Onna batoru koppu

LADY BATTLE COP (1991) is a Japanese sci-fi thriller that's essentially a rip-off of the 1987 Hollywood film ROBOCOP (which itself drew inspiration from live-action Japanese superhero TV shows). This one's much shorter, because it cuts out all the background detail, character touches and news media coverage that made ROBOCOP so much more interesting and resonant. The scenes here sort of recall scenes in ROBOCOP, but the action direction is so much more sluggish. Every bit of business takes much longer than it would have in ROBOCOP.

The actress who plays Kaoru Mikoshiba, the tennis champ-turned-Lady Battlecop is pretty in a bland way, but she can't act and has no real presence. Her character is humiliated a lot; even after she becomes Lady Battle Cop, she is frequently overpowered and victimized by Team Phantom, the 4-person team of killers employed by the powerful Karuta crime cartel. She rallies two or three times, but doesn't really do anything strategically different when she does. This whole concept was handled in a more satisfying way in later Japanese robot-suited hero TV shows (BLUE SWAT) and animated series (BUBBLEGUM CRISIS, among many others).

There are some good ideas and interesting powers and gadgets that could have been developed or used more, but they just sit there. There's a formidable wrestler-type villain named Amadeus, who has the power to disrupt Lady Battle Cop's systems and send her flying back and forth. These are the best action parts and have the most special effects (although we see the wires in the flying scenes!). But Amadeus' origins are only alluded to (he was built by NASA, but the Karuta cartel stole him) and his character and background are never explored. There is lots of action in the film, but it's never terribly exciting or imaginative; without character development, there's nothing underneath to get us emotionally involved.

Directed by Akihisa Okamoto and starring Azusa Nakamura, LADY BATTLE COP is 80 minutes long and is followed on its Japanese VHS edition by a 15-minute `Making of LADY BATTLE COP' short that includes some of the special FX shots, including a miniature set showing cars getting blown up to test the Neutron Magnum gun (an interesting weapon with good FX that should have been used more imaginatively). There are shots that we don't see in the movie itself, including a shot of Lady B glimpsed on a giant outdoor video screen in a shopping area. The film looks like it was shot in the Philippines; the locations look more tropical than Japan and the soldiers in the final battle scene look Filipino.

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

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?

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.