Onechanbara: The Movie

The lovely Eri Otoguro stars as Aya, a sword swinging babe who frequently discards her poncho to do battle in just her bikini; fighting at her side are her overweight male friend (Katsuji Tomohiro Waki) and buxom, leather-clad, shotgun-toting beauty Reiko (Manami Hashimoto). Between them, this trio of fearless zombie killers hack, slash and shoot a swathe through the undead in an attempt to find Aya's sexy little sister Saki (Chise Nakamura) and battle evil scientist Dr. Sugita (Tarô Suwa), the man who has been reanimating the dead.

It's amazing just how forgiving I can be when a film features several hot Japanese women in revealing attire kicking ass, as is the case with live-action manga Chanbara Beauty. The fact that the film suffers from a weak, muddled plot and unconvincing special effects certainly didn't stop me from having a pretty good time with this very silly zombie flick in which the women are as deadly as they are tasty. Otoguru looks absolutely amazing in her teeny bikini, Hashimoto's leather get-up shows off her great figure and cleavage, and Nakamura is hot in her schoolgirl outfit; none of their fighting looks all that convincing, but it doesn't really matter when there is so much eye-candy to enjoy.

"So, feel like killing some zombies?"

Zombies doing karate. Hot girls in bikinis (and cowboy hats) fighting school girls with samurai swords. Copious amounts of blood and gore. Yep, this must be Japanese.

Onechanbara is another entry into the quite popular ultra-gory, shock-action genre of Japanese movies. It's over-the-top in a thousand different ways, and more akin to a video game (which it's based on) than most movies. All the violence is stylized and not the least bit realistic, which fits the tone of the movie perfectly. There's lots of random slow-mo and guns that never need to be reloaded, and even the emotional moments and special effects are handled in a thoroughly cheesy way. There's lots of fighting and enough of a plot to string it all together. What more do you need?   

As for the story, there's an evil scientist with a weird eye, something about a search for a couple of sisters, and (more importantly) loads o' zombies. I have no idea how closely the plot adheres to that of the games, and I'm pretty sure that the people who made the movie probably don't, either. If you're curious about why Aya wears a bikini and has a sword that appears to be magic, or why Reiko's shotgun never runs out of ammo...well, you're watching the wrong movie. This nothing more than absurd action entertainment, and it ended up being better than I thought it would be.  If you're a fan of movies like Machine Girl, you'll be right at home, here.

Pacing, is the answer. This movie is terribly paced.

This movie is essentially two movies in one. Zombie flick and family drama. It could probably work, but in this movie it doesn't. The setup is terribly corny and if it strikes you as odd, and strangely familiar, that a little group of people can take down a guy that supposedly has filled the world with zombies, you're not alone.

That's not really giving away too much. There are a few predictable twists and turns you can see for yourself, but here's my list of what would have made this movie a little better:

1. Focus on either the family drama OR the zombie killing. Director/writer too inexperienced to handle both properly and the result is a messy concoction.

2. The main character wears a skimpy outfit. And to be fair, it's the main attraction of the movie. So, why isn't she showing it off more? I remarked to my friend that the movie would have been lots better if it was just her doing pole dancing for 30 minutes. Maybe with zombies :)

3. The final showdowns are too long and simply too boring. LOTS of action, to be sure, but you're bored watching them. Tighter editing and pacing would have helped some, but you really don't care about any of the characters due to poor development and pacing throughout the movie.

4. The characters in the movie are two dimensional, extremely so. Precious film time is wasted on many occasions and unfortunately that leaves less time to flesh out the leads. That includes the long winded flashback sequence that runs throughout the movie at intervals.

There's more, but you'll see all that for yourself if you watch it.

It's shot on video. While that in itself is not a problem, when everything else is amateurish, it makes you feel like you're watching something hacked together in a high school film lab. There's a lack of contrast throughout the movie that makes it drab and bland to look at.

There are two high points of the movie. The first is the fight scenes. When they're good, they resemble something out of a violent video game. The fast action actually makes the rest of the movie pale in comparison. If only the whole movie could keep that high speed and action. The second high point is, again, her skimpy outfit. It fits a crazy universe, but it also underlines that the rest of the movie is underdeveloped.

The movie deserves a 4 for being mildly entertaining, but add an extra star for the two high points.

First of all, I don't know the game it is based on but just like Final Fantasy The Movie this is really a weird film. Weird isn't maybe the correct word. It contains to many effects like in games, she moves ultra fast and her sword gives her some kind of strong ability. That she moves in the air and so I don't mind that's typical Eastern. But it just didn't work out for me. Just have a look at her arm, she has a rose tattoo but you can easily see that it was that kind of tattoo that's being given in a surprise egg and you have to add with water. But not only that, some zombies look ridiculous, you just see that they have put black make-up around there eyes. Some zombies do look fine and are doing gory stuff (the one that's eating from a corpse) but most effects are pure CGI, even the gun shots are CGI and that was a let down for me. Of course the movie has to do it with the leading ladies and I must say, they all look gorgeous and sexy (leather suit and bikini's). It could have been really good but as most stories based on comics or games the fail to deliver some goods. Just have a look at the fight at the end, it's too long. Not my cup of tea, still I have to see part 2.

This is probably another case of the description being better than the movie, but not for lack of trying. Chanbara Beauty is a video game adaptation of OneChanbara and another entry in the latest trend of Japanese over-the-top action/horror hybrids. If it's a win as a VG adaptation that has more to do with how low the likes of Uwe Boll and Paul WS Anderson have set the bar in the VG field than how inherently good Chanbara Beauty is.

The plot is thinly stretched and silly, with various subplots filling in the backstory of the characters. Not that it matters really cos it's all about the bikini splatter here, right? Sure the movie delivers lots of katana splatter as dozens of zombie extras in crude makeup get hacked and slashed, but everything is so CGI heavy it takes some getting used to. The action scenes are reeking of video effects: CGI blood, gun flashes, smoke, fast forwards and all kinds of live action anime silly SFX. There's probably some wire work involved as well and the choreography and swordfighting is surprisingly decent.

Chanbara Beauty is bursting apart in the seams but it's entertaining enough to warrant a view for exploitation hounds. If you can stomach the cheapo video SFX (which are becoming a staple in Japanese flicks lately), you'll probably have a good time, but not without a yawn or two in the middle. It plays like a less gory, less insane, less action-packed, less well-made version of The Machine Girl but if you want your fix of Japanese action/horror exploitation this one's OK I guess.