Gun Crazy: Episode 1 - A Woman from Nowhere

The story of "A Woman From Nowhere" is rather simple and pretty much adapted right out of a Eastwood Spaghetti Western: A mysterious stranger comes into a lawless town run by a kingpin and starts shooting up the place. Even the opening credits and music have that spaghetti feel: Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone would be proud. The really interesting twists are that the stranger is a beautiful (!) woman, Saki (Ryoko Yonekura) on a Harley, and the location is in a town somewhere in Japan.

In this actioner, there's a considerable amount of gunplay, some of it good, some predictable, and other spots somewhat hokey, but it's a whole lot of fun. Ryoko handles her guns with believability and aplomb and gives the thugs their due. It wasn't much of an acting challenge for her as it was a physical challenge, but she handled things very well. She shows her acting skills much more as Otsu in the NHK drama, "Musashi."

I'd highly recommend film if you're a Ryoko Yonekura fan (which I adoringly am) and/or a "girls with guns" movie fan and it does hold up to repeated viewings. To me, there's something eminently and inexplicably appealing about "girls with guns" movies like "La Femme Nikita" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight." And to have a gorgeous gal like Ryoko starring in it as well is just gobs of icing on the cake.

The advertising blurb for the movie said it was "a Japanese take on a classic spaghetti Western", and sure enough, it is. Although that genre actually has its roots in various samurai films, most notably Yojimbo, this movie definitely seems to draw more from Segion Leone's westerns.

The plot is largely "Once Upon a Time in the West", except instead of Charles Bronson, the person wanting revenge is a young lady, Saki, played by the very attractive Ryoko Yonekura. Then it sort of switches to "A Fistful of Dollars" for a while, has a brief "A Good, the Bad and the Ugly" interlude, then goes back to "Once Upon a Time...". The ending is pretty original It's enjoyable, but the production values are pretty low. While it tries to emulate the style of HK gun-play, it comes off more as a community theater level of special effects/stunts/gun-play.

With better action choreography, better gun effects, and the movie just filled out more (it's only about 65 minutes), it would have been a much better movie.

Director Atsushi Muroga's 'Gun Crazy: Episode 1 - A Woman from Nowhere' is a calculated attempt at cult coolness that admittedly, on paper, sounds rather promising: hot female bounty-hunter Saki ( Ryoko Yonekura), clad in leather and brandishing a pair of over-sized hand cannons, rides into a lawless 'town' in order to settle an old score with evil gang boss Mr. Tojo (Shingo Tsurumi). Styled after the classic spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, the film features a suitably barren landscape, slow motion gun battles, menacing stares in close-up, and even a Morricone inspired score (complete with whistling).

Sadly, Muroga doesn't quite fulfill the potential of his premise thanks to a rather cheap shot-on-video look, the lack of convincing gun-play from his star, and not nearly enough of the insane OTT violence one might reasonably expect from a Japanese film called Gun Crazy. Sure, we get the guns, but there just ain't enough of the 'crazy' on display for my liking (the film's closing minutes offer the most outrageous moment, but it's all a case of 'too little, too late').

If it had been up to me, I'd have given Saki a wider variety of weaponry throughout (and a lot less clothing), made her take at least one unnecessary shower, included a lot more in the way of bloody squib shoot-em-up action, and featured a climactic battle in Mr. Tojo's booby trapped lair against an army of robot ninjas, albino kung fu dwarfs, zombie gimps, and a pair of lesbian conjoined-twin assassins! (okay, okay, that might be going a bit too far, but you get the idea...).

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

"Gun Crazy: A Woman From Nowhere" is a Japanese female action film along the lines of the "Zero Woman" series, only considerably better. It is just as violent (which means VERY violent), less sleazy, and more action-packed, fast-moving and stylishly-executed. It's still a low-budget shot-on-video film, so don't expect anything flawless (for one thing, a lot of the characters sure could use a little more shooting practice), but it does not lack ambition (there are strong music and plot homages to Sergio Leone's westerns). Ryoko Yonekura is an impressive heroine (and probably one of the most beautiful women in the world - there is also a bad girl who is a stunner herself), and "Mr. Tojo" is a cruel, sadistic and smart villain. Worth getting if you like this kind of stuff. **1/2 out of 4.

Solid, no frills, nineties Japanese gun action. Definitely enjoyable. I liked the main character. The gun action is weak by modern standards. And there's hardly any ornamentation to the story. Except for a couple smirks from the MC. So it's a seven. But it should be on your list if you're looking for old dubbed action. Just maybe not in the top dozen.