XX: Utsukushiki kemono

This is a great movie!!! It deals with a serial killer; The suspense is quite good and does not follow the Hollywood convention so you don't know what to expect. Plenty of graphic well done sex scenes. Beware that there is also a graphic rape scene. Still a 9 out of 10.

While it is marginally better than the other two entries in the "XX" series I watched recently ("Beautiful Prey" and "Beautiful Weapon"), "Beautiful Beast" is still barely worthy of a recommendation. The usual ingredients are here: lengthy sex scenes, kinkiness, torture (including some acupuncture!), a few gunshots, and of course a violent end for most of the characters involved. The action is limited, the pacing is patience-trying, and the ending is anti-climactic. Kaori Shimamura is beautiful indeed, but the most interesting character in the film is her newfound "boyfriend", who has to choose between his fascination with her and his loyalty to his former Yakuza associates. Girls-with-guns fans looking into the Japanese market will be better served by most "Zero Woman" films. (**)

This movie begins with a beautiful woman named "Ran" (Kaori Shimamura) stealthily wading ashore from a small boat onto the beach of Ishigaki Island which is a small island that is located near Taiwan but belongs to Japan. Not long afterward Ran enters a restaurant and shoots the leader of the Taiseikai faction of the Yakuza, along with a couple of his bodyguards, and then departs the establishment in great haste. Although only slightly wounded, in order to avoid being caught by members of the police or the Yakuza she takes shelter in a bar owned by a man named "Yoichi Fujinami" (Takeshi Yamato) who just happens to be closing for the night. He notices that Ran is injured and after treating her wounds allows her to stay for the night. It soon becomes known that Ran is an assassin from Hong Kong who is known as "the Black Orchid" and that she isn't quite finished with her mission. Yoichi, on the other hand, is a former member of the Yakuza who has broken off his relationship with them but still retains a close friendship with the man named "Yaguichi" (Takanori Kikuchi) who was the second-in-command of the Taiseikai group and needs to capture or kill Ran as a matter of principle. To further complicate matters, Ran's next assignment is to assassinate the leader of the island's Taiwan mafia who goes by the name of "Ho" (Hakuryu). But with the police, the Taiwan mafia and the Yakuza looking for her this won't be easy by any means. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be a pretty good movie in the "xx Beautiful series". One particular difference is that, although it has a couple of scenes of a sexual nature, the film itself isn't quite as brutal or graphic as some of the others and that actually works to its advantage. Likewise, having an attractive actress like Kaori Shimamura certainly didn't hurt either. In any case, I found the movie to be quite entertaining and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

The formula is simple: take a long-legged Japanese beauty like Kaori Shimamura, who looks really good with a gun in her hand, and can also display a magnificent body during the sex scenes, and put a shell of a story around it.

In this case, we have our girl trying to hit the head of the Yakuza for killing her sister.

There is lots of shooting (both bullets and sperm) and blood enough to appease the vampires in the audience. There is also some really strange action that will best be left for the viewer to discover.

One of the best I've seen.

A hit-woman goes after the Japanese mafia with a mad-on after her sister is killed. This is a merely ok foreign action flick. Has a few sleazy moments meant to shock. But it doesn't tread any new ground, which is fine as it has a style of to it.

My Grade:C-

DVD extras: Trailers for Terminatrix, Sumo Vixens, Weather Woman, Blowback: Love and death, Tokyo Mafia: Yakuza Wars; a (not very good) trivia game; & cast bios

Eye Candy: Kaori Shimamura as Ran (the Black Orchid), has a lengthy nude love scene early on. She's topless later on but in a far less erotic way.