The Violence Action (2022) BQ freely admits this .......when all these bonkers Japan-a-Madness action movies began to hit U.S. shores, we couldn't get enough of 'em.....
The propulsive, non-stop carnage in these films reached the kind of delirious heights American filmmakers could only dream of.....but not that they didn't make their best bloody efforts to emulate.
It reminded us of when "5 Fingers Of Death" arrived as the first riotous Chinese kung fu movie to land in American theaters.....and action movies were never the same after that......
Maybe due to the passage of time and sheer glut of Asian pulp bloodbaths accounted for us sitting through "The Violence Action' slightly bored and more than a bit annoyed at the deliberately nutso slaughters.
Yep, we'd seen it all before and to be blunt, a lot better edited and staged than this film.
Based on a popular Manga, it centers around too-cute-for-words college student Kai Kikuno (Kanna Hashimoto). Our criminally adorable pink-bewigged pixie moonlights as a hit-girl, wiping out mass quantities of Yakuza thugs, She shoots kicks, punches and stabs them in a flurry of gymnastic acrobatics and at a speed that exceeds D.C.'s own 'The Flash'......
And did we mention she dodges bullets too?
Kei fronts a small independent Scooby-Doo gang who sub-contract paid massacres ordered up by two rival Yakuza gangs. This group includes a comedy relief guy who sports a giant cartoonish Fat Elivs wig that's actually a bulletproof helmet and another cutie who make them the most foul tasting ramen in Japan. .
Pixie Hit-Girl and the gang catch a whole lot of trouble when one of the Yakuza accountants swipes a ton 'o money, for himself. With Kei and company tasked with retrieving the money, the gangsters go about their own vengeance fueled business of slaughtering each other til there's no one left........
And there's your movie.....watching Kei in action, we couldn't determine if she's supposed to have comic book superpowers or all the speeded up frenzy comes from an editor who was mainlining way too much caffeine.
At one point it looks like the Pixie Posse meets their match in a towering Terminator-type guy (also wearing a Halloween shop wig) who proceeds to beat the crap out of everybody involved. This guy's so tough, he slurps up the gang's rotten Ramen as if it's the best meal he ever tasted. Yikes.
We'd love to report how much guilty pleasure fun we had with this movie, but.....nah. The action is sliced to incomprehensible ribbons by the ruinous editing, the Yakuza intrigues and rivalries are incoherent and boring and Kei's sooper-dooper skills look anime-silly.
Sorry.....but the whole shmeer ends up as simply tiresome. But for Kanna Hashimoto's undeniable cuteness, we'll concede at least 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2)
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