★★½
“Spectrally short of satisfying.”
By coincidence, I watched this after Baby Assassins 3, without realizing the star here plays Chisato in that franchise; the director here was also its action director. Discovering the overlap is a minor demerit against Ghost Killer, because it counts as something of a waste of her talents. It’s a lovely idea – if you’re just an action fan in general, then it likely scores half a star higher. However, specifically as an action heroine film, there is room for improvement. It begins with the assassination of an assassin. Hideo Kudo (Mimoto) works for a criminal organization, and his death occurs in somewhat murky circumstances. The spent cartridge used to kill him, takes on his vengeful spirit, and the casing is picked up by an innocent college student Fumika Matsuoka (Takaishi).
After a period of mutual adjustment to being haunted and doing the haunting, Fumika agrees to help Kudo find out who was responsible for his murder, and take revenge. She is the only person who can see and talk to Kudo, and when she grasps his hand, that allows him to take over her body, with all the associated hitman abilities. Along the road to his vengeance, they will have to deal with a date-rapey triple tag-team, as well as another assassin in the same organization, a former student of Kudo, Toshihisa Kagehara (Kuroba). That pair’s relationship is a little fraught, even after Kagehara is convinced about the reality of what is happening.
The first half of this is very solid, highlighted by the performance of Takaishi as both a college student and a vengeful killer – simultaneously, which makes it all the more remarkable. It means she has to be an expert fighter, and somebody who wouldn’t say “Boo!” to a goose, as her and Kudo tussle for control. I feel as if that enough would have been sufficient to propel the narrative of the entire film. However, it ends up diverting into less interesting Yakuza-based activities in the middle, and it almost becomes easy to forget that Kudo is dead. There aren’t really any surprises once the framework of the situation has been established, heading towards the eventual and predictable confrontation between Kudo and his killer.
And that’s the problem. It’s between Kudo and his killer, not Fumika. It’s still “in her body,” and I enjoyed the scenes where Kudo is guiding her to hide – telling her when to go around a pillar, for example. But when battle is joined, the film shows Mimoto doing the fighting, not Takaishi. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a very good fight, and that’s why I’d say a general viewer is still likely to be satisfied by it. But I was looking forward to seeing the actress really getting to let loose. After all, having experienced the Baby Assassins trilogy, there’s no issue about her martial arts abilities. Seeing her largely sidelined at the end was a disappointing way to finish things off.
Dir: Kensuke Sonomura
Star: Akari Takaishi, Masanori Mimoto, Mario Kuroba,