Hâdo ribenji, Mirî

HARD REVENGE MILLY is a cheap and cheerful Japanese sci-fi/gore effort, shot on digital video and clocking in at just 45 minutes. Most of the film was shot in some abandoned warehouse somewhere and the film generally has an amateurish feel to it. However, it's a million light years ahead of the Korean TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE, which is one of the earliest of these 'Asian machine part girl' gore flicks.

The storyline is a simple story of revenge with a small cast and little acting ability to distract from the violence. A girl is attacked, mutilated and left for dead by a gang of thugs, her family slaughtered. Somehow she comes back to life, animated by machine, and goes to wreak vengeance on those responsible. The narrative is limited and there are a lot of holes, but this isn't about the story.

Instead, it's a film that seeks to serve up as many gory deaths as is possible within the slim running time. Bodies are hacked up, heads are severed, and there's an extended martial arts battle to end all battles. Japanese blood sprays abound, and it all looks very fake and unbelievable, but it's kind of fun nonetheless. A feature-length sequel, HARD REVENGE MILLY: BLOODY BATTLE, would follow.

It's always hard to class a film that stands at 45 minutes as a "Short" I always consider shorts to be no more than half of that! Regardless here we are a Japanese revenge short which actually isn't half bad.

Instead of going down the traditional weird Asian route they go down the gory one in a similar vein to Tokyo Gore Police (2008) just somewhat tamer.

Telling the story of Milly, a woman butchered by a gang as she watched her husband and baby murdered who with some "Modifications" goes after those responsible.

Hard Revenge Milly doesn't bring anything new to the table but what it does bring it does really quite well.

This short was followed up the next year by a full length sequel and I'm looking forward to see what they did with it.

The Good:

Cast/characters are solid

Action scenes are well done

The Bad:

Because of it's limited time it doesn't feel as fleshed out as perhaps it should

I had watched this movie at a friends house but after viewing it i had to go and order it online. i think this movie is truly phenomenal. it's definitely apart of the over the top blood/gore fest that has been popular in japan as of late. However unlike the others like tokyo gore police or machine girl. the lead character has a much stronger personality as well as motivation for her actions. also, the fight scenes done by the female heroine are top notch and do not scream fake like the other films I've mentioned. the movie is basically about a young woman who was horrible wronged by a gang of hoodlums who ravaged her body and killed her family. she goes on a quest for revenge that is a action fan like myselfs ultimate dream. full of blood & amazing choreography.so if you liked machine girl or tokyo gore police i definitely recommend this film.

So now and then an Japanese gory flick comes overseas to enjoy us. But it's all a bit of the same. You can easily qualify it between Tokyo Gore Police and those kind of gorefests. Was it bad, not at all but again, you must stand the typical over the top Japanese style to enjoy it, for example, a decapitated body still keeps firing with a gun. The gore is intact but is also over the top. The red stuff sputters in a eastern style. The story itself wasn't that bad but it's a short movie, clocking in at 45 minutes I would say if you never have seen a Japanese gorefest than start with this one, if you can take it than you can make a move to full features. It's also easy to see that it was low budget, the camera's used weren't of good quality, just look what a mistake the lenses made by shooting in open air. Nevertheless, one to see but sadly it disappears in the wholesome bunch of Japanese gore coming over these days

I bought the "Hard Revenge, Milly" double feature (also including "Hard Revenge, Milly: Bloody Battle" DVD from Amazon simply because it was a Japanese action movie with an appealing (and bloody) DVD cover. And it turned out to be one of the better purchases I had done in a while. Not only did it contain two Japanese movies, but it was some of the nicer movies of this particular bloody genre that I had seen in some time.

The story in "Hard Revenge, Milly" was straight to the point, dropping you in on the action and giving you a good, solid background story for the main character, Milly. Her family was brutally tortured and murdered by a group of psychopaths and Milly was stabbed, mutilated and left for dead. But miraculously she survived and is bent on revenge. Fairly easy storyline, but it was actually surprisingly nice.

What made the movie even more enjoyable than a good story was the well-choreographed action sequences and the great effects. That really surprised me, especially from a gore movie of this Japanese gore genre. Sure there is the traditional over-the-top blood fountain spraying (as in all the other movies of this genre).

But even more so, "Hard Revenge, Milly" had some really nice and professional acting, compared to others of the same genre, it was just that one notch above what is usually seen in the genre. And especially Miki Mizuno (who plays Milly) really pulled off the movie nicely with her performance; her acting was great and she knows how to fight. So it was a real treat to sit through the movie, even though it was only about 45 minutes or so.

"Hard Revenge, Milly" was beautifully shot and a real visual treat to behold. Even though being a Japanese bloodfest/gore movie, the movie had a big-time Hollywood production feel to it. It was really nice to see this kind of production value in this genre of movies.

If you like action movies with lots of adrenaline, martial arts and gunfights, and if you like Asian cinema, then you cannot, and I emphasize on cannot, cheat yourself from watching "Hard Revenge, Milly", because the movie is amazing.

Great action, lots of fighting and violence, enough gore to keep most gorehounds satisfied, good storyline and genuine entertainment. "Hard Revenge, Milly" was really a hidden gem that I had no clue about before stumbling upon it by sheer luck. The only downside to "Hard Revenge, Milly" was the length of the movie, it was just too short.