon mustache and Toramaru’s all-you-can-eat training are comparatively ‘normal’ to the action we get in the final act. Leading up to the finale, Toramaru must travel to post-apocalyptic Yokohama. It’s not clear what happened to Yokohama, though endless earthquakes are mentioned and the air isn’t safe to breathe. Tanks patrol the highways, the skyscrapers are crumbling, and all gun laws have been revoked. While the locations at the beginning of the film were prettier, one almost wishes more of the movie had this strange, unexplained sci-fi feel to it. At the very least, the Yokohama segments prepare us for the finale, when the director allows his movie to truly go wild. The ending and the action that lead up to it are absolutely batshit and often hilarious. To say that the film went out on a high note would be an understatement. If the whole film shared the same kind of madness as the finale, Bushido Man might’ve been something of a new cult classic.

I wish that the director’s vision was more consistent and that his cast looked more into the production. The film has its share of goofy ideas and well done fights, but too often it feels strangely half-hearted. So while I liked it overall, I was still left wanting more from the film. The performances are one-note, plot is largely non-existent, and many scenes feel flat like they require a jolt of energy. It’s as though they bottled up that energy for the finale, when they would have been better off spreading it around a bit. If only.

There’s not a whole lot to Bushido Man, but it’s fast-paced and entertaining in a silly, cartoonish sort of way. There’s enough originality to the movie that I’m sure it’s going to win over some fans here and there. The film is definitely different and some days maybe that’s enough.

Kelly Warner’s Rating: 6/10

The post Bushido Man: Seven Deadly Battles (2013) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Alien vs. Ninja” American Theatrical Poster

Director: Seiji Chiba
Cast: Shuji Kashiwabara, Ben Hiura, Mika Hijii, Donpei Tsuchihira, Masanori Mimoto
Running Time: 83 min.

By HKFanatic

“Alien vs. Ninja” arrived on Western shelves just in time to capitalize on the DVD/blu-ray release of 2010’s “Predators.” And glancing at the title and box art, you’d think this movie was a cheap knock-off of the “Aliens vs. Predator” franchise. I know that was my first impression. Turns out that’s all the result of Funimation’s marketing department. Once you watch “AvsP” and the “aliens” show up about twenty minutes in, looking like slimy dolphin-men in latex suits (kind of like rejected Power Rangers villain), you’ll realize the truth: “Alien vs. Ninja” is more of an off-the-wall Japanese splatter comedy, in the vein of “Versus” or “Meatball Machine.”

Despite being low-budget to the extreme, “AvP” entertains for its short duration with a bevy of genuinely cool sword fights, bad-ass characters, and buckets of gore. The set-up is about as simple as you can get: on the way back from a mission, a ninja clan sees a meteor fall out of the sky. Upon investigating the crash site, they’re attacked by some deadly aliens who make mincemeat out of all the cannon fodder characters. The rest of the flick is basically a ton of fight scenes in the forest.

Thankfully “AvP” manages to avoid the creepy fetishization of movies like “The Machine Girl” and “Tokyo Gore Police,” though there is a bit of sexual humor. And the fact that every appendage these aliens seem to have is phallic in nature (oh, those crazy Japanese). A few scenes are squirm-worthy or give way to just plain stupid humor, but there’s not much here that you’ll feel like a creeper for watching.

The cast holds a few familiar faces, mostly Mika Hijii who starred alongside Scott Adkins in the English language film “Ninja.” But Actor Masanori Mimoto has to be the breakout star here: for fans of the video game series “Ninja Gaiden,” Mimoto is the closest I’ve seen anyone come to replicating the look and moves of that character. It also helps that the aliens look an awful lot like some of the monsters you fight in those games. Mimoto must have found his niche; glancing at his filmography on IDMB, three out of the four movies he’s starred in have the word “ninja” in their title. Hey, what can you do, the man knows how to wield a sword.

This isn’t the best Japanese film out there – for one thing, the aliens’ power levels vary drastically from scene to scene based on what the script calls for. But it’s not trying to be great; it’s a tongue-in-cheek exploitation flick. The filmmakers send the message: “We had a fun time making this movie so we hope you have a good time watching it. And try not to take it too seriously.” I went into this with extremely low expectations and ended up having a lot of fun. I know I feel like a better person now that I’ve seen a ninja suplex a man-in-a-rubber-suit – I mean, an alien.

In a way, this is a bit like an “Aliens vs. Predator” movie, if only they had taken way more inspiration from the “Evil Dead” series rather than their own respective franchises. And if they added ninjas to the equation. Because ninjas make everything better, right? This movie practically proves it.

HKFanatic’s Rating: 6/10

The post Alien vs. Ninja | aka AVN (2010) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.