Iron Girl: Final Wars

Sure, I wasn't really harboring much of any grand expectations to the 2019 Japanese action sci-fi "Aian Gâru Final Wars" (aka "Iron Girl: Final Wars"), given the movie's cover and synopsis. But hey, it being a Japanese movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

I recall having seen the 2012 predecessor "Aian Gâru" before, but can't remember anything from it aside from the title and the cover.

Writer Yasutoshi Murakawa didn't really deliver a gem in Japanese cinema here with the script for "Aian Gâru Final Wars". Sure, the movie was watchable, but you're not in for a grand evening of Shakespearian cinema here. Actually, the storyline was rather simplistic and just felt sort of shallow and not really given much consideration.

The acting in "Aian Gâru Final Wars" was fair enough, I mean with taking into consideration the type of movie that this was. I just don't understand why they hired the actress for the leading role, because her puffy duck-like botox upper lip was just an eyesore and drew attention to it and stealing away attention from the rest of the screen.

The special effects in "Aian Gâru Final Wars" were adequate enough. However, I was laughing hard every time they had a blood effect. I just love the way that blood instantly vaporizes in movies such as this.

I suppose that there is an audience out there for movies such as director Ken'ichi Fujiwara's 2019 movie "Aian Gâru Final Wars", especially if you're a Japanese adolescent movie viewer. I have to admit that I felt that the movie wasn't really in my particular category of preferred movies.

Yeah, I made it through "Aian Gâru Final Wars", but I have no plans of ever returning here. Nor is it a movie that I will openly recommend for fans of the Japanese cinema.

My rating of "Aian Gâru Final Wars" lands on a four out of ten stars.

I came across this on Amazon Prime Japan and became curious since I was aware of Asuka Kirara and the single she put out in promotion for this film.

I'm not at all familiar enough with Japanese tokusatsu film or television to give an adequate comparison or barometer of what one might come to expect from a film like this but if I could attempt a brief description: it's a 90 minute action drama starring a very attractive girl fighting goons and other very attractive girls in a style indicative of tokusatsu.

The quality of the acting is all over the place. The biggest issue I have with the acting is that, being so inconsistent, the acting had me wondering if this was an action film or some kind of comedy. Tonally, because of the mixed performances it's a bit scatterbrained for the first few minutes.

The storyline, I would suspect, is one that would probably be considered average or below-average for a tokusatsu action film but, as far as stories go in general it's kind of a means to an end. The story exists to motivate the characters into the next action sequence.

The reason to watch this film isn't for the story, or the performances, or the cheesy special effects, and not even for the couple shots of the two lead female actresses topless, but it's for the action scenes. The sword fights are really well choreographed and the slow-motion wirework stunts are awesome. It's the kind of action that just straddles the line of schlock but stays within the range of acceptability that makes them really cool. The only complaint I have about the fight scenes is that they could be longer but I think that's more of a compliment to the quality of the action sequences and the stunt work.

Overall, it's not bad and I'd watch it again. There are worse ways to spend 90 minutes.