Dokuritsu shôjo gurentai

I would like to be able to write than if you like the title - "Samurai Chicks" - you'll probably like the movie, but it's not that simple. It begins as a Japanese teenage version of the Hong Kong hit "Naked Weapon", with four girls with outstanding dancing talent selected to be trained in the arts of espionage and killing. The girls must have had some real-life dancing experience, because they're pretty flexible, and the one who plays Yuki in particular (Megumi Shôji) is just incredibly beautiful. I mean it, she is BEAUTIFUL. There are also some clever ideas, like the way the girls communicate with their supervisors. Unfortunately, the film gets too bizarre and ambitious (not to mention depressing) in its second half, bringing supernatural elements, black comedy, and even attempts at political allegory into the mix, the action gets sparse, and the plotting gets weak (how do their enemies always find them so easily?). Not to give too much away, but I expected a lot more "team action" from this movie. (**)

Four talented female dancers, Aki (Ayano Tachibana), Saki (Tomomi Miyashita), Yuki (Megumi Shôji) and Mickey (the very yummy Chiaki Ôta), are recruited and trained as spies by revolutionaries determined to gain independence for their island (which is referred to here as The Kingdom, but is clearly intended to represent Okinawa, whose Ryūkyū independence movement has fought for decades for a fully independent Ryūkyūan state).

After passing their training in record time, the girls are sent on assignment to Tokyo, where they receive messages via coded dance steps in the music videos of pop sensation Cocoe; but with Japanese government agents hot on their tail, will they be able to complete their mission before being apprehended?

It's a sad day when a Japanese film bearing such a promising monicker as Samurai Chicks fails to be an entertaining watch? The formula is simple enough—get some good looking young women, stick them in sexy outfits, and have them kick butt, whilst throwing in the occasional spot of random bizarreness along the way—but although the ingredients are all present and correct, director Mari Asato seems more focused on her political agenda, and neglects to load the film with outrageous action and gratuitous titillation—which I imagine is what most viewers will really be looking for.

3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for the inclusion of a boob-shaped gas grenade.

Like I put down in the title field, Samurai Chicks is "...a fine low-budget indie import for those whose tastes lie outside of the American mainstream." Like other Japanese, Korean, and Thai films, especially with titles such as Oldboy, Battle Royale, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Nieghbor No. 13, Ichi the Killer, Machine Girl, Toyoko Gore Police, 13: Game of Death, and so on. If you dig such films, this one will be right up your alley, as they say. It is definitely a low-budget indie foreign film, but it is also an amusing, interesting, exciting, strange, and cool piece of film. Four girls at a Dance School are chosen to advance to the next phase, which consists of them becoming teenage assassins of the rebellion, fighting the establishment to gain independence for their little group of insurgents (The Kingdom), using a peculiar kung fu based on dance moves, throwing stars and knives, sword play, and doing what they were trained to do. Overall, it's a great move. And I hope to find many more like it.

Very low-budget film from Japanese indie director Mari Asato, shot on digital video (DV), it has the crisp, unappealing look of video tape (in contract, SALVAGE was also shot on DV but with diffused filters, giving it a more filmic appearance). Never actually identified as Okinawa, the film occurs on Japan's southernmost island as especially talented dancers in a dancing school are recruited as warriors, to keep "The Kingdom" from being absorbed by Japan. The dancers have a special dance-step code that they use to communicate and, when they complete training and are deployed to Tokyo as assassins, to receive orders via a top music video diva. The film is a cute action film, competently directed if not fully professional in tonality and style. The actors who play the Samurai Chicks (which aren't samurai at all, but martial artist dancers) are all very good and appropriately cute. The fight scenes betray the actors' lack of true martial art skills, but Asato directs with gusto, and the film succeeds as an effective entertainment despite its obvious low budget.

This had the feel of a middle school drama project about over the course of a weekend. The plot is microscopically thin, the effects would have been outdated 20 years prior, and the acting is sub-Shatner.