Shin Zero Ûman - 0-ka no onna: futatabi...

After a 5-year hiatus, the highly efficient secret agent Rei of the Zero Division is back! Played this time by Maiko Tohno, Rei is on the trail of a terrorist group that has abducted a famous scientist and is trying to perfect a lethal virus, threatening to release it in Tokyo's water supply. Rei's superior teams her up with Sara, a female expert in computers and bio-chemistry, and (of course) they don't get along very well at the start. Oh, and she is also trying to un-block her lost memories.

This is probably the best film in the series so far (only "Assassin Lovers" and "Zero Woman Returns" come close). Maiko Tohno is by far the most physical Rei of all, and unlike her predecessors she does not rely exclusively on her gun to get her job done - she uses kickboxing and other weapons as well (not to mention her Matrix-like anti-gravity jumps!). It's a shame that most of her action scenes are so poorly shot, but what we see is still enough to know that she has some talent, which combined with her looks makes her one of the very best Zero Women so far. The movie does have some pacing problems and logic flaws (when the hideout of the terrorists is discovered, why would they send only these 2 women to get them, with no backup, especially when one of them (Sara) is a computer girl with little if any field experience?), but compared to the dull inactivity of certain previous parts (especially "The Accused" and "Dangerous Game"), this newest version of Zero Woman could be considered action-packed! (online sources indicate than a new chapter, called Zero Woman R, is about to be released on DVD, but it is not listed on IMDb yet) (**1/2)

This movie begins with a young woman running in fear from a couple of sex traffickers. They easily catch her and lead her to a room which has another woman hanging in chains from the ceiling. That woman is "Rei" (Maiko Tono) who is an agent for a special law-enforcement agency called "Zero Section". At any rate, while in the process of being raped the other woman manages to once again break free and tries to escape again. This gives Rei the diversion she needs to free herself and, even though the other woman is killed, she manages to take out all of those present in the room. We are then informed that this was part of her plan all along. Yet even though she has still not caught or killed everybody involved in this pervasive sex-slave operation she is informed that another new case now has top priority. Specifically, a group of terrorists have obtained a deadly virus which they plan to use on Tokyo and with the help of a bio-chemist named "Sara" (Megumi Yamanaka) her new assignment is to apprehend or kill all of those involved before they have a chance to put their plan into motion. However, there is one small problem with Rei which concerns not only a loss of her memory but also a powerful weakness that overcomes her whenever a certain piece of music is played at a loud volume. She believes she knows who is responsible for this but she has some concerns about facing this person again. Likewise, she also has an important assignment that needs her full attention. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be a pretty good addition to the series with several sub-plots which worked quite well together. Admittedly, with two pretty actresses like the aforementioned Maiko Tono and Megumi Yamanaka, one would have thought there might have been a scene or two of an erotic nature thrown in but unlike most of the other films in this series it was omitted. I also didn't quite care for the ending but that's the way it goes I suppose. In any case, I thought this was a decent movie and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.