Zero Woman 2

What is the popularity with this film series? I really need it explained to me. Yes, there is a nice noir-ish bleakness to the film; yes, the leading lady is very attractive and is often nude, but that's it. No compelling story telling, limp action scenes and lapses in logic dominate most of the running time.

The story concerns some heist stuff being foiled by the "elite" (it's hard to say that with out laughing) Zero division, the field operative being the sultry Zero woman. Seedy criminal world types, sexual miscreants and good cop/bad cop characters show of from time to time, but you will have lost interest in the story long before in comes to a close.

The main draw card here is the hot and willing lead actress, who seems to have no qualms stripping down. Even when she is dressed she looks like she will come undone at any moment. Ergo, sex appeal is what the film makers are trying to hook you with. However, you can only see the same woman strip down so many times before it begins to lose it's luster.

The action scenes should balance this out, but they are so terribly unexciting. Fights are amateurish, shoot-outs are lamely filmed, and chase scenes...wait, what chase scenes? Let's also not forget that despite her super elite training she regularly gets beat down by damn near everyone and couldn't shoot her way out of a paper bag.

Male fantasy subject matter aside, this is a pretty forgettable effort.

4/10

This movie begins with 2 men and a woman forcibly taking a briefcase full of stock certificates from a courier inside an underground garage. As it so happens, a special agent for the Japanese government known as Zero Division, attempts to retake the briefcase but the thieves manage to get away. In the process the agent, "Rei" (Natsuki Ozawa) also has to kill the courier in self-defense. After informing a colleague of the incident the two of them set out to track down the thieves and recover the briefcase. The problem is that there are interpersonal relationships among both sides which complicate matters even further. Additionally, not all of the characters involved have the same agenda as everyone else. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be an interesting film which was essentially based on an earlier movie titled "Zero Woman-Red Handcuffs" produced 21 years earlier. So in that respect the movie is a sequel of sorts even though the main character is played by another actress. Be that as it may, this film has plenty of action which includes more than a few scenarios involving violence along with several scenes of a sexual nature. For that reason this movie is clearly not suitable for minors. In any case, while not necessarily a great movie, it was still somewhat entertaining and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Zero Woman 2 is one of the most thrilling pieces of erotic action cinema that I have ever seen. Though the production is extremely low budget, you must give director Daisuke Gotoh for pulling off an extraordinary film an an incredibly low budget. The film's plot concerns a young assassin named Rei(played by the gorgeous Natsuki Ozawa). Ozawa plays her part with an expert tough-girl image and a raw sexuality. Some of the highlights include a scene where our buxom heroine is drugged and taken advantage of by an evil butcher and an intense bullet removal scene that will have you biting your knuckles! If you're in the mood for a violent, sexy, dark action flick done Hong-Kong style, then Zero Woman 2 is the film you want.

I got to this movie because after watching Gunslinger Girls, I found a list of "girls-with-guns" movies. This was on that list.

Zero Woman 2 is about this cop called Rei, from the Zero Division from the Tokyo Police Dept. Why Zero? IDK. Is because it's an undercover division and officially doesn't exist? Or is named after the famous Japanese World War 2 era fighter planes? Perhaps.

The movie begins when the cop, Rei, tries to stop a Chinese trio of small time crooks from robbing a mob boss. She fails, and the crooks get away with 100 million yen in stocks. But they expected money, so they don't know what they have. The rest of the movie is about the hunt for the stolen goods.

Rei's boss forces her to work with a partner from the normal police, who seems to have ties with organized crime.

What's somewhat a nice surprise about this movie is that the direction, camera work, cinematography is quite good. You can see that they really put an effort into all that. The acting is not remarkable, but it's not bad either. It fits the movie. Natsuki Ozawa, who plays Rei, has a superior and excellent upper torso, it almost seems enhanced, which is apparently why she disrobes quite frequently. But this is only so in the first half hour. After that, she remains fully clothed, there's only a brief scene where Anne, a victim of the criminals, is exposed.

Where the movie fails is in some of the martial arts scenes, where the actors themselves are involved. Not all scenes are bad, but some are clearly amateurish. The movie has decent production values, despite what some here want you to believe. This is especially visible in the scene where Rei's cop partner removes a bullet from her thigh. It's so realistic looking, you almost wonder if it's not real. Perhaps not her leg, but someone elses?

And at times the story seems so jump around a bit too much from one character or storyline to another. And of course, it has the suspend your belief moments of all action movies: Letting someone poke around in your THIGH?? That's clearly crazy, if you knick the artery, you can bleed out in less than a minute. And all the guns vs swords scenes also beggar believe. Which make this movie similar to all the "Taken" and "Mission Impossible" movies where senior citizens over 60 do the most amazing action stuff....

All in all, this is well worth watching. What's remarkable about the lead is that she got her start as 15 year old in youth drama/comedy, then disappeared for 5 years, then did this, and from 1997-2004 made 8 or so porn movies, and then was gone again. She's 50 now, so I doubt we will see her again. What a waste.

6 oth 10. The Melancholic Alcoholic.

In all honesty, there's not much to dislike about this movie. The heroine is very beautiful and she takes every opportunity to remove her clothes (for the most part, they're so skimpy that it's a wonder they stay on at all). The John Woo-style action is clearly sabotaged by low production values, but for the most part is pretty good- the action scenes are slick, visually striking and well-paced. The only times the movie really falters is at the very end, when it suddenly becomes very, very bleak, and when the pacing bogs down in the middle section. As usual, the writers figured out how to come up with dynamite scenes at the beginning and at the climax, but the material they bookend is slow and clearly not given much thought. However, if you're a genre fan, the good stuff just might outweigh the not-so-good stuff. Make up your own mind.