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DVD Sukeban hantâzu: Sôkatsu nagurikomi sakusen
 Run time: 93 min Rating: 5.4 Genres: Action | Crime | Drama Director: Kazushi Nakadaira Writers: Kazushi Nakadaira, Makoto Shinozaki Stars: Asami, Rena Komine, Jirô Satô |
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| Plot Keywords: dismemberment, torture, gore, shooting, street fight | |
| Details: Country: Japan Release Date: 23 December 2010 (Germany) |
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The film opens to Asami breaking out of her small mound grave. Perhaps they buried her alive. She gets out and shakes off the dirt. She's wearing a pair of black panties and a somewhat healed bullet hole over her heart. She finds a character killed in the previous phone. He's obviously alive, so she takes the wooden cross from her grave, sharpened at the lower end, and rams it through his heart. Nice. Then a group of characters killed in the last film show up and advance on Asami with menace, and guns, and swords.
Asami keeps killing Yakuza and collecting pinkie fingers. She makes the news. Apparently she can kill any reasonable number of men, but when a woman smaller than she is attacks, Asami wins the contest, but is hurt badly. She meanders around in great pain until Yayoi, the daughter of a local doctor, finds her and brings her to safety.
Asami sleeps a lot while recovering. This allows flashbacks to when Asami was in different gang alliances when she was younger. This culminated in her getting shot followed by a vision of her burial site. Asami has waking visions as well, which makes for awkward encounters.
In the present, the gang elements put pressure on the head of household through his daughter who was seen with Asami. The Yakuza torture Asami and Yayoi after capturing them. The scourging with long stemmed (thorned) roses was somewhat well done. But then there are numerous continuity errors afterward.
The final large battle was sort of fun, but was ruined by that fact that each individual fight was absurd.
——Scores——-
Cinematography: 4/10 Horrible camera work when the girl gangs are out intimidating men and stealing their money. Visuals are dark throughout.
Sound: 6/10 The subtitles seemed to be OK. The incidental music was way too intrusive.
Acting: 0/10 The fight choreography was bad to terrible. The acting was absurd throughout. I did not believe the performance of a single character.
Screenplay: 0/10 The long sequences about girl gang members committing crimes was neither entertaining nor informative. The habit of spending a couple of moments in the present, then going for a long dive into meaningless nonsense (karaoke, or robbing people on the street) in the past is boring and irritating. When is the main thread going forward? The main story could have been done at a leisurely pace in twenty minutes, not ninety-six.
Well "Yakuza Hunters: Final Death Ride Battle" is most definitely a movie made by and for a male audience, there is no doubt about that. Just look at the intro scene, it starts out with showing an almost fully naked woman, and that pretty much lays the standard for the rest of the movie.
The story is about a woman named Asami who is tortured and left for dead by a Yakuza group, only they failed to finish her off, and she staggers back from the grave, literally. Bruised and battered, Asami seeks refuge at her old gang until such time she is ready to take on the Yakuza and go face to face with Junko.
"Yakuza Hunters: Final Death Ride Battle" is fun enough to watch, because the story requires very little brain activity in order to follow, basically just switch to auto-mode and lean back in the couch and enjoy the action. But of course, a movie of this caliber and of this genre is not really one that is driven by a solid story. This is all about the action, the fighting, and of course the pretty (and often scantily clad) women.
As for the acting, well don't expect award-winning performances. Most of the performances in the movie were actually staggering and bordering on being painful to watch. However, the movie does manage to stay afloat with the sheer amount of action, women and brutality.
If you are familiar with other Japanese gore movies, such as "The Machine Girl", "Tokyo Gore Police", "Meatball Machine", etc. then don't set your sights up for this movie, because it is nowhere in the same league of grotesqueness and absurdity, nor does it have the same amounts of blood, gore and mayhem. However, I will say that "Yakuza Hunters: Final Death Ride Battle" does have just sufficient of blood, gore, mayhem and the typical Japanese grotesqueness to keep it interesting enough without tipping the scale and going into the absurd.
The fight scenes were working out well enough, though it is not on the level of Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan or any of those trademark Asian martial arts movies. There is a lot of bad choreography and execution on the actresses parts, but it actually works well enough, because it becomes entertaining that it is so bad at times.
To fully appreciate a movie like this, then you have to be a man and have an interest in Japanese action/splatter movies. I was thoroughly entertained by "Yakuza Hunters: Final Death Ride Battle" and will actually sit down to watch part 2 as well. These movies are well suited for watching when you are nurturing a hang-over from a weekend of partying.
Asian flicks are in trouble. I still remember that you were looking out for a new HKIII flick or another mega gorefest coming out of Japan. The last years I'm a bit afraid to buy a new Asian flick. They aren't gory anymore and they're full of humor we don't get. Another problem is the use of CGI in stead of the good old splatter and sputtering wounds. The CGI is used for gunshots, wounds and red stuff. The flick is somehow saved towards the end by the use of some typical Japanese blood sputtering wounds.
Just look at the last Asian horrors, there is a lot of weird and arty shots that I just can't understand, here it isn't used but the story is told so many times. gang against gang with some fighting sexy looking women. It isn't a pinky like stated on the cover, therefore there isn't enough nudity in it. The only nudity you will get is from Asami's tits. You get it in shot one and in a torturing scene. In that peculiar part there are a few mistakes, Asami's back is being hit by roses until the blood comes out, when she stand up there's no blood anymore on her back.
The acting wasn't convincing too, another problem for me, nowadays they all must exaggerate towards acting in Asian flicks. It's okay to see if you are an Asami fan because her nudity flicks aren't available in Europe. It was mediocre, hope that the good old Asian flicks will come back soon…
Gore 2/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5