Assault Girls

The story tells the tale of four mercenaries, killing monsters in a virtual realm called Avalon. It is set to the backdrop of a dystopian future where communist ideas have crumpled creativity to a halt, and where people spend their time on video games instead. There is very little dialogue, and most of it is in very poor engrish. (Although there is a handful of Japanese lines at the end.) Let's get one thing straight - visually, this movie is amongst the most beautiful that I have ever rested my eyes upon - not only is the 3D/effects well above average, but the clothes and gun models are stunning. If SyFy produced effects of this caliber in their movies, I'm sure their subscriber base would increase tenfold.

The soundtrack is also stunning with great soundscapes and production value, lots of epic tracks and "trailer music" to be found here.

All and all, a cool way to spend 70 minutes, but don't expect anything other than light entertainment and a beautiful scenery.

I study long form film to see how it works.

Some times what I end up seeing doesn't work. That is the case here; only the costumes matter, and one episode has resonance. Does that one episode qualify this as long form?

Maybe. Long form has less to do with length than whether things evolve and the film has some chance of helping the viewer evolve.

The outer wrapper of this is a dreary ten minute initial narration that gives us completely irrelevant history. An inner wrapper that constitutes most of the hour has three young women (hardly girls) and a scruffy guy "playing" a virtual reality game. This is as much a waste. We never exit the game but we sometimes 'pause play.'

But smack in the middle is an odd sequence. Twice earlier we have a well photographed closeup of a snail. One of our 'girls' puts it on the head of a small weathered statue of a wizened it young traveler.

It is a very Katachi action. She and us study, admire and move on. In turn, each of the other three encounter it and we are supposed to get key aspects of their person from this. We don't, so that is a waste too. But that initial encounter evokes a deep inner narrative I have about some facet of Japanese spirituality and form, sex and striving in general and within my private shell what urgent peace is all about.

All the hard work was done by me, based on what boils down to one moving image. Would I call this long form? It had the effect of long form, but there was essentially no dialog between me and the artists.

In the midst of all the provocative narratives I had spinning within me (whether to fight, whether to seek grace), was one about other filmmakers and who I wish was my companion here.

Fruit Chan. His Public Toilet goes on and on, using lives I could not care about, folded casually. But at the end, oh what resurrection of everything that went before. That one scene connected with all else, in the film and without. Mastery. Now that's long form.

For those who enjoy the work of Mamoru Oshii, you needn't read this review, for much like his previous ventures, including Ghost in the Shell, its sequel Innocence, and the Sky Crawlers, this particular feature is one that is sure to captivate and enthuse.

Separated into chapters, Assault Girls takes place in Avalon (F), a virtual gaming world where the avatars of real people must do battle with massive carnivorous monsters in order to score points. Those familiar with Role Playing Games will especially understand the importance of scoring points in order to successfully level up to gain better defensive and offensive capabilities.

Assault Girls focuses on three competitive women, vying for ascendancy in the virtual arena. Meissa Kuroki steals the show as the skilled tactician Gray, not least of all because she's more gorgeous than Aphrodite. Colonel, portrayed by Hinako Saeki, who viciously attacks with proficiency, is far nicer than her title might suggest, while Rinko Kikuchi as the skilled magician Lucifer, is easily the cutest character of all. Deserving a larger role, she dances across the battlefield, having, what could be assumed, the time of her life.

Despite the film's title suggesting the cast is comprised of women, joining the ladies in this adventure is Yoshikazu Fujiki as Jager, a glorified nomad with a violent temperament.

Although the visuals are not Hollywood standard, they are certainly engaging, while the additional sound, and Kenji Kawai's score (not to mention the Kotoko single Screw) project the viewer into an environment, that although desolate, is as engrossing as it is alive.

Despite each character's ability to use the English vernacular is well achieved, and listening to them occasionally poke fun at each other is enjoyable, it is plainly obvious that none of them are natural speakers. On the occasions when characters speak with masks covering their faces, the dialogue becomes less audible, and thus, subtitles are perhaps a good investment throughout the entirety of the film.

With the exception of the narrator, dialogue is seldom used in many instances. This aside, the director and actors alike are able to efficaciously express the character's motives and desires through their actions. Despite the ideas transcribed upon the screen at the start of each chapter being as thought provoking as they are entertaining, the way the character's use the game's environment is one of the most uniquely satisfying focuses of the picture. Where some characters respond to the environment by beneficially assisting it, others play with it, while others see it as a source of food, or destroy it completely.

Relying on neither intense violence or coarse language to tell its story, this entertaining, gripping, and occasionally laugh out loud funny feature proves that Mr. Oshii is a director whose work is as satisfying, as it is worthy of watching. With unfathomably beautiful women, captivating action scenarios, and intellectually stimulating ideas, Assault Girls may not appease everyone, but for fans of the director's previous work, this is certainly not to be missed.

The only reason to watch this film is because it has three hot Japanese babe in it.

Sadly, they are given very little to do. The plot is I guess is that for some reason, three babes are in this Virtual reality game because the world outside has been largely wiped out, but apparently, the game merely consists of hunting CGI sand-serpents with elaborate weapons. Or something. Let me know if you figure it out...

The special effects aren't bad, but the characters are so dull, and there are such long gaps in action, such as long shots of a huge snail before the male lead eats it....

Maybe this is a treatment for insomnia in Japan.

If you really want to watch this movie after reading all the reviews, I recommend renting rather than buying because I doubt that you would want to watch this movie twice. The CGI special effects were almost video game quality and minimal. Most of the time the characters are wandering around volcanic soil with no other discernible landmarks other than a small mountain in the background. There are too many slow moments when the camera would focus a close up on a snail, voice overs that sounded totally gibberish, and confusing plot lines. The characters were wooden with no developments and added little to the plot line. Worse, when the characters spoke, they often spoke broken English with bad accents under muzzle type face masks that made it very unintelligible (even to me, an Asian, that is used to bad English). I guess to some (0.01%) of the population they would say that this movie is arty or avante garde. But if you are looking for a fun movie full of hot girls with guns (as I expect you would by the title "Assault Girls") this ain't it.