Japanorama (December 2010).

Anybody who likes the GWG genre will know that Japanese cinema is awash with films and to a lesser extent TV featuring gun toting women. In some ways the depiction of the genre is better than its' western equivalent and in some ways it is infinitely worse. Here are a few examples for you to make up your mind.

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The plus and the minus points are more than demonstrated in the 'Zero Woman' films. These films are a series of stories featuring the character Rei who is an assassin for the police department known as Zero Department. At the last count there were around 8 entries in the series each bearing little resemblence to its cousins and each featuring a different actress as the character Rei. The plus points are the actresses chosen to play Rei and the minus points are a dreadful mysogony and sadism which permeates films of this ilk. The series apparantly started with 'Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs' which was made in the 1970's and which I've never viewed. However it wasn't until the 1990's that the series started again with 'Zero Woman: Final Mission' (Naoko Iijima as Rei). This must have had some success as the next films in the franchise 'Zero Woman' (Natsuki Ozawa), 'Assassin Lovers' (Kumido Takeda), 'The Accused' (Mai Tachihara), 'The Hunted' (Mikiyo Ohno), 'Dangerous Game' (Chieko Shiratori), 'Zero Woman Returns' (Saori Ono) all came along in quick succession from each other.

The majority, if not all, of the'Zero Woman' movies were recorded straight to video tape. These were made in the 1990's when video was at its peak. The stories follow a similar storyline with Rei being assigned to eliminate a kingpin of the Japanese underworld or other undesirable and the path she leads to fulfil her task. A common theme is that Rei will often be in conflict with her superiors and/or be having a crisis of conscience about her next job. Many of the films start with an assassination (usually in a night club or car park) and is inevetable that someone, sometimes Rei, will   inevitably be captured and subjected to degrading treatment at some stage before the film ends. To be fair the actresses who have portrayed Rei are all perfectly acceptable in the role and not only look good but have, for the most part, the iciness required of the role. The films themselves fails to enter into pure AV film terrortory which forms a significant part of Japanese GWG entertainment but is pretty graphic stuff at times. Other more recent forays in to the franchise were made with the releases of 'Zero Woman 2005' and 'Zero Woman R'. Here are lots of screencaps from 4 of the films.

'Prisoner Maria' is follows much the same terrortory as the 'Zero Woman' franchise. The slant here is that the assassin is an inmate in the Japanese penal system, which seems to be based on the regimes seen so often in WIP (Women in Prision) films such as Caged Heat etc. Maria is told to carry out executions for the state in return for a lesser sentence or as in the case of Prisoner Maria 2 the threat of having her son killed. Prisoner Maria clips on the internet often feature the heroine carrying out an assignment at a nightclub (the nightclubs in Tokyo must be the most dangerous places in the world if these films are to be believed) with deadly efficiency though the film itself goes downhill after the opening flourish Prisoner Maria 2 opens in prison and gives the director plenty of opportunity to re visit the American WIP genre for titilation purposes and once again an undercurrent of salaciousness is never far from the surface. However like 'Zero Woman' the film just about stays away from pure AV and once again the actresses do a good job with mediocre material and look surper efficient in their assassin characters. I have seen two of the films, I think that is all there is in the series and the actresses concerned were Noriko Aota (Prisoner Maria) and someone whose name was only given in Kanji. She looks good though.

Further away from  the AV borderline we have two 'Black Angel' films.Now let me say straight away I liked Black Angel 1. In fact it is only one or two scenes which are close to downright nasty and misogynistic which is quite something for the Japanese GWG film genre. I don't know the history of these films but 'Black Angel 1' looks to me as if it had its roots as a TV program. The piece has a slightly melodramatic feel to to it in places.. I know I've covered this film in the past but a quick recap is in order. Iiko (Riona Hazuki) sees her mob family slaughtered at the tender age of six. She is whisked away to America by the mysterious female assassin Black Angel (Reiko Takashima) and returns a few years later intent on revenge. By now the original Black Angel is a hopeless alcoholic and has no interest in helping Iiko finish off the remainder of her family's killers. Of course one of the anti-heroines is captured and subjected to some degrading torture before the other comes to the rescue to allow Iiko to continue her mission of revenge. The twist is that the instigator of the original crime was Iiko's elder sister or her aunt or something.

Black Angel 2 is a big dissappointment. It has little of the urgency of the first film, none of the original characters or actors and isn't really a direct sequel.

What is interesting about 'Black Angel 2' is that the director Takashi Ishii had early wrote and directed Gonin 2 (as well as the original Gonin). Gonin (5 people) starred Beat Takeshi, a very respected and talented Japanese actor. Gonin 2 didn't have Beat Takeshi but did have Reiko Kataoka (who starred in Black Angel 2) and is still an extremely good film in its own right. The story follows 5 people (mostly women) involved in one way or another with a jewelry robbery. Some of them begin as innocent shoppers and another as an actual robber but all get drawn in to a plan to keep the proceeds of the robbery for themselves. Of course the original organisers of the robbery are not pleased about this and neither is a sword weilding avenger who has fallen foul of the Yakuza and has sentimental linkage to a particular item of jewelry. With such an eclectric mix of character the film is an intriguing fusion of motivation and suspense (one torture scene excepted) and draws strong performances from all the cast. Whilst not a strict GWG film it has enough scenes to keep a fan of the genre happy as well as being a class above the usual fare. Apologies for the quality of the screencaps. After years of wondering why some videos seem such poor quality I believe the fact that the fact that the DVD is  NTSC (Never The Same Colour) encoded is responsible.

 Robbery  Aftermath   Capture and rescue    Finale.

Since I seem to have wandered in to the classier range of Japanese GWG film it is time to mention 'Pistol Opera' and 'Avalon'. 'Pistol Opera' is directed by Seijin Suzuki. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work he directed cult classics such as 'Branded to Kill' and 'Tokyo Drifter' amongst others. He had a falling out with the studio over his directing style and output and was forced to work in Japanese TV during much of the 1970's. Many of his devotees were particularly looking forward to 'Pistol Opera' as it was touted as a kind of follow on for 'Branded to Kill' made over 30 years earlier. Like 'Branded to Kill' it told the story of an assassin (this time the female assassin Stray Cat [Makiko Esumi]) who needs to move up the league table of assassins. Her assignments to kill her fellow, somewhat unorthordox,  assassins are given to her by a striking woman in white and she goes about her task with relish whilst taking on the responsibility of protecting a mysterious young girl. Now this sounds very good on paper but there are undoubted problems with the film. For a start Suzuki never wanted Esumi to play Stray Cat and he said some quite unflattering things about her looks and performance. I am not taking sides here but Esumi is actually very good in the role. Whether Suzuki wanted an actress with the looks of one of the Zero Woman actresses isn't clear but he certainly didn't get it but he DID get a very good actress. Another problem is with her costume but that is down to Suzuki himself or the costume department. Sorry but an assassin wearing traditional Japanese dress and Doc Martens just doesn't work on any level. The other niggle is the construct of the film. It seems to take itself far too seriously at time. The ending of the film and the symbolism involved is still a mystery to me but I am sure it means something profound. I like quirky films, I liked 'Branded to Kill and I even managed to sit through 'El Topo' which this film resembles on many levels. I do like this film too however it just isn't the masterpiece I was expecting or led to believe it was by some of the reviews. If you watch it just for GWG content you will be disappointed too. If you can sit through an art house, surreal GWG film then you may just find a worthwhile  introduction to Seijin Suzuki's better, earlier work.

 Pistol Opera

So what is 'Avalon', a film made in Eastern Europe (Poland I think) and starring unknown eastern european actors and actresses doing in the Japanorama artcile I hear you ask? Well, once again it is the director which is the link here. If I tell you the director is Mamori Oshii the name probably still doesn't mean much unless you are a saddo Japanese cinema fan like me or an anime fan. Anime (Japanese animation) is an art form either loved or loathed. If you love it then you'll know the 'Ghost in the Shell' series of anime films Oshii was the director for these. 'Avalon' follows many of the anime standards. It is mostly set in a virtual game world where the participants have very deadly objectives. Ash (Malgorzata Foreminiak) seeks to extend her already extensive gaming kills to the next level. To do so she has to join other seekers of the new levels. Once again this is not a GWG film and is a bit portentious. However it has elements of GWG and certainly has style, though some of it is over stylised and a bit self indulgent. If you are prepared to forsake the Hollywood gloss of films like 'The Matrix' then this budget virtual reality film is quite satisfying and is well worth the concentration level it sometimes requires, just skip over the boring bits. Oshii has eeked a live action film from an anime script and has done so with gusto and it probably wouldn't have worked without the directors roots. Apologies about the monochrome look and general gloominess - that was how it was filmed for most of  the virtual reality sequences.

Japanorama - Part 2

Let's start heading down the intellectual and artiness scale again. Being a Japanese pop star is often a passport in to the film industry though often not very long lived. A few years ago some J-pop starlets starred in the film 'Cats Eye'. I never saw it but it was about a group of leather clad jewel thieves I think. I have seen 'Cool Dimension' and though it doesn't feature leather clad jewel thieves it does feature leather clad special agents (of some description) some of whom may or may not be played by former J-Pop starlets. If not it certainly has that pop video look and style about it. I won't go deeply in to the plot, which to be fair doesn't amount to much, except to say that one of the leather clad agents is a baddy (yeah!) and the girls look great. However some truely terrible stunt doubles during the action scenes (e.g a guy in a wig who likes like Sakako from 'Ringu'), lacklustre direction and plot don't really make up for an OK finale. Best avoid.

 Start  Middle   End

Definitely in the 'non sleaze' GWG genre are the 'Gun Crazy' films. These are a set of four totally unrelated films about.... well mostly girls with guns. 'Gun Crazy 1 - A woman from Nowhere' stars Ryoko Yonekura as the mysterious 'stranger in town' whose aim is revenge. It is a bit like an ersatz spaghetti western but Yonekura is obviously relishing the role she is given. 'Gun Crazy 2 - Beyond the Law' stars Rei Kikukawa and is a much more satisfying film about a woman who switches from lawyer to deadly assassin following a court room killing. 'Gun Crazy 3 - The Big Gundown' has 2 female gunslingers, one a criminal and one a cop (Kasumi Nakane and Mitsuho Otani). This is a pretty standard police action film but OK none the less. The last one in the series was 'Gun Crazy 4 - The Magnificent 5 strike' and to my mind was the most dissappointing one. This one had Natsuki Kato and Fumina Hara as leaders of a paramilitary group assembled to rescue a kidnapped businessmans daughter. If camoflauge trousered women toting big guns is your thing then you probably won't be dissappointed but it lacked the imagination of the previous stories. The best of the series in order are 2, 1, 3 then 4. As is usual with Japanese films some nice coffee table books with unique photographs were available when the films were released. I have taken the liberty to take a scan or two from the books (OOPS - sorry didn't get time to do this).

Before plummetting down the scale totally let me mention 'Wild Criminal'. This is a good noirish Japanese film about a gangsters mistress, a bisexual gun moll and a trunk of money. All the ingredients are there for a lot of double crossing, some good bad girl moments as well as the occasional brutal sexual violence scene (this is Japanese cinema after all). If a modern day noir movie is your thing, it certanly is mine, and you can stomach or skip the nasty bits then it is probably worth the effort of attempting to find it. The 2 female stars are definitely better than the unflattering DVD cover suggest.

AND THIS IS WHERE TIME HAS DEFEATED ME! THIS TIME IT IS THE END - NO MORE UPDATES - EVER!!!!!

Thanks for reading