1The resilience of college students knows no boundaries.
This is how action comedies should be - simple and borderline silly plot, well choreographed exciting fighting scenes, fun comedy and likeable characters despite their questionable circumstance with a tiny bit of positive message hidden deep behind the badass punches. You truly do not need more and you should not add more.If you read the synopsis you know exactly what you are getting yourself into. Tone wise it’s for sure leaning more towards dark comedy than grim serious revenge, but that’ s exactly why I enjoyed it. Making it serious when you have a college student being possessed by a hitman would be a circus not many people would enjoy.
What I enjoyed is the fact Matsuoka Fumika was not this defenceless baby who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time - she had agency in what was happening, she made her own choices. That said, she also was freaking out about things that were happening, not being able to fully grasp her situation and potential consequences of her actions.
Initially I was not sure Kudo Hideo as a character makes much sense. He is a hitman, murderer. Why is he so… polite? Nice? Would death truly change who he is at the core? But as the movie ended, it actually made perfect sense - be it flashbacks or current dialogues, they explain his reasoning quite well.
Then we have baby boy Kagehara Riku - the least fleshed out of the main trio, but also the one of the best chemistry with both leads. Not gonna lie, I’d love another project with Kuroba Mario and Takaishi Akari - I don’t care about the genre nor the plot, just put these two together on screen again.
What’s more to appreciate? The fighting scenes. First of all I want to give props to Takaishi Akari for actually doing some of them. With this set up they could have easily made her take a seatback and let Mimoto Masanori do all the hard work as Kudo Hideo possesses Matsuoka Fumika. We had a solid number of fast paced, well choreographed and amazingly executed fight scenes done by all 3 leads. I also really liked the transitions between showing Matsuoka and Kudo fighting moments - the flow was just right and the cuts never felt jarring.
I personally loved the aesthetics of the movie too. Contrast turned up a bit more than usually, colors darker, but popping anyway. While a lot of fighting scenes were filmed in “darker” locations, they were never so dark you could not see anything.
Overall, I had so much fun. Was grinning throughout all the fighting scenes. It had a solid conclusion, though I wished for a different, but for sure less realistic one.
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Baby Assassin Goes Supernatural
A no frills movie with one of the actors from the Baby Assassins series of movies and TV shows playing a college student who stumbles into being possessed by the ghost of an older hitman betrayed by his new boss.The only way to get unpossessed is to resolve the hitman ghost's grudge. When the ghost actively possesses her she has his super skill level at fighting, shooting etc.
The action and comedy scenes make up for the usual over emphasis of Japanese productions on melodramatic exaggerated acting styles.
The production would have been improved if the comedic side of the college girl being possessed and suddenly becoming an ultimate fighter would have been given more screen time and some of the very long intricately choreographed fight scenes would have been downplayed.
However, despite a few choices I didn't appreciate the overall end result is very entertaining.
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Probably better as a movie to put on when your bored
First off the general atmosphere of this movie is good. It's moody and dark without being angsty. It has a color palette that is very dark and mute but it works well for the atmosphere for the film. It's surprisingly low key in terms of locations. I thought we'd see more places but it's extremely narrow in locations.I wonder if that had to do with budgetary or filming restrictions.I loved the acting by Fumika. She was doing so well with the personality switches while doing body movements still in character of Kudo. It's probably one of the best parts of the film.I kinda wish they kidnapped Maho or something to bring her into the film more. Otherwise her character was sorta wasted. Kudo was really just alright for what we saw of him. I didn't really feel attached or remorseful for his character. Kagehara was a likeable character I thought. He had a really quick character arc though.
The plot is really thin. Like it doesn't really tell you much about anyone. I think if this movie had that extra 15 mins to explain their motivations it would of been a much better movie. It's really more of a premise and we just want to shoot cool fight scenes.
Now what we really want to hear about is the fighting right? Well the fight scenes are pretty cool. Nothing mind blowing but perfectly ok with how they were choreographed. The action shots were well focused and not some blurry mess.The strikes are fierce and precise. The particular fight scene with the expert hitman was pretty slick. It reminded me of fights in some Donnie Yen movies.
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