Zombie Killer: Vortex

I was happy and excited to have the opportunity to put my hands on this title,because i am a real fan of the first Onechanbara movie. I am a b-movie lover and a japan trash-splatter fan...but let me explain,i am not blind,so i don't think the first episode is a masterpiece,it have some problems,but i give to the first Onechanbara a vote of 7 without any problem,but the second one is a mess!

The plot is kinda recycled from the first episode,the acting is awful (i remember some facial expression of Eri Otoguro,Aya in the first movie,and she was really nice! and all the past cast's acting was quite good,but in this one,god...i can't save anyone really!). The duels are bad too...always confused, and with a lot of stupid computer-blood on screen anytime,really annoying.

So...worst plot,worst acting,worst duels......worst sequel! Long life to the first episode,but sadly i say the second one sucked!

I did this to myself. I knew it was going to be awful. There was never more than a real possibility otherwise, seeing as it's the direct-to-video sequel to a videogame adaptation that was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and almost certainly the most boring. No one involved the first time around seemed to care about the film they were in, so why should this instance be any different? It surely couldn't be even worse, could it?

Well, there is a difference, and 'Chanbara beauty: Vortex' is distinctly worse than 'Onechanbara,' and here's why. In the 2008 picture no one in the cast or crew was remotely trying, and the result was flailing and floundering, as weak and pointless as a picture could possibly be. If you wanted action, it was treated poorly; if you wanted horror, it was treated poorly; if you wanted a cinematic interpretation of the videogames, you didn't even get the interactivity of gameplay; if you wanted an enjoyable full-length feature, you absolutely did not get one; if all you wanted was skin, as suggested by promotional materials and the infamous costume design of the videogame protagonist, even this was lacking. No, 'Onechanbara' didn't try at all, in any capacity. 'Chanbara beauty,' however, takes the opposite tack and tries way, way too hard, and in totally failing on every account, it arguably becomes more actively aggravating than its predecessor.

Dear reader, the actors are acting SO HARD. Just look at their faces! Ooh, the concentrated effort they're pouring into their acting! Grr! Arg! Rather than be bland and flavorless, this time the composers do try to put some pep in the step of the music, but the result is as hollow and spiritless as ever; imagine an enthusiastic musical artist performing to a concert venue that's almost completely empty, and you'll have a good sense of what's going on here. Instead of abysmal, bottom-dollar production values, this time folks try to make empty warehouses, bare streets, and open fields seem fancy by adding soft focus into the mix, making the fundamental image easy on the eyes but as false as false could be. The computer-generated imagery isn't always as painfully obvious as it was last time - only mostly - but I do wonder if it isn't even more gauchely proliferate; the action remains wildly stylized, and therefore dull and unexciting (remember Zack Snyder's '300?'), and is generally poorly visualized anyway, if not also poorly choreographed. We get tropes galore, questionably employed instances of blood and gore for their own sake, and definitely a lot more focus on women's bodies, not least as the "costume design" includes a bikini, a short miniskirt, a nightgown, and a skintight suit with an open midline. That should make the prepubescent boys in the audience happy (and the grown men who have the maturity of prepubescents).

Rotten cinematography, Rotten editing. Shoji Tsuyoshi's direction can be described in much the same terms of the acting, and if anything is generally more limp and contrived. Yoshiki Fukushima - well, he wrote a screenplay. There is a screenplay. It's a thing. There is a plot, but it's just as poorly written as before, and only an excuse for (a) zombies and (b) dressing grown women like little girls and playthings. It's also very poorly communicated through the trashy, hackneyed, halfhearted scene writing and dialogue. There's something to do with the special blood of sisters Aya and Saki, which had been brought up in the prior flick, too, but this sequel is just as laughably terrible about elucidating any such plot points or story ideas. Likewise, the character writing is appalling, and doubly so since the dynamics between Aya and Saki are supposed to be important in some manner; Saki just comes across as blisteringly, childishly senseless, and Aya mostly an empty shell, so whatever. Incredibly, the result of all these elements is that even as the cast and crew desperately attempted to infuse more vitality into the proceedings, and do some actual work this time around, these 85-90 minutes somehow feel even more vacant. More artificial. More meaningless. One side effect is that instead of being wholly indifferent to the flick I instead really can say that I despise it, and true dislike is in my opinion better than sheer boredom. Yet if splitting hairs in this fashion is how we distinguish between the respective level of quality of two kindred pieces, call me a cynic, but I don't think that reflects well on either.

As was the case with the 2008 antecedent, I fully admit that I'm clearly not in the target audience. Be that as it may, I cannot fathom how anyone could possibly find this remotely entertaining. There is no value here. Whatever one might theoretically want out of this film, you can get it elsewhere, and invariably more well done. We technically do get everything that was promised, but the price is far too steep to pay. Rarely has something that clocked in at under ninety minutes felt so interminably long. This has been a block of time that I'll never be able to get back; I have wasted a portion of my life watching this. I urge you, with all due sincerity, to give 'Chanbara beauty: Vortex,' and its predecessor, as very, very, very wide a berth as you conceivably can. This is utter rubbish, and there is no reason any other person should ever have to suffer through it.

Let's not pretend why you watched this movie. I defy ANYONE to show me a movie that can't be improved by a cute Japanese girl dressed in little more than her underwear, a feather boa, and cowboy hat...with katanas. Yeah, I'm pretty sure if they'd thrown a character like that into Citizen Kane I might just agree with all those people who say it's the best movie ever made (it's not). And if said Japanese girl is, let's just say "well built", then all the better. So how bad does a movie have to be that all of this eye candy can't even save it? I don't know, but the Onechanbara sequel figured it out.

I actually liked the first Onechanbara. The action was better, the lead girl was cuter, and the story wasn't complete nonsense (close, but not complete). The plot is basically watching the lead "actress" jiggle and fight her way through hoards of zombies. I know that sounds like epic fun, but it's just not in this case. When a buxom Asian girl killing zombies with samurai swords cannot hold my attention, something is very, very wrong. I also cannot underestimate how annoying the whole "blood spatter on the camera" gets in this movie. Use it once or twice for effect...that's fine. But, if memory serves, it happens in EVERY fight scene in this movie and usually more than once. The whole thing is just a mess that not even your (and my) rather juvenile male desire for ridiculous amounts of eye candy can make excuses for. On the other hand, there's a certain honesty to this. Let's face it, this is precisely what Hollywood would love to do with every female action heroine. They just don't have the balls. Oh well...after watching this I'm thinking it's possible that may be a good thing.

Ditch this nonsense. Unless you have a thing for disjointed, annoying, and useless Japanese cinema (which is totally possible). Then by all means, watch away.

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (2009) (aka: Oneechanbara the Movie - Vortex)

It's simply a Japanese Zombie picture with a lot of family drama thrown in, but is based on an Xbox and Playstation game. It has okay dubbing for such a low budget horror flick. It's probably rated R for flashing a little breast and a lot of blood.

Aya Imichi (Eri Otoguro) is the sword wielding, cowboy hat and bikini wearing protagonist that is out to get her sister, Saki (Nao Takamori). Aya is traveling with her heavyset sidekick, Katsuji (Tomohiro Waki), who is sort of the comic relief and voice of reason in a crazy zombie environment. In their travels they meet Reiko (Manami Hashimoto), a leather-clad gun slinger, who never seems to need to reload.

Their destination is the mad scientist, Dr. Sugita's (Taro Suwa) lair where he has tried to regenerate life, but seems to always come up with creating zombies. Naturally, there's lots of fighting and sword action that you would expect.

Not liking part 1 it's strange that I liked part 2 referring to other reviewers. I must agree that there is again a lot of CGI, for example the use of CGI blood or even CGI zombies and that's the worst part of Oneechanbara part 2. It's funny to see the blood splatter on screen but after a while it's a bit annoying. The story follows the line of part 1 and is okay to follow even if you haven't seen part 1. Personally I didn't had any trouble with the acting, strangely non of the original actors are in this part. It's all a bit more sexier, and it starts even with nudity, there are more close-ups of the bikini's but that I don't mind. Also as in part 1 the fight scene at the end is a bit too long and naturally the fighting used in the game or as in so many Eastern flicks is watchable too. For me better than part 1 but almost no real red stuff in it or exaggerated gore used in HK3 flicks. Not for gorehounds only for people who likes fighting chicks with bikini's a size to small.