Author: Jim McLennan

Blast

  By

★★★
“Not a bomb.”

To some extent, Sonia (Arnezeder) is the very antithesis of an action heroine here. For she spends the vast bulk of the ninety minute running-time, sitting in the driver’s seat of her car. Admittedly, this is for good reason, because somebody has wired an anti-tank mine into the car’s circuitry, in a number of diabolical ways. There’s a countdown timer, anti-tamper device and it’s also liable to be triggered if the weight in the car drops below a certain amount. Making matters worse, her two kids are in the back. The reason is because of her work in bomb disposal, part of a charity that disarms mines in the Ukraine, a task which has made her certain enemies.

Fortunately, she’s not alone. Her other half, Fred (Kiwitt), is there for moral support, and – probably more helpfully – colleagues from her agency are also present, in particular Igor (Bukvic) and Camile (Mortensen). Together with Sophie, they have to figure out both a solution to the immediately explosive situation, and find out who’s responsible. There are no shortage of candidates, and no shortage of strong female characters either, even beyond Sophie and Camile. These are involved on both sides of the scenario, as it eventually turns out. Though I must confess, I’m a little uncertain about the motivation of those involved. In particular, why the rather complex approach taken here, was deemed to be the most appropriate method. Sometimes, simpler is better, when it comes to evil plans.

That said, it’s a film which doesn’t hang about. Barely a couple of minutes pass before Sophie and her kids are sealed in, with a literal ticking clock. Though we do know this won’t be the end, because the countdown is for only half an hour, it sets the tone early. Peirani-Vignes then does a solid job of keeping the tension high, for the rest of the way. Every time you think you know where this is heading, the script, by the director and Pablo Barbetti, finds a new wrinkle to go in a different direction. As noted, I… have questions about some aspects. However, these did not stop me from remaining engaged, in particular during the front two-thirds of the film.

It did seem to struggle down the stretch. You know there’s inevitably going to be some heroic sacrifice needed. It wasn’t the character I expected: a bit of a mixed blessing, because I really wanted to see them get some degree of payback and/or redemption. Considering the entire movie takes place in an underground car-park, it feels impressively unrestricted, and the calm behaviour of the players is in sharp contrast to the ever-looming lethality of the situation. You will probably learn more than a little about the art and science of bomb disposal. While I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the information, it has the ring of plausibility. In the context of a thriller such as this, sounding legit is what matters. 

Dir: Vanya Peirani-Vignes
Star: Nora Arnezeder, Pierre Kiwitt, Radivoje Bukvic, Sara Mortensen
a.k.a. Déflagrations

Mardaani 2

  By

★★★
“Naan but the brave.”

This sequel to Mardaani sees Rani Mukerji return in the role of hard-edged police superintendent Shivani Shivaji Roy. She’s now on the hunt for a serial killer, who is brutally murdering and raping victims in her jurisdiction, the city of Kota in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. The killer is Sunny (Jethwa), a 21-year-old psychopath, whose father murdered his mother, and who also works as an assassin for rising politician Govind Mishra (Ketkar). When Sunny sees SP Roy on television, making disparaging remarks about the killer, and vowing to catch him, he decides to target her. This is in addition to his work for Mishra, though after that relationship goes sour, Mishra’s family becomes yet another target of Sunny’s unhinged wrath. 

The director of this was the writer on the previous movie, and it’s slightly less effective overall, mostly due to a tendency to descend into polemic on occasion. For example, it opens and closes with the kind of trite, “Well, actually” nuggets of information you’d expect to find on Twitter. There’s also a television interview late on, which seems to serve no purpose, except to allow Roy to go off on a rant about how downtrodden women are in Indian society. I mean, she’s not wrong. It’s just that a moral lecture is not why I’m here. I am here for the heroine slamming her car-door on a suspect’s head. Fortunately, the film is able to deliver this as well.

The two performances at the centre of this are spot-on, and do a fine job of keeping your attention, when the storyline occasionally falters. Sunny is barking mad, with enough issues for an entire conference of forensic psychologists, and the details of his crimes, even if just described, are grim. Yet he is undeniably smart, though fatally flawed by his ego. He breaks the fourth wall on a number of occasions, directly addressing the audience to explain himself. It’s highly creepy. Meanwhile, SP Roy is every bit as driven on her side, willing to bend protocol into a pretzel in pursuit of justice. She just doesn’t care about anything else: she may be married, but her husband is entirely irrelevant to proceedings. 

There’s a ticking clock too. After a possible witness is killed by Sunny, she is reassigned, and only has 48 hours to close the case, over the holiday of Diwali. That’s the Hindu festival of lights, and offers a glowing backdrop against which the climax of the movie can unfold. When it dies, there’s a good sense of catharsis in the way things unfold. It’s not only Roy who gets to punish the evil in the world, doing so in a way which is as much about making a statement as anything else. Despite occasional missteps, this is a decent sequel, and if you’re worried about it being Bollywood, there are no musical numbers to derail proceedings. Mardaani 3 is in production, and I’m looking forward to it.

Dir: Gopi Puthran
Star: Rani Mukerji, Vishal Jethwa, Prasanna Ketkar, Shruti Bapna

Robyn Hood: A Girl’s Tale, by K.M. Shea

  By

Literary rating: ★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

Despite being a short 158 pages, this definitely managed to out-stay its welcome. There’s books aimed at the young, and then there are books which leave you feeling like you have actively lost IQ points reading them. Guess what category this falls into? It’s not a terrible idea, taking Robin Hood and making her a woman. Could have been worse: she could have been a black, bisexual rapper too [I wish I was joking]. We have been somewhat here before, with The Adventures of Maid Marian, in which Marian takes over after Robin Hood goes off to join the Crusades. The problem here is, a gender switch is where the creativity stops.

The setting is the same: ye olde middle-ages England. Robyn is forced to flee after shooting with an arrow one of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men. She hides out in nearby Sherwood Forest, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, and assembling a band of outlaws around her: Friar Tuck, Little John, various people called Will. There is an archery contest. In order words, pretty much all the stuff that happens in the original story, or one of the dozens of adaptations which are embedded deep in popular culture. Apart from RobYn, Shea does nothing interesting with the tropes. Life for the heroine is pretty, pretty easy, with the locals giving them everything necessary, and wannabe outlaws falling over themselves to become Merry Men.

Indeed, there’s only one point at which there is a genuine sense of danger, when the Sheriff’s men launch a surprise attack, where Robyn is thrown into a river and nearly drowns… until she is rescued by her horse. Yep. Said equine is certainly smarter than the antagonists here, who are mind-numbingly incompetent, when they aren’t being purely obnoxious. The ease with which Robyn is then able to rescue her captured henchmen renders their threat impotent. I get that this is not intended to be, in the slightest, a realistic depiction of the time. However, it’s not a convincing depiction of any time, and might as well take place as a skit at your local Renaissance Fair.

This volume ends with Robyn leaving the group, after being beaten in an archery contest by one of her men – under dubious circumstances. While it makes precious little sense, considering the slavish devotion they have shown to her up until that point, it’s the first time the author has done anything with the potential to be interesting. However, it comes far too late to salvage my interest in my going on to the second book. Which, given the short length, could easily have been combined into this volume. If you’re going in, to avoid disappointment I would suggest you expect something aimed at a slightly backward eleven-year-old. To be safe, maybe expect something which was written by one as well. 

Author: K.M. Shea
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 2 in the Robyn Hood series.

Agent Jayne: A Woman with a Mission

  By

★★
“Just say no to drugs.”

What’s unusual here is that, allow this is an American production, the cast and crew are almost entirely of South Asian origin. Which is fine, except that writer/director Gil has an imperfect grasp of English. Witness the opening voice-over, which I present verbatim: “There are three wants which can never be satisfied. That of the mastermind who want more, that of the peddler who pray for more, and that of the whistle stopper who don’t know when to say enough.” Um, yes? Fortunately, it’s not too dialogue-heavy, and the plot is mercifully basic, albeit needlessly cluttered up with jumps around in time of weeks, months or days, which a more skilled creator would have avoided.

The heroine is Jayne (Sood), an agent for some law-enforcement group, I guess – the film is vague on detail – under Chief Collins (John). Having successfully solved a five-year old murder case, her next mission is to take down drug lord Alberto Trapani (Massey), whose product is threatening the youth of the city. Her investigation basically consists of Jayne wandering round and catching his minions, who for some reason tend to carry out drug deals in woodland glades, counting their money while sitting at the base of a tree like cartel pixies. Interrogating them eventually gets her the location of Trapani’s lair, so an army battalion is mobilized to take down public enemy #1. Oh, my mistake: the authorities just send in Jayne with a handgun for a spot of extra-judicial murder.

The budget for this was reportedly fifty thousand dollars, and that seems about right. There was clearly little to spend on most aspects of the production, with hardly any action to speak of, and a script in undeniable need of revision. For instance, at one point, Jayne says, “With every step forward, I risked exposure.” Which might make sense, if not for a earlier TV news headline, which boldly trumpets, “Agent Jayne’s next target: Alberto Trapani.” Good thing drug lords don’t watch television, I guess. These kind of embarrassing gaffes leave the whole production feeling like the work of enthusiastic amateurs, rather than professionals.

However, I didn’t hate it. There are occasional moments which work, such as Trapani’s associate Arthur (Bajpay) losing his daughter to a drug overdose and switching sides as a result. His heartfelt speech is genuinely affecting, while the clear and strong anti-drug message is laudable. The acting is generally okay, with Sood able to do her best with lines that, as mentioned, could use considerable additional polish. I also liked the synthwave soundtrack, cobbled together from various public domain sources, but on some occasions providing a sorely needed energy for the scene on which it sits. The end promises Jayne will return in “Misssion 2” [sic], taking on a militia involved in human trafficking. With more action and a better script, I’m down for this – though I wouldn’t bet on either flaw being fixed to any significant degree.

Dir: Waqar Peter Gill
Star: Shalini Sood, Uriel Massey, Ashutosh Bajpay, Julius John

Queen of the Ring

  By

★★★
“Bit of a test of stamina.”

Coincidentally, I watched this the night after Sinners, another period piece which looks at the place of a specific culture in society. There, it was music in predominantly black society of the thirties; here, it’s professional wrestling in the overwhelmingly white society of the fifties [the presence of in this WWE champion Naomi as Ethel Johnson, feels very much a token gesture]. Definitely fewer vampires in this, however. It’s the story of Mildred Burke (Rickards), who went from working as a waitress in a diner, though wrestling at carnivals, to become one of the biggest draws in the ring of her time. The end of the film calls her the first woman to become a millionaire through sports. 

It’s not an easy journey, being both helped and hindered along the way by sometimes manager, sometimes promoter, sometimes husband, sometimes abusive bastard Billy Wolfe (Lucas). She also has to deal with scepticism regarding her talent, other wrestlers and promoters trying to muscle in, and even legal barriers, with many states forbidding women’s wrestling bouts outright [In the UK, the city of London banned such matches until as late as 1979]. All while also being a single mother, trying to bring up her son. This builds to a battle for the Women’s Wrestling World Championship in 1954, pitting long-running title holder Burke, against her now ex-husband’s wrestler, and Mildred’s long-time rival, June Byers, whose dislike of the champion goes back to the carnival shows. 

Definitely the best thing about this is Rickards, who very much looks the part of a wrestler: fit and well-toned, without ever seeming muscle-bound. Though it is odd how little she seems to age over the course of proceedings – likely close to twenty years all told, if the age of her son is any guide. Beyond the mere physicality, the Mildred we see here is also a warm and winning personality, and it’s very easy to root for her. As a fan of wrestling in general, I enjoyed the glimpse into the past of the pastime, and it treads a decent line between being accessible to non-fans, without dumbing everything down too much. Though there are some goofs, in terms of period wrestling: tapping out in submission only started in the nineties. 

The main problem, and it’s a significant one, is the film is far too long, at a hundred and forty minutes. It’s clear that writer-director Avildsen was in love with his own script, but there are long chunks – mostly in the second half – which feel closer to soap opera. The whole scene with Burke and Wolfe buying out a whole hotel, so their black wrestlers don’t have to go somewhere else, seemed like pure virtue signalling, and caused me literally to cringe. There simply isn’t enough going on here to justify the running-time, and while the good stuff here is often very good e..g the lesson on how to cut a good promo, it definitely feels like a case where less would have been more. 

Dir: Ash Avildsen
Star: Emily Bett Rickards, Josh Lucas, Tyler Posey, Francesca Eastwood

Imani

  By

★★½
“The Long Goodnight Kiss”

I’m not sure whether this is too long or too short for its own good. Could be a little bit of both. As the tag-line for this review suggests, it bears more than a superficial resemblance to a certain other action heroine film. Faith Newford (Hall) is your everyday, upper middle-class woman: married to a loving husband, physician Bryce (Shipp), with a young daughter, and running a shoe store on the side. Let’s not trouble ourselves about the mysterious amnesia, which leaves a large chunk of her past a blank slate. The problem is, Faith – or Imani, as she was previously known when she was a special ops soldier, is not supposed to be alive at all.

A blow to the head suffered during an abduction attempt triggers the return of her old skills, albeit at the cost of sending her on the run. Turns out she was in possession of information which could prove seriously detrimental to the political ambitions of General Michelle Dupree (Mirto). It’s why Imani and the rest of her squad were supposed to have been eliminated. If dodging Dupree’s goons wasn’t enough, there is another shadowy yet powerful group, who have an interest in Imani from the other direction, intending to use what she knows against Dupree. It’s all rather too over-complex, and I suspect they’d have been better off either simplifying the plot, or making it a mini-series. Hence my opening sentence.

The makers do get some things right, not least there has clearly been a decent amount of resources put into this. It doesn’t look cheap, and they also largely avoid most cliches of black action cinema. Though, inevitably, you still get drug dealers, rap music and The Man – or, in this case, The Woman – they are more incidental, and not the focus. Hall is okay as the heroine. If no Geena Davis, she generally acquits herself adequately in most of the action scenes, at least when she’s not trying to go toe-to-toe with obviously far larger and stronger opponents. For example, Raymond ‘Supreme’ Avant Jr (Lofton), who looks like he could eat Imani for breakfast, and pick his teeth clean with her spine. Yeah, their fight was a tad cringe.

At least the cinematic amnesia wasn’t too grating. For the movie simply has someone sit the heroine down and explain the past, rather than relying on the contrivance of her remembering it when convenient. Sometimes, simple is better. However, the film isn’t good at managing all the threads in the plot carpet, and it proved too much for my poor little mind to handle. I think my brain threw up a blue screen of death somewhere in the middle, during one of the more expository sections, about who was doing what to whom and why: my interest and attention never fully recovered thereafter. I did find the ending satisfyingly bleak – there’s always someone more shadowy and powerful than you – but I’d not call this more than adequate.

Dir: Mike Ho
Star: Brittany S. Hall, Demetrius Shipp Jr., Kris D. Lofton, Elyse Mirto

Sri Asih: The Warrior

  By

★★★
“No Marvel: and that’s okay.”

Turns out that Marvel and DC are not the only ones creating “cinematic universes” based on comic book. Another example can be found, perhaps surprisingly, in Indonesia. This film is part of the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe, and is a follow-up to 2019’s Gundala. I haven’t seen that, but I’m 99% sure that the scene in the end-credits is a direct cross-over to that, featuring its hero, given the apparent prediction late on of a team up to come between him and Sri Asih. Otherwise, though, this stands on its own, and you don’t need to have seen Gundala, or be familiar with the comic-book series about Sri Asih, created by R.A. Kosasih, and first published all the way back in 1954.

This is the third incarnation of the character, which was also first seen on the screen in 1954, in a now lost Indonesian movie of the same title. In this version, we begin with the birth of Alana during a volcanic eruption, in which her father is killed. Brought up by her mother, Alana is highly talented in martial arts, but has problems controlling her temper. After she fails to throw a fight as arranged against rich playboy and serial abuser Mateo Adinegara, he sends his men to beat up Alana’s mother, and the situation then escalates. Someone kills Mateo and his father, industrialist Prayogo Adinegara (Saputra) vows revenge. The result ends up triggering Alana’s transformation into her final form, the reincarnation of fire goddess Sri Asih.

Which is convenient, because someone is trying to carry out a ritual to obtain ultimate power, a process which require the sacrifice of a thousand souls. With the help of cop Jatmiko (Rahadian), who teeters between honesty and corruption, and childhood friend Tangguh (Nichol), now a journalist, Sri Asih has to figure out what’s going on, and stop the ritual. It’s all earnestly naive in an adorable kind of way. There’s a touching faith in journalistic integrity, and also lines like, “If you are unable to learn how to defeat your anger, it’s only a matter of time before it defeats you.” Occasionally this does topple over into clunkiness, such as when someone late on literally says, “I just remembered <key plot point about the thousand soul sacrifice>” Really?

However, if you can buy into the tone and go along with it, you’ll have a good amount of fun. It certainly does not feel like 134 minutes, which is more than can be said for some Marvel or DC product, though this is somewhat less highly polished. I do wish the fight scenes had been less CGI heavy: the impact is considerably more when Sri Asih and her opponents are knocking chunks out of concrete pillars than when she’s flying unconvincingly through the air. The best thing about Indonesian martial arts is the hard-hitting aspect, and that only intermittently comes through. It does have a cheerful “can do” attitude that’s endearing, and I’d not mind checking out further installments. 

Dir: Upi Avianto
Star: Pevita Pearce, Reza Rahadian, Surya Saputra, Jefri Nichol

Baseball Girl

  By

★★½
“Pop-up on the infield.”

And if the above phrase doesn’t make any sense – it’s basically an underwhelming outcome during a baseball game – then you are probably not the target audience for this sporting drama. After almost a quarter-century living in America (much of it spent running a site about the local team as a sideline!), I’m fairly well-versed in baseball’s intricacies. But in contrast to some of the other Korean movies in this genre, such as Run Off or As One, you really need to know the sport going in to understand this on more than the surface level. Do not expect the film to explain what a knuckleball is, or the importance of spin rates.

The central character is Joo Soo-in (Lee J-y), a high school student who has dreams of becoming a professional baseball player. The main problem there is, she’s a teenage girl, and no woman has ever played professionally in Korea. While she pitches well enough – for a girl – she doesn’t throw with enough velocity to catch the eye of scouts. It doesn’t help that nobody really believes in her dream, with just about everyone trying to dissuade her. Even when she does get an offer from a professional team, it turns out to be to front their women’s outfit. Not least among Soo-in’s critics is her own mother (Yeom), already dealing with a feckless husband, who just wants her daughter to get real and start working in the same factory she does.

There are basically few surprises to be found here at all, with everything unfolding more or less as you would expect. It feels as if the script started off with a single word – “empowering” – and everything was developed from that point outward. For example, you will likely not be shocked to discover that mom is eventually won over to her daughter’s cause. Though I was amused by the scene where she’s told by the pro team the deposit on her daughter’s services is $60,000. Her response is, “I can’t give you that much money right now,” unaware the team is the one paying! Otherwise, it often plays like an All-Star Game of sports cliches, such as the gruff coach, romantic interest, etc.

I will say, the baseball stuff is well done: the actress seems to know her way around a pitching mound, and her mechanics look sound. [I wonder if CGI was used for the baseball, or if she really was throwing at 80+ mph?] It’s interesting that we never actually see Soo-in play in an actual game. Instead, it’s all training sessions and try-outs, as she tries to learn a new pitch, which relies less on velocity. As a fan of the game, I probably got a bit more out of this than most viewers, and was still never more than moderately engaged. When the outcome of any sporting contest is obvious, there’s not a lot of point, and much the same goes for sporting movies like this.

Dir: Choi Yoon-tae
Star: Lee Joo-young, Lee Joon-hyuk, Yeom Hye-ran, Song Young-kyu

Fairest of Them All

  By

★★½
“Princesses are doin’ it for themselves.”

There’s a recent trend for horror films based on public domain characters. The most infamous is likely Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, but traditional fairy tales have also been exploited to the same end. This is a sequel of sorts to the same studio’s Cinderella’s Curse (which I have not seen), but basically hurls every princess of legend into the mix. The excuse is Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter (Santer), who in this incarnation is a Joker-like psycho, who has kidnapped Alice (Desmond) and made her his slave, courtesy of his magic. He now wants a bride, and to this end abducts a selection of princesses and others e.g. Tinker Bell, as potential candidates. They will fight to the death. Last one alive becomes Mrs. Hatter.

Likely out of necessity, to differentiate the various princesses, the results play fast and loose with traditional folklore. For example, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, turns out to be a shape-shifter. Or there’s Snow White, who is driven by her cannibalistic impulses. It’s also notable that some of them are enthusiastically on-board with the Hatter’s plan. It therefore takes a while before any cohesion takes place between the kidnap victims, forming the necessary alliance to be able to fight back. This is quite an interesting concept, yet somehow still feels somewhat longer than its brief running-time of seventy-seven minutes. We are here to see regal catfights; instead, there’s rather too much sitting around and talking about things.

It also seems occasionally to veer into near-darkness, leaving it hard to tell exactly what’s happening. But I did like most of the characters, and a lot of the performances are enthusiastic enough to pass muster. Many of those involved seem to be actively “in on the joke”, being aware of the general ridiculous nature of the concept. Santer in particular sets the tone, and everyone else is at their best when they follow suit. The production values were surprisingly decent too, with an interesting, decrepit location, which seems to mirror the broken-down nature of Hatter’s sanity. It feels like there has been some effort put into the costumes, hair and make-up – again, reflecting the personalities of the princesses.

On the other hand, it’s clear none of the actresses have been chosen for their martial arts abilities, despite pronouncements from the director that, “This is a blood bath with epic fight sequences. Gore hounds are in for a treat.” It really is not, the fights are well short of epic, and I do not feel particularly treated either. I was hoping for a fairy-tale version of Raze. Instead, what I got was closer to after hours in the locker-room at Disneyland, following the consumption of one too many margaritas. Sure, it may be adequately entertaining to watch, but it’s probably not going to be the proudest moment of anyone involved. Better than most public-domain knockoffs though. I’m looking at you, The Mouse Trap…

Dir: Kunahan Thampi
Star: Lewis Santer, Alina Desmond, Kelly Rian Sanson, Natasha Tosini

Girl Gun Lady

  By

★★½
“Get yer kits out…”

With its combination of alternate reality sci-fi and stylized action, this feels like it could have come from the mind of Mamoru Oshii, creator of things such as Avalon and Assault Girls. It’s not. Instead, it was created by toy manufacturer Bandai – like most of their shows, it works largely as a 25-minute long advertisement for product, in this case specifically model kits. But there are some interesting ideas to be found here, though they are somewhat let down by action that clearly has no interest in being realistic, and a tendency towards maudlin emotion. I was left wondering who, exactly, it was aimed at, because the sentimentality feels at odds with the young men who are likely the target consumers.

It takes place in a high school where the favoured hobby of Koharu Tachibana (Shiraishi) is making plastic models. After buying kits of a gun and a figure called Alice, and assembling them, she wakes to find herself an unwilling participant in ‘Girl Gun Fight’. Four teams of three young women, are pitted against each other in battle, overseen by each team’s commander – hers being Alice (Ohara). Between rounds she’s returned to school, along with the other participants, but naturally, nobody believes this story. There’s an awkward twist, in that if you lose all three of your lives in the game, that’s it. You do not get back to the real world, with all trace of you, including other people’s memories, being wiped out.

That’s a wonderfully dark concept, which we see realized as members of the team’s try, and fail, to protect their last life. But it also possesses almost industrial levels of perkiness, particularly reflected in idol-like pop video inserts, and bumpers of enthusiastic model-making. Tonally, it’s all over the place. I suspect that might be the point, in the same way I don’t know at whom it’s aimed. I’m inclined to go for male wish fulfillment, with Koharu being about as far as possible from the typical model-building nerd. On the other hand, it has a lot in common with the “magical schoolgirl” trope, often found in anime, and it’s driven largely by the power of friendship.

That’s especially true in the final two episodes, when Koharu, Alice and the survivors meet the wizard behind the curtain. It all gets a bit too sentimental for my tastes, with the protagonists falling over themselves in a rush to self-sacrifice. The other weakness is action that, in the main, is nothing special – it’s very stagey, in a way at which Power Rangers might look askance. More hard-hitting fights would have added nicely to the contrast with the cheesier elements. Still, I burned through the ten episodes in three sittings, and was entertained, though the emotional impact I felt fell short of what the show was aiming to generate. I also do not feel any strong urge to take up kit-building as a hobby.

Dir: Yûsuke Taki
Star: Sei Shiraishi, Yuno Ohara, Anna Ishii, Natsuki Deguchi