Sasori

Sort of a silly soap. A combo of Ricky O, the Story of Ricky, and Cambodian romance. Some realistic action with beautiful fighting women. Some flying Fu, and maudlin romantics. Gets five stars.

Not being familiar with the original Sasori character, I sat down to watch this 2008 movie with a clean slate. No prior impressions, no expectations.

The movie turned out to be rather okay. Sort of an odd mix of exploitation, girl-on-girl violence and action movie. But it all worked out well enough.

The story in "Sasori" is fairly simple, Nami is forced to kill someone in front of the one she loves and goes to prison. In prison, it is fight-to-survive, and Nami have to toughen up to survive the ordeal. She plans revenge on those who wronged her, and the hunt is on. The story is fairly a no-brainer, as it is just straight out the violence road from the beginning to the very end, which makes this a very easy movie to watch.

Personally, I found it odd that in a Hong Kong produced movie where they speak Cantonese they had some Japanese people on the cast list. Well, that is not what puzzled me, but the fact that even the Japanese actors/actresses were speaking Cantonese (dubbed or not).

The fight scenes in "Sasori" were actually quite good, though at times they were a bit over-the-top, but that is to be expected from Asian action movies.

I haven't seen a lot of movie in this genre, but I found "Sasori" to be rather entertaining. Simple story that allowed you to disconnect your brain and just go along on the mayhem-ride. Fairly average acting, even though there were some fairly good names on the list, such as Ryo Ishibashi, Miki Mizuno and Sam Lee.

Based on a comic by Tooru Shinohara, this movie I believe is the eighth time this movie has been remade. The more classic Josyu Sasori made by Toei corporation starred Meiko Kaji. This one starrs Miki Mizuno, and is a collaboration between Japnese actors, and Hong Kong production.

The story does not follow closely the original Sasori character. It's more of an original creation borrowing the title and the concept from the former movies.Not only does it not follow the original story, this movie is difficult to follow its own story. There are many enemies of Nami Matsushima (Miki Mizuno) that tries to kill her, but story is very fragmented, and difficult to follow. But I was impressed at Mizuno's ability to handle a gritty action. The action sometimes borders on ridiculous. Cinematography, and special effects makes this movie look like science fiction at times. This takes the focus away from the real character of Sasori which originally was about a female convict trying to survive.

So this is not an authentic portrayal of original character of Nami, but an unique creation just for this movie. The HK producers didn't understand the original concept and the movie has turned into more of a HK movie. Many good looking women performs their action, and that's the attraction of this movie. If you are looking for the original Sasori character, this movie will not give, so see it as another HK action movie.