Brilliant and touching

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

"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.

The reanimated dead run rampant in Japan thanks to an evil scientist, Dr. Sugita(Tarô Suwa), hoping to equip himself with an army obeying his command. He'll have his hands full with a trio seeking revenge for acts towards their loved ones by his hand..a swordswoman, Aya(Eri Otoguro), in cowboy hat and bikini, her tagalong chubby partner, Katsuji(Tomohiro Waki) and a new member accompanying them, a marksman, Reiko(Manami Hashimoto), with her double barrel shotgun in tow. Aya is seeking retribution for the heinous murder of her outnumbered father, Reiko wanting vengeance for the death of her daughter, and Katsuji desiring to rescue his kidnapped sister. Sisters will be on separate sides as Aya wishes to find her sibling Saki for her involvement in the death of their father. I guess you will like this movie if you are a fan of the video game because as an outsider this movie was really bonafide stupid. For some reason never explained Aya's sword emanates a glow when she swings and strikes her victims. Oh, and she has this power which sends off an electrical impulse which sends zombies and her enemy sister hurling through the air. No matter the amount, Aya mows through the undead with little challenge and often must assist Katsuji, a bumbling coward who services the movie as a stumblingblock for our heroines needing to saved from near death multiple times. The violence is blatantly computer animated to the point that "Onechanbara" is little more than a video game with actors. The final showdown between Aya and Saki is polluted with these effects where both have superhuman abilities, each shining with a different color as they move in the air like birds in flight, when their swords meet we can see bright sparks sending off neon light. It gets so absurd, either you accept it on pure comic terms, or, like me, just roll your eyes at this nonsense. Chise Nakamura is Saki, Aya's sisterly nemesis, whose abilities are manufactured thanks to Dr. Sugita, whose mission was to capture a pure blood Imichi so he could create the ultimate race of superior power..Sugita's ulterior motives all along were to use Saki to secure him Aya. The movie introduces a girl, Maria(Ai Hazuki)as a melodrama piece, for Reiko immediately attaches to her because of her previous loss of a daughter she had to kill due to zombie infection. Anytime Reiko shoots someone(or if anyone fires a weapon, for that matter)the bullets are computer graphically simulated and never once look authentic..pathetic. Oh, the movie gives Sugita an albino eye so he must be pure diabolical, like some James Bond madman. The director pays homage to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill including a zombie almost identically modeled after Go Go Yubari and her swinging spiked metal ball. Well, you do get Otoguro in a bikini for the entire picture(even though she's wearing a stickon tattoo of a rose on her shoulder!)and she does look mighty delectable swinging a katana sword, so at least this blah movie has that going for it. I imagine zombie fans will find this ultimately quite a disappointment, because the flesheating is never visible or stomach-churning which is always a no-no with that audience. I figure this works much better in the animated video game world where it belongs.

... ruined by its director. Give the script to someone like Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror) or Noboru Iguchi (Machine Girl) and you'll have yourself a very entertaining film, but this director seems to have the talent of a high school hobbyist and just couldn't manage to turn it into even a film so bad it's good. The pacing is incredibly slow, the sex is utterly out of place and awkward, the characters are too two-dimensional, the video quality is sub-par, the action is cheap, the special effects are simply pathetic, etc... As much as I love to watch an occasional Zombie film, I simply couldn't find anything worthwhile about this film... And this is coming from someone who found Blade 2, 28 Weeks Later, Zombie Diaries and Zombie Self Defense Force enjoyable in spite of their weaknesses.Unfortunately I paid 6,5 Euro for his and even more unfortunately I figured a film with this concept couldn't really suck so I bought the sequel as well. What a waste of money, it seems now...

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.