XX: Utsukushiki kinô

Model Rei Natsume plays Cheryl, a kick ass bodyguard who takes on the most dangerous assignments between bouts of brooding on her shadowy past. The role mostly requires her to take a lot of long strides in short skirts, while looking pensive or world-weary or possibly constipated. It's hard to tell. Rei isn't much of an actress, but she is a knockout, and that pretty much sums up the movie: on a dramatic level it's just not very refined, but taken as the sum of its exploitative elements, it delivers the goods. There is more nudity than the Playboy Channel and more fights than UFC marathon night on Spike.

The plot isn't much: Cheryl's latest client falls into the scope rifle sights of notorious assassin The Owl, and Cheryl protects him even though he's a jerk because she's a professional. After expending more shell casings than the Battle of the Bulge, Cheryl and Owl face off for the inevitable throw-down. No prize for guessing who wins. But despite being rather pedestrian on a conceptual as well as dramatic level, the movie moves forward smoothly and has a slick glossy look (for a feature shot on high-resolution video, as so many Japanese action movies have been). As such, it is one of the better examples of the girls-with-guns genre which was so popular during the 90s but which has pretty much died out. Someone looking for exploitation flick kicks could do a lot worse.