Tag: japan

The Great Chase

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★★★
“Driver with a thousand faces.”

greatchaseShinobu Yashiro (Shiomi) is nationally known as a race-car ace, but also moonlights as an undercover agent for Japanese law enforcement. That’s motivated by a desire to track down those responsible for the death of her father; he was a ship’s captain, convicted of smuggling drugs, who “committed suicide” in prison, though Shinobu thinks he was framed by the real perpetrator. She gets a possible lead, in the shape of Henry Nagatani and starts tracking him down, with the help of the brother and sister who run her fan-club (!) out of a florist’s shop (!!). Using a wide range of disguises, from a businessman through an old wonan to a nun and a Cambodian diplomat, Shinobu gets closer to the core of the conspiracy, and the man responsible, Onozawa (Ishibashi) though the cost on those she knows proves heavy indeed.

It’s kinda all over the place in terms of tone, charmingly naive and innocently light-hearted in some ways, such as the entirely gratuitous presence of Mach Fumiake, as a nightclub singer who follows up her songs with an in-club wrestling bout. [Fumiake was at the time, one of the starts of All Japan Women’s Wrestling, along with a tag team known as the “Beauty Pair”, whose name inspired the Dirty Pair]. Similarly, Shinoby’s disguises are also more than somewhat variable in terms of how convincing they are, and the drug-running through a convent, with guys dressed as nuns, may have inspired a similarly ridiculous plot thread in They Call Her Cleopatra Wong. Yet this can be grubbily sleazy, particularly in the second half. Onozawa likes to have rough sex while dressed in a bear suit, which reminded me of Walerian Borowczyk’s La Bête, released the same year, and there’s also an excessive amount of S&M, though Shiomi, naturally, remains above that sort of thing.

The action is probably not as frequent as Sister Street Fighter, and probably not as good, except for the final battle, where Shiomi gets to wield her nunchakus to excellent effect. Up until that, there are a lot of scenes where her kicks and punches don’t seem to have much force to them – to be honest, Fumiake comes over rather better in that department! The whole race-car driver aspect is rapidly discarded, and provides nothing more than the title sequence; I was expecting at least a car-chase so the heroine could show off her mad driving skills, but the makers apparently felt no particular need to justify their choice of name for the movie. Yet it moves along briskly, and you have to appreciate Shiomi’s enthusiastic performance, selling over-cooked lines such as: “Can’t you tell who I am? We’ve seen each other so many times. A woman gambler at times; a young gentleman at times; a tea-serving old lady at times; a nun in a black dress at times; and a white haired Cambodian woman. And, under the mask, my true self is the daughter of Masahiro Yashiro, who was brutally murdered by you five years ago – Shinobu Yashiro!” Half a star extra, purely for delivering that with a straight face.

Dir: Noribumi Suzuki
Star: Sue Shiomi, Eiji Go, Mach Fumiake, Masashi Ishibashi

Lady Ramboh – Kill You! In My Justice

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★★★
“Coherence sold separately. And in another language.”

ladyrambohI have literally been staring at the monitor for five minutes now, and still don’t have any idea of where to start. I’m tempted just to leave you to figure it out, based purely on the Japlish title and the cover. The truth is, you would probably end up with as much of a credible feel for what this entails, as from any, technically more coherent explanation I can provide. My understanding was somewhat hampered by the fact that this was mostly in Japanese, though helpfully, the international cartel of villains did appear to use English as their official language. It appears to concern a group of Japanese “G-men” – a term I thought was repealed along with prohibition – investigating and disrupting the Philippine operations of said cartel. Of course, there is also one G-woman, Miki (Takaki), who has an epic sense of haute couture, entirely befitting the lethal killing machine which she is.

The cartel, fed up with having their evil plans thwarted, decide to stop Miki by kidnapping a couple of her friends. Unfortunately for all parties, the rescue operation ends with rather more corpses than survivors, which sets Miki on an implacable course for a head-on collision, in which she will strap on her battle suspenders (I am so not making this shit up) and stage a one-woman assault on the cartel’s compound. Meanwhile, the cartel, having realized the ineptness of their own staff, who could take marksmanship lessons from stormtroopers, bring in an external consultant, in the form of a female counter-assassin. She is, similarly, strapping on her battle hot-pants (camo, naturally), and is ready to face Miki. Though sadly, it turns out she has some kind of history with another of the G-men, and we are thus robbed of any high-fashion cat-fight, which would surely have been a high point of the cinematic artform.

You may, marginally, be detecting faint notes of sarcasm here. Yet, I have to say, the budget here is all up on the screen, mostly in the form of giant fireballs. It’s clearly not just Roger Corman who made films in the Philippines, to get the most bang (literally, in this case) for his money. There is a cast of… well, if not thousands, at least several dozen, as well as helicopter shots, and in technical terms, it is certainly no less competent than a straight-to-video actioner made in the West around the same time (1994). What it possesses in energy, however, is severely negated by the horrific English dialogue and acting; while I appreciate that this did allow me to follow what was going on, it was mind-numbingly bad. The title gives you a good idea of the level we’re at, though is likely not the weirdest in Ms. Takaki’s career, which (per the IMDb) also includes TV show, Funny or Spank: Airport for 24 Hours.

The film begins with a two-minute montage, which made me wonder if I had been thrown into the middle of some ongoing series. It is, in fact, clips from later in the movie, effectively opening with a trailer for itself. Like so much here, this is likely lost in translation, but here’s the section in question. It probably renders the preceding 500 words, more or less superfluous.

Dir: Suzuki Ippei
Star: Mio Takaki

Garm Wars: The Last Druid

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★★½
“In serious need of more tell, don’t show”

garmwarsOshii is best known for his anime work, but this isn’t his first foray into live-action; we already reviewed Assault Girls, and this has much the same strengths and, unfortunately, weaknesses. It looks wonderful, but the script here is virtually impenetrable, leaving the viewer on the outside, looking in. I had to watch this twice, because an hour into the first time, I realized I had absolutely not been paying the film any attention for at least 15 minutes. The setting is the planet Annwn, where a long, ongoing war has reduced the original eight tribes to Columba, who rule the air, versus the land-based Brigga, who also have the support of the few remaining members of the Kumtak tribe, who specialize in information technology. When an Brigga escape pod is retrieved, it contains Kumtak elder Wydd (Henriksen) and a druid (Howell), which is a shock, because druids, who provide a direct line of communication to the gods, are supposedly extinct. Wydd offers the druid’s potential power to the Columba in exchange for his tribe’s freedom, but the Brigga mount an attack and re-capture them. Pilot Khara (St-Pierre) leaves in hot pursuit, but is forced to crash-land and team up with Brigga warrior Skellig (Durand, a ringer for Benicio Del Toro), as Wydd’s agenda becomes clear.

Well, somewhat clear. Like many of the other plot elements, it’s never quite clarified to the point you’d be willing to swear to them. For example, the druid’s power is shown when plugged into the central computer, resulting in… a swirling, red-tinged CGI sphere. What is it? Why should we care? Oshii is untroubled by such concerns, being more concerned with creating a universe that, like Sucker Punch, appears almost entirely green-screen. It looks very nice, certainly, but only occasionally provokes anything more than wondering “Is this available in a format suitable for framing?”. An early narrated sequence gives you the setting; after that, you’re on your own, and the visuals come wrapped in some particularly leaden and indigestible pseudo-philosophical dialogue, that is neither as deep nor as interesting as Oshii seems to think.

Once the foursome reach their heavily wooded destination, things perk up somewhat, with a nicely-staged battle against a set of robotic guardians that is likely the film’s high-point. There are other potentially interesting, yet under-explored aspects, such as the way dead soldiers on both sides are resurrected to continue fighting – Khara is currently on her 23rd incarnation. However, the film ends just as things look about to kick off seriously, in an Attack on Titan kinda way, with far too many plot threads left unresolved. I can only presume this is intended to be the first in a multi-episode saga, since on its own, it feels severely incomplete. If I can’t argue with Oshii’s amazing eye for visuals, he really needs to ensure his scripts are  better developed.

Dir: Mamoru Oshii
Star: Melanie St-Pierre, Lance Henriksen, Kevin Durand, Summer H. Howell

Kyoko vs. Yuki

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★½
“Dead boring. Note: that is not just a critical opinion, it’s a statement of content…”

kyokovsyukiThe ultimate high school girl assassin Kyoko (code name 2029), who was raised by a mysterious underground organization finally became active. Meanwhile, the high school girl Yuki (born in 1983) with a reputation for being the strongest fighter in town, was living carefree every day with her girlfriend. And then, when the two met, a bloody battle for the title of “strongest high school girl” began…

Well, it sounded promising. Unfortunately, even though this lasts 52 minutes, the execution is so woefully inept, that you would be much better off watching half of Half Revenge Milly. The plot sees Kyoko (Fujikawa), having completed her training, sent on a mission to retrieve a suitcase of drugs which has been stolen from the organization that employs her. The Yakuza who stole it is currently living it up with what he thinks is a schoolgirl prostitute, but is actually Yuki (Satomi), who is intent on rolling her “compensated dating” boyfriend. She does so to help her lesbian lover, Miki (Satô), left deep in debt after acting as guarantor for a loan taken out by her sister, who has since vanished. However, when Kyoko finds out the pair now have her employer’s possessions, her revenge is swift and brutal, setting up a subsequent confrontation between her and Yuki.

Director Yamanouchi apparently has a bit of a “reputation” for sleaze, and that certainly seems justified here. Not so much for the lesbian sex, which pretty much par for the course: it’s the subsequent excursion into lesbian necrophilia for which this one will be remembered. It certainly won’t be for the fight scenes, which are feeble in the extreme, poorly-staged and possible even more badly edited. Sure, it’s clear that none of the actresses here were employed for their martial-arts abilities – even if, curiously, Fujikawa keeps her clothes on. Yet given the premise, you’d have thought those involved would at least have made some effort, albeit a token one. Nope. It’s wretched on just about every level, and even the splatter seem unenthusiastic, save for a mildly effective umbrella through the face. Oh, and I did laugh at Yuki taking her bra off and using it to try and choke Kyoko.

Maybe that’s really what this is: a parody of the genre, deliberately made to be piss-poor. However, from what I’ve read about Yamanouchi’s other work, it seems unlikely: satires doesn’t appear to be his bag, and this is described, in more than one place, as relatively restrained by the director’s own standards. That probably isn’t a good thing: if you don’t have production values… Or good actors… Or a script… Then at the very least, you should go full-throttle and embrace the madness, and it’s what the best of these J-film entries do. This one? Not so much.

Dir: Daisuke Yamanouchi
Star: Kyoko Fujikawa, Yôko Satomi, Kinako Satô

Danger Dolls

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★★★
“Fringe with fringes”

dangerdollsAn interesting alternate universe here, diverging at the end of World War II, where the horrific results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki triggered the world into abandoning, first, nuclear weapons and then eventually, all guns as well. In the present day, crime still exists, but it largely consists of people holding up banks with swords, for example. However, trouble lurks in this gun-free paradise, in the form of a parallel universe, which appears to have designs on ours, and is sending people through a wormhole, and replacing the ones on this side with the aim of establishing a bridgehead. Countering this threat are the titular quartet, led by Arisa (Hanai), who have the martial-arts skills to counter these “filthy invaders”, and can also see the blue glow which identifies natives from another dimension.

After successfully destroying five political figures who had taken the place of their counterparts on this side, things get more complex, with the next mission being to infiltrate a country retreat belonging to that political party, a venue recently visited by all five dimensional visitors. It’s decided by their boss that the girls will go under cover as an all-girl group of pop stars – the i.Dolls – using a tour as disguise for their activities, on the basis no-one will pay attention to a bunch of idol singers. Yeah. Not perhaps the soundest decision making ever, that. Exploring the ground, they find what looks like the innocent gateway to a Shinto shrine, only to discover it is actually cover for the wormhole. Confusing matters further, the parallel version of Arisa comes through from the other side where it turns out that she and the other three – hey, what are the odds? – actually are members of an all-girl group. This Arisa discovers that things are not quite as cut and dried as they seem, and that even their own origins may be other than they believe.

It’s likely a case where less plot would be more – and fewer Danger Dolls would probably be a better idea too. For as is, beyond Arisa and Ray (Takeda), there’s precious little characterization to be found for Miki and Mari, whose sole purpose for existing seems to be to justify the idol singer thing, because a singing duo would seem a bit crap. The action sequences are spottily impressive. It’s clear Takeda is head and shoulders above the others in terms of ability, though Hanai has her moments, and there are some nice moves. The most spectacular of these are apparently inspired by lucha libre, leaving me suitably impressed, and the lack of doubling and wire-work was also quite laudable. However, the need to slice up the screen time between four protagonists does leave the battles feeling choppy, and it’s only once the herd is thinned at the end – I’ll say no more – that proceedings achieve the necessary fluidity. There’s no doubt Takeda still has star potential; as with her earlier movies, however, this vehicle for her talent falls short of its main ingredient.

Dir: Shûsuke Kaneko
Star: Rumi Hanai, Rina Takeda, Kayano Masuyama, Nana Seino

Female Prisoner Sigma

  By

★★½
“Prisoner Cell-Block Meh”

sigmaAdding a somewhat supernatural twist to the women in prison genre, the heroine is Ryou Kanzaki (Hamada), sentenced to ten years for killing one of the men who tormented her late sister, Manami. She died in jail, under mysterious circumstances, in the feared “Special Housing Unit One”, a segregation block. The official verdict was suicide, but Ryou is having none of that, and requests to be sent to the same complex. She soon hears whispers that “An evil force is making people go crazy,” and also learns of the titular Sigma, a legendary inmate who acts as an avenging force for abused inmates in prisons around the country, taking revenge for them before vanishing and moving on to her next task. Ryou quickly finds out that the management in this establishment don’t believe she is there to “atone for her sins”, and have no interest in the truth about Manami coming out. Not just sleazy Warden Shibayama either, but his even creepier boss, who seems to be some kind of psychic vampire, powered by fear and hate. Ryou is going to have to put aside her scruples and cozy up to Shibayama, if she wants to find out what happened to Manami.

For the genre, it’s relatively tame, not that it should be mistaken for a Disney production. Still, with only one entirely gratuitous sex scene, though a fair amount of bondage/S&M, it’s at least trying to be more than thinly-disguised porn, and credit for making the effort – occasionally, with some success – to generate a spooky atmosphere. It seems to be trying for something along the lines of the Female Convict Scorpion series, creating a character whose exploits are the stuff of folklore. The problem here is, what we see is hardly legendary: when she eventually makes herself known, Sigma’s exploits are not exactly the stuff of which myths are made. Though, I grant, her ability to spit needles with unerring accuracy is quite impressive. Hamada’s performance is also too low-key to be memorable; she’s no Meiko Kaji, capable of commanding the viewer’s attention through sheer presence. Indeed, the same is true for the rest of the cast; I watched this less than 24 hours ago, and I’m struggling to remember any of their faces.

However, it is an effort to push the genre in something of a new direction, and Sasuga squeezes every yen’s worth out of his budget [even if this extends to a prison containing about a dozen inmates and a handful of guards]. The ending is clearly intended to open the door to an ongoing franchise, although there is no record anything ever came of it, which leaves things instead lacking in resolution. Largely forgettable, yet I’d probably rather have this than be actively repelled, like some in the field.

Dir: Sasuke Sasuga
Star: Shoko Hamada, Koichi Kitamura, Momo Izawa, Kyoumi, Moonsu

Sister Street Fighter

  By

★★★★
“The lady dragon just attacked our wig warehouse!”

sisterstreetfighterfI have reviewed this previously, way back at the birth of the site, as part of the Women Who Kick Butt box-set, where it was easily the best film present. However, that was in a dubbed version, and having recently got hold of a copy in the original Japanese, I thought it deserved a re-watch. I’m pleased to report it remains a supremely loopy bit of fun, fully meriting the seal of approval and deserving of its own page, However could it be otherwise, with dialogue such as the title caption above, or the unforgettable line, “I killed fifty bulls with my bare hands in South America, you know.” It’s 70’s martial arts plot #26: central character goes to look for missing relative. In this case, it’s Tina (Shihomi), whose brother, an undercover cop, vanished while looking into a Japanese drug cartel. She agrees to follow in his footsteps, and soon finds the gang, under boss Hayashi (Yamamoto), handle snoopers with extreme prejudice. As that caption suggests, they bring the merchandise in using heroin-infused wigs(!), and the eccentric boss is now keeping Tina’s brother as a plaything in his basement – presumably alongside the “men who know where they are and care, but don’t drink.”

Oh, and Hayashi also collects martial artists: “Some rich men buy race horses or keep an expensive dog as a pet. But I keep unusual humans instead of animals. It amuses me.” This includes everything from an expert in the Okinawan Kobudo, a chained sickle, through to a pack of Thai kickboxers called the “Amazon Seven.” There’s also a guy with a mohawk who shoots poisoned darts from his blowgun, and bunch of fairly ineffective minions, who walk around wearing what look kinda like ski-masks made of straw. Wisely, they remove these before going into battle, although this does make me wonder what the point is. These and more will all, at some point or other, be faced down by Tina and/or her own allies, including colleagues of her brother, Sonny Hibachi (Chiba) and Emmy Kawasaki (Hayakawa), as well as a ballet-school teacher, because everyone in Japan knows some version of karate, it appears. [I should also mention the unfortunate logo of the karate school is a swastika!] Though Tina’s most startling skill is her ability to fall hundreds of feet from a high bridge, then re-appear without the slightest explanation as to how she survived.

Yamaguchi’s directorial style appears to consist of tilting the camera semi-randomly, leading to some sequences being Everyday Etsuko Shiomis, seen from unusual angles. But he also is smart enough to stand back when appropriate, letting her and everyone else do their thing, and this is when the film earns its keep. Watching Shiomi duel with nunchakus is worth the cost of admission alone, with the rest of the fights, and the general lunatic approach, merely a bonus. Released almost exactly a year after Enter the Dragon, the debt owed to that classic is certainly clear, not least in the tiger claws wielded by Hayashi. If some performances may be on the functional side (watch the drug withdrawal scene for truly epic over-acting), it still does a better of job of repaying its debts than many other imitators of the time, being an enjoyable slab of excessive kung-fu action in its own right.

Dir: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Star: Etsuko Shihomi, Shohei Yamamoto, May Hayakawa, Sonny Chiba

Eko Eko Azarak

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ekoekomanga“Into every generation a sorceress is born.”

No, Buffy was not the first schoolgirl with supernatural powers, tasked with ensuring the denizens of hell were kept under control. Beginning in 1975, Shinichi Koga’s manga series Eko Eko Azarak, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Champion, told the story of Misa Kuroi, a young girl who transfers in to a new school, bringing with her occult abilities as a witch. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, darkly-troubled educational establishment attended by Misa, whose name can loosely be translated in Japanese as “Black Mass”. In this case, it’s the focus of a Satanic cult, who are killing students at precise locations around the city, as ingredients in a ritual with the intended end result of summoning Lucifer himself.

This and the subsequent adventures of Misa, ran for three and a half years, and was subsequently collected into an 18-volume manga series. The title comes from a Wiccan chant, first recorded in the 1920’s, and which also shows up during a 1971 Doctor Who serial, The Dæmons. [Its meaning is obscure, but the names appear to belong to old gods and goddesses] But it took more than two decades for the series first to be turned into a live-action film. This pre-dated the breakout hit of Japanese horror, Ringu, by two years, which may explain why it didn’t receive a fraction of the attention. However, it did begin a series of adaptations which intermittently continued, across various media, for the following 15 years. This included six films, a pair of separate television version and something best described as pseudo-anime. Let’s take a look at some of those, pausing only to hold hands and chant as one:

“Eko Eko Azarak, Eko Eko Zamelak.
Eko Eko Kernonos, Eko Eko Aradia.”

Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness
★★★

ekoeko1Someone appears to be offing pupils at a Tokyo school, in messy “accidents”, such as getting their head crushed by a falling girder: the death scenes form a pentagram, with the school at its centre. Into this strained atmosphere comes Misa Kuroi (Yoshino), who soon established herself as someone with a solid knowledge of certain occult arts, by taking care of a grubby male teacher who has, shall we say, a “hands on” approach to education. She and 12 classmates are ordered to stay behind one day and take a test: on completion, they discover they can’t leave the school, with every exit either sealed, or taking them right back inside again. Worse soon follows, beginning with a drowning in a toilet cubicle: the number 13 which appeared mysteriously on the blackboard, becomes 12, and it’s clear that someone has malicious intent towards the group, with the aim of sacrificing them all, in order to resurrect Lucifer himself.

Who might that be? Creepy classmate Mizuno  (Takahashi), who is openly interested in black magic, yet keeps pointing the finger of suspicion at Misa? The predatory, lesbian teacher, Miss Shirai (Takaki)? And even if she finds out, what can Misa do, given the binding which traps her and the rest of her colleagues, has also severely weakened her own powers? While low-rent in nature, and obviously shot on video, this is decent enough, and despite being just past its 20th birthday, hasn’t dated too badly, in the wake of what seems like a million and one J-horror films set in similar establishments. There’s something of a Buffy echo (though the manga was decades before even the Kirsty Swanson version), in that Misa has come to a new school under murky circumstances, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. However, I’m not quite sure who the target audience is: one would presume a young adult one, based on the high-school age of the characters. Yet, there’s a lengthy lesbian sex sequence, which seems to be aimed at a rather different set of viewers, shall we say, and according to the (female) director, were required by the film’s producers. [I just realized she also did the Western film, Tale of a Vampire, starring Julian Sands, which I remember seeing and enjoying, not least since I was living near some of its South London locations]

The film does occasionally suffer from being too obvious. For instance, we really do not need repeated shots focusing on a pointy object, to foreshadow the fact that someone will shortly be falling onto it. Nor do we probably need 13 victims before we get the idea, and the film seems to realize this, wiping out half of them in once particularly messy incident. Misa, herself, is also somewhat disappointing: we never get any real appreciation for her powers, before she’s robbed of them for much of the film. Maybe this is better explained in the manga, though reports indicate her character there is much more of a vengeful bad-ass. Which, to be honest, sounds more interesting. However, as a messy romp, perhaps in the vein of a Japanese Dennis Wheatley adaptation, this was interesting enough to keep me interested and entertained.

Dir: Shimako Sato
Star: Kimika Yoshino. Miho Kanno, Naozumi Takahashi, Mio Takaki

Eko Eko Azarak II: Birth of the Wizard
★★½

ekoeko2It took me quite some time to realize that this in not actually a sequel, it’s a prequel, telling the story of how Misa (Yoshino) came to realize her powers, and what awakened them. The history of that actually dates back more than a century, when a misguided attempt to resurrect a dead woman, actually triggered the extermination of an entire village. The demon responsible then goes into hibernation for a century, waiting for an appropriate vessel to be born. A century later, this happens: that would be our heroine. When the demon’s mummified body is dug up by unwitting archaeologists, it is awakened, and it foes in search of its new home, possessing those unfortunate enough to cross its path. Saiga (Shihôdô) is sent forward in time from the 19th century to locate Misa. Plan A has her untapped potential being triggered, since she is the only one capable of killing the demon. Plan B, in the event of Plan A, not being possible, is to destroy Misa, since allowing her to be taken would lead to horrors of unimaginable proportion.

Yeah, it’s basically a shameless occult knock-off of the first two Terminator movies, albeit with the time-frame flipped and someone coming from the past to protect the future, rather than the other way around. There is a nice touch, in that Saiga has previously met Misa when she was a little girl, and she has held a candle for him ever since, even into high-school. However, the obviously derivative nature is definitely a step back from the first film, and nor does it help that Misa spends 95% of the time with her powers dormant, just as Linda Hamilton spends most of the first Terminator film running and screaming, reliant on the superior fire-power of her male protector. It’s a curious decision by Sato who, unlike for the first film, also wrote the script here. Everything seemed set up nicely at the end of part one, for a kick ass sequel that shows her putting her abilities to full use, so I was disappointed this went in, literally, the opposite direction, with an origin story.

Don’t interpret this criticism to mean it’s actually bad, for Sato again does wonders in terms of generating atmosphere on a low budget, and this also moves on at a steady pace, with few dull moments. For other purposes, this would certainly rank half a star, perhaps a full grade, higher. However, we’re all about the action heroine on this site, and the paucity of such here leaves me with a clear sense of disappointment and feeling it was a lost opportunity, failing to capitalize on the promise shown in the original.

Dir: Shimako Sato
Star: Kimika Yoshino, Wataru Shihôdô, Chieko Shiratori, Eisei Amamoto

Eko Eko Azarak: The TV series

In between the second and third entries of the movies, there was a television series that ran between February and May in 1997. Information on the show, which ran for 26 episodes of twenty-five minutes, is hard to come by, beyond it starring a new actress, Hinako Saeki in the role of Misa Kuroi. It appears in some ways to be a supernatural version of Sukeban Deka, with Kuroi acting as a roaming investigator, who attends various educational establishments where paranormal or occult events are taking place. I’ve only seen the first three episodes (one is embedded above, with English subtitles), but according to the IMDb synopsis, “Carrying a dagger and a heavy leather bag, she uses her powers to eliminate the evil forces that thrive on deadly sins of the human race… Her parents were changed into wooden miniatures and her beloved sister is captured by the demons. Her ultimate aim is to cleanse the earth and rebuild her broken family.”

The opening trio all take place in the same location, Huirigaoka High School, but tell separate stories. The first deals with a rash of suicides, which initially look like the work of a vengeful spirit, but it turns out there’s something nastier at work. This also sets up Misa’s  “Scooby Gang” of fellow pupils – Ikuo, Hiromi and Taketo – whom she saves from dark forces in this episode. The second is kicked off by an unofficial beauty pageant held by the pupils: when the reigning champion discovers Misa poses a threat to her crown, she attempt to use black magic to ensure her victory. But it isn’t Misa’s first time at the magical rodeo, and she reflects the curse back to its perpetrator, with face-melting results. The third sees a teacher at the school getting married, but Misa has serious qualms about her fiancé, especially when she sees the occult relic sitting in pride of place on their mantelpiece.

Having seen barely 10% of the series, I can’t give it a rating, but based on these three, I was generally impressed, particularly with the writing. Between opening and closing credits, there’s little more than twenty minutes to work with, but the show does a good job of telling a complete tale, without seeming rushed. The Misa we see is clearly experienced, well-versed in the dark arts, and largely doesn’t give a damn who knows it. When a dagger falls out of her bag and is spotted by Taketo, she straight up informs him, it’s for use “In rituals, to offer blood sacrifices.” Containing some surprising nudity – maybe it was a cable show? – there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of character development or an over-riding story arc – certainly none of the topics mentioned in the IMDb synopsis – but it’s still early. I just hope the fan-subbing group which did the first three, will eventually get back to working on the remaining 23.

Eko Eko Azarak III: Misa the Dark Angel
★★★½

ekoeko3With a new director and a new actress in the role of Misa Kuroi – Hinako having carried over her role in the TV series from the previous year – this has a somewhat different feel, but works better than the first sequel, simply because Mida is fully aware of her powers, which lets her kick more ass. The story kicks off with the discovery of a horribly disfigured dying young woman, who whispers “Misa Kuroi” with her last breath. Conveniently, the autopsy doctor is Misa’s uncle, so she is aware of the presence in the victim’s possession of a play script. This takes her to the unsubtly-named St. Salem School for Girls, where she hooks up with the local drama club, under head-girl Hikaru (Hagiwara). They are working on a play which, shall we say, appears to have more than its fair share of occult symbolism, and the dyfunctional bunch of teenagers are about to head off on their traditional summer camp in a remote mansion. What could possibly go wrong?

If you are in any way surprised to learn that the answer to that question is, “Just about everything.” you need to watch more Japanese horror movies. For what unfolds is unsurprising more in the details, which harken back to an earlier attempt, first, to create a homunculus – artificial life – and then, imbue it with a human soul, this lack being what distinguishes it from the rest of us. The process, again unsurprisingly, involves a lot of human sacrifice, and Misa is the only one savvy and gutsy enough to stand in the way. There also appears to be a Lovecraftian subplot, with the gods invoked in the ceremonies being taken from the Cthulhu mythos; unfortunately, the subtitler appears blithely unaware of this, so you get frequent references to “Yog Sototo” instead of Yog-Sothoth. It’s a small matter, but the lack of attention to detail does rub me the wrong way.

Hinako does bring a different approach to the character from Yoshino, both in look and temperament, she’s less “cutesy”, seeming more angular and cold, as if by this point Misa had seen too many things and failed a few saving throws on her “Humanity” skill.  Katsuhiro borrows liberally from the classics, in particular a shrubbery assault lifted from The Evil Dead, but more subtly, a sense of atmosphere that seems to echo Dario Argento’s Suspiria. But it’s also its own beast, and it’s good to see Misa getting a far greater chance to be the heroine whose potential has only been occasionally glimpsed in the first two episodes. The ending is both surprisingly poignant, and unexpectedly final: it doesn’t appear to leave significant room for a sequel – but just as in Western horror franchises, it appears that if the box-office returns prove adequate enough, a way will always be found for another entry…

Dir: Ueno Katsuhiro
Star: Saeki Hinako, Ayaka Nanami, Yuki Hagiwara, Chika Fujimura

Eko Eko Azarak IV: Awakening
★★★★

ekoeko4After a few years’ break, the series returned in 2001 with a fourth installment, that took a radically different approach – and one which, for my money, was all the better for it. It’s actually a reboot – the Japanese release was simply Eko Eko Azarak, with the suffixes only being added for the bootleg edition available in the West from the usual sources. Certainly, the Misa Kuroi we get is initially again one who is unaware of her powers. We first encounter her as the sole survivor of an apparent massacre in a forest which left five corpses, all badly mutilated. Misa (Kato) is carted off to hospital, unconscious, where the police wait to question her and find out what happened. But even as she lies unconscious, the body-count continues to mount.

Needless to say, the media has a field day, especially after Misa escapes the hospital, leaving the body of a nurse by her bed, turned into a starched-white popsicle. The film has a lot to say about how the media twists a story to its own purposes and sensationalizes or trivializes things in pursuit of ratings. For instance, they prepare two versions of the initial story, depending on whether they want to portray Misa as a virgin bravely defending her honour, or a psycho slut who was asking for it. As one hardbitten journalist puts it, “If you don’t come up with a sensationalist headline immediately you see something, you aren’t going to make it.” The defense for this is that television is just a mirror for society, and “A mirror doesn’t have a soul, does it?” So, they frame the story as they want, even going so far as to hire a fake to pretend to be Misa, leading to the climactic confrontation at the TV station between media, police, pseudo-Misa and the real thing, where the journalist taunts Misa into revealing her true powers

This goes about as well for him as you’d expect.

What works really well is the sense of foreboding, with a brooding atmosphere which is incredibly well realized. Rather than explicit shocks, it relies much more on things happening out of sight. While this can often be a cop-out [you don’t have to budget for what you don’t show!], in the right hands this can also be highly effective. Suzuki is clearly the right hands, and is a master at using sound – or even the lack of sound – to create apprehension in the viewer. This is reflected in things like a really creepy answering machine message left for Misa by her mother, or at the end, when the camera pulls slowly away from a closed studio door, leaving you to imagine what awful forces are at work on the other side. While the others are easy to write off as genre entertainment, that isn’t the case for the combination of social commentary and thoroughly effective chills that you get in this installment. Smart and scary like this is a rare combination.

Dir: Kosuke Suzuki
Star: Natsuki Kato, Mitsuho Otani, Hassei Takano, Ken Mitsuishi

To Be Reviewed

There are a number of other entries and adaptations of the character, which I have not yet been able to find, or which only exist at this point in Japanese language versions, without subtitles. First of all, 2004 brought a further television series to TV Tokyo, lasting 13 episodes, called Eko Eko Azarak -eye-. In 2006, there were a pair of features, released two weeks apart theatrically: R-Page and B-Page. The first saw a journalist investigating a string of mysterious deaths in a rural town, who teams up with Misa Kuroi to find the (supernatural, unsurprisingly) cause behind them. In the second,  Misa continued her search for the demon Ezekiel, bringing her into contact with a wheelchair-bound doll maker.

Around the same time, there was also an anime OAV with two stories in one volume – though by most accounts, this was less “animated” than using still images with voiceover narration (a medium known as “ga-nime”). Finally, there is The First Episode of Misa Kuroi, a 60-minute story which came out in January 2011. It was supposed to have been released in the West by Tokyo Shock, first in December 2013, then was delayed to August 2014, but does not appear to have turned up at all. As/when I get access to an understandable version of these, I’ll include them here.

misafirstepisode
Eko Eko Azarak: R-Page
Dir: Taichi Ito
Star: Narumi Konno, Mitsuki Koga		 Eko Eko Azarak: B-Page
Dir: Shinichi Koga
Star: Narumi Konno, Rina Takagi		 Eko Eko Azarak:
The First Episode of Misa Kuroi
Dir: Shinichi Koga
Star: Nozomi Maeda

Lady Ninja Kasumi, Volume 1

  By

★½
“Godfrey Ho nods approvingly.”

LadninI’ve endured enough of these that I get the increasing feeling they are cranked out on a Japanese assembly-line somewhere, for they seem to have the same elements, right down to the title, which involves a random combination of words such as Assassin, Female, Geisha, Girl, Lady, Ninja and Woman. Get some porn actress, whose talents are neither in acting nor in martial arts, a few robes and some samurai swords, then have everyone run around some generic but potentially “historical” location, such as a forest. You’ll want a lot of sitting around chatting, since that’s particularly easy to film, and sprinkle lightly in mediocre sword-play. Intersperse the story with lengthy sex scenes every 15 minutes or so. Package in a non-descript sleeve that promises more than it can ever deliver. Release. Profit.

Because this kind of dubious excuse for a movie is incredibly cheap to make, and it seems there’s an endless appetite for them, both in the West and (presumably) in Japan – much like any old cack with a zombie in it will currently get a release here. I watch them so you don’t have to. Trust me, there are times when this site is a chore, not a pleasure. This theory isn’t inviolate: Geisha Assassin is actually pretty good. Lady Ninja Kasumi, on the other hand, possesses absolutely nothing to separate it from all the other sword-wielding soft-porn which has strayed across my disinterested eyeballs in the past.

The heroine is Kasumi (Young-mi), who became a ninja in order to protect her little brother, Kotaro. She’s sent on a mission to spy on a nearby clan, and defeats a member of their Hakuga squad, run by the Itagaki brothers. Injured in the process, she is nursed back to health by a friendly medicine-peddler. However, the other Itagaki brothers are keen to get their hands on the ninja responsible for their colleague’s death and… Well, let’s be honest, it was at roughly this point that my interest vanished over the event horizon, sucked in by this low-rent combination of clunky cinema, bad fight scenes and tedious humping. I think there was something about another, freelance female ninja, and an assassin who could disguise himself as a small child, which I guess deserves half a star for sheer novelty.  There are times I feel guilty about not giving a film my full attention. This is not one of those occasions. This is the first in a series which runs ten volumes – needless to say, I won’t be bothering with the others.

Dir: Hiroyuki Kawasaki
Star: Young-mi, Saki Anz, Yui Mamiya, Hideki Satô

Death Shadow

  By

★★★
“Stylized beyond belief.”

deathshadowsWhile made in 1986, you’ll frequently find yourself thinking this could be from a decade or two earlier, though to be honest, the style in this samurai-revenge-crime-whatever film is as all over the place as the plot. Some of that works well. Having the heroine’s sword turn into a ribbon, which she then twirls artistically, is more successful than it sounds. However, the multiple breaks for little disco-dance sequences, involving dry ice and flashing lights… Not so much. The set-up is great. Three condemned men are recruited, Nikita-style, to become shadow agents, working for the government. One of them manages to have a wife and a daughter, but has to leave them for their own safety.

Ten years later, he’s working a case when he meets his daughter, Ocho (Ishihara) employed by the man he’s investigating, Denzo. The end results is, the case blowing up, the death of both he and Denzo, and Ocho’s recruitment by his boss as a replacement. She can avenge her father by getting the evidence that will bring down the whole syndicate, in particular, a fake license hidden in the sash of a kimono. Unfortunately, this sash is now evidence in a murder investigation, and is in the hands of the police. And Denzo’s mistress, Oren (Natsuki), is out for her own revenge, on the woman she blames for his death.

Plenty of scope here, certainly. Unfortunately, the potential is frittered away after that blistering first twenty minutes, becoming bogged down in a welter of male characters who tend to look the same, act the same and sound the same. It’s a constant stream of corruption, lies and deceit that becomes quite wearing: the yakuza are corrupt, the cops are corrupt, even the local priests are corrupt, their grave-robbing antics being what kicks the quest for the kimono sash off. But it’s all too meandering, and Gosha [who also directed The Yakuza Wives] seems to be much more in love with these subsidiary characters than they deserve. Ocho and Oren are fine – the latter, in particular, is a memorably slimy creature, who is not as weak as she appears. There just isn’t enough of them.

Occasional moments here do work: mostly, when the two female leads have not been shunted off to one side, making way for macho grunting by top-knotted sword-wielders. I don’t have a problem with films like this, that take a different approach to familiar material. However, style alone isn’t enough, and what’s left here is infuriatingly flawed. There’s the basis of a great storyline, and a pair of superb central characters; that’s a foundation many movies would kill for, and on which Gosha could have built. Rarely have I seen such solid ground wasted as badly as occurs in this film.

Dir: Hideo Gosha
Star: Mariko Ishihara, Mari Natsuki, Masanori Sera, Takuzô Kawatani
a.k.a. Jitterna. There’s also some question over whether it’s Shadow or Shadows. The IMDb goes for the former, the DVD sleeve the latter.