Director: Youhei Fukuda
Year: 2008
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Onechanbara - Zombie Bikini Squad; Chanbara Beauty; Zombie Killer - Sexy as Hell
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
Living in an overrun wasteland, a warrior and her friend find that a fellow woman is looking for the same person she is and set out to find her amongst the horde of zombies created by a mad doctor through a series of regeneration experiments and soon discover something far more sinister at hand.
Review:
There was quite a lot to like overall here. One of the strongest aspects of the film is the impressive amount of action featured throughout here. Managing to bring martial arts skills into a zombie film, the hand-to-hand fighting that's brought into the film such as the opening battle in the pub where the dexterity displayed is quite fun or the battle with the zombies at the abandoned ruins where they encounter the lone survivors still in the area. As the swordplay use borders on the mythical, the inclusion of the weapon not only in the martial arts battles but also the series of training montages of straightforward swordfighting including some skilled performers offers some nice action.
That also leads into another strong factor in the emotional resonance some of the action scenes feature. Since both girls are given incredibly sympathetic backstories involving younger siblings, there are scenes for each one here that plays this up very nicely. As the connection between the young girl in the factory to her own daughter is made clear, the eventual payoff in the hospital, as a result, becomes heart-wrenching due to realizing the inevitable outcome. With the finale featuring the swordfighting encounter between the sisters that plays off their relationship interspersed with the flashbacks to their early training, there's a touching resonance here leading to an emotional resolution. Alongside the great action elsewhere as they combat the zombies, this has plenty of solid and enjoyable elements.
The cast here really doesn't hurt this much either. Eri Otogura as Aya is a straightforward, no-nonsense type that never smiles, shows no emotion at all and just seems sour all the time even though she does handle her swordplay scenes nicely. Manami Hashimoto as Reiko is much more engaging as her maternal instincts are brought out much more and we get on her side a lot easier, and it helps that she's quite handy with weapons as well. Tomohiro Waki as Katsuji becomes another sympathetic figure with his clumsiness yet overriding desire to do the right thing meaning that he tries to fight them off yet still need s help to get out of the situation. They forge quite an enjoyable unit as they come together to stop the creatures with the information we learn about them which helps greatly with the emotional aspects.
There are some flaws that hold it back. The major issue is the complete lack of coherence regarding what's going on as so little is explained about this one. There's little here as for why her sister feels the need to stay with the doctor once he started making zombies, or even what makes him want to make zombies to begin with. He has several scenes detailing his madness and quest for power but that doesn't account for what his purpose is creating the creatures. The other flaw here is the low-budget quality CGI, swarmed over the film in way too many areas the causes the film to look incredibly cheap. From the enhanced swordplay powers that add a supernatural gloss over the swordfights or the enhanced CGI gore, this one looks cheap and rather low-budget. Otherwise, there isn't much else to this one.
Overview: ***/5
Despite a few minor issues to be had with this one, this one gets a lot of surprisingly enjoyable elements alongside far more heart than expected which makes for a watchable effort. Give this a look if you're appreciative of low-budget zombie efforts or intrigued based on the video game series while those not won over by its flaws should heed caution.
This review was originally posted on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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