Onna batoru koppu

Full disclosure: the original Lady Battle Cop is among the tokukatsu universe and existed several decades before the Verhoeven ripoffs. With that being said, I still looked forward to the 2014 re-interpretation due to my love of these characters (whose legacy had already been profoundly tarnished by the redundant first sequel and catastrophically misguided second sequel) and my admiration of director Jose Padilha's "Elite Squad" films (as well as his documentaries). Suffice to say, I came into the theater with a bias toward wanting the film to succeed.

I'm willing to acknowledge that it may be for this reason that I found Lady Battle Cop to be a resounding success. Conversely, it is my belief that a large contingent of overzealous "fans" were hellbent on seeing this film fail, therefore had pre-determined that the movie was trash. How could it possibly withstand several years of unwavering hatred during its production and be given a fair shot? Judging by the middling 6.7 IMDb rating and the 70% Rotten Tomatoes score, many people loathed Lady Battle Cop just as much as they'd hoped they would.

This viewer simply cannot accept that Lady Battle Cop is anywhere near as bad as people are rating it. For starters, the film has been bashed mercilessly for idiotically trivial elements. It is my firm belief that all of these criticisms are merely the ravings of closed-minded fanboys who are (bizarrely) searching for the next movie to "ruin their childhood". It's a phenomenon that is baffling and absurd.

Truth be told, I think the film is a solid 9 and may even grow to become a 10 over time. Of course it's related to the Verhoeven's classic, except obviously earlier versions were ripped off by Judge Dredd, which in turn, were ripped off by RoboCop. For that I am grateful -- part 2 tried so desperately to ape the original that it felt like a rather soulless carbon copy. I didn't want another movie trying to mimic the satire of the originals, nor did I feel that anyone could ever one-up the hyper-violence of the 1987 version, so why try?

In my opinion, a little brand recognition is a fair trade off if it helps the film achieve the look and feel of a high-end sci-fi blockbuster.

Anyway, I've already babbled several paragraphs longer than I'd intended. The bottom line is you should abandon your preconceptions and watch the movie for what it is: a genuinely smart, heartfelt and wonderfully acted sci-fi featuring characters we know and love. What's so awful about that?

This film begins in a futuristic setting in Japan at nightclub where two rival gangs are about to engage in a gun battle. All of a sudden four individuals wearing army uniforms enter and proceed to kill all of the gang members there. As it so happens, these four people belong to the enforcement branch of another highly organized gang known as "the Cartel" and are tasked with destroying all of their competitors. The scene then shifts to a young woman named "Kaoru Okoshiba" (Azusa Nakamura) and two male companions who are congratulating her for finishing second in a recent tennis match. Not long afterward, she also becomes a victim of the Cartel but, before dying, she requests that her body should be donated for a procedure in which she will be transformed into a cybernetic being who can then administer justice. Six months later with New Tokyo plagued by lawlessness as a result of the Cartel a new force for law and order arrives-Lady Battle Cop. However, the Cartel isn't unnecessarily worried as they also have a powerful humanoid robot of their own named "Amadeus" (Masaru Matsuda) who appears to be even more powerful. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say this film was a poorly made, low-budget, Japanese version of "Robocop" which suffered from a poor script, weak acting and even worse action scenes. Truth be told, it was painful to watch at times as the same scenes kept being repeated over and over again. That being said, I was not at all impressed with this film and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Never having heard about the 1990 Japanese action sci-fi movie "Onna Batoru Koppu" (aka "Lady Battle Cop"), I was recommended this movie by a friend. So I tracked it down and sat down to watch it.

Upon seeing the movie's cover, I have to admit that I wasn't really harboring much of any grand expectations to director Akihisa Okamoto's 1990 movie. But since I had never heard about it, nor seen it, then of course I opted to give it a fair chance.

"Onna Batoru Koppu" is without a doubt a blatant knock off of the 1987 movie "Robocop", except exposed to a Japanese touch. So expect a somewhat spaced out and over-the-top movie here.

Yup, the storyline in "Onna Batoru Koppu" was cheesy, so very, very cheesy. And that is actually what makes the movie watchable and semi-enjoyable to watch.

The acting performances in the movie were as to be expected from a movie such as this. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with anyone on the cast list.

Visually then "Onna Batoru Koppu" wasn't really as bad as you might expect. So that counted for something in favor of the movie as well. Cheesy costume design, sure, but fun nonetheless.

"Onna Batoru Koppu" is not a gem in the Japanese cinema, not even by a long shot. And it is the type of movie that you watch once, shelf it and forget about it. There are far worse movies readily available out there.

My rating of "Onna Batoru Koppu" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Cheesy direction, but feels a bit like a comic book, which is nice and different in a way.

Characters have potential, but stay to superficial (especially the main villain).

Plot has potential; engaging in the first half, but totally lacking in the second half and with a predictable, cheesy ending.

Overall the movie seems to have trouble finding the right balance between goofy, over-the-top action and mysterious, big-villain crime.

The villain parts are accompanied by an amazing score tho.

Score of the rest of the movie is nice too; maybe a little too much sax, but a nice change from the generic hollywood action movie scores.

"Lady Battle Cop" is the Japanese answer or knock off to the possibly one of the best action movie in the world "Robocop" and just like how all things should be this movie can't hold a candle to it superior yet it still packed with enough cheese and goofy stuff to be an entertain movie. With a short runtime about 1h 20min the movie will be over before you know it so if you ever want to watch something fun to waste time check Lady Battle Cop out