WTF Japan?!?: Onechanbara- Bikini Samurai Squad

Video game movies are not the exclusive rights of either American companies or shitty German directors. The lovely nation of Japan has also done some of their own. It only seems fair- most of the big games come from them anyhow! So what happens when they take one game series that is famous for having almost no plot and make it into a movie, which requires a plot (well, unless it's Naked Lunch)? It's going to be interesting, let me just put it that way! Let's not beat around the bush- let's just get to it. This is...

Onechanbara: Samurai Bikini Squad

An opening set of narration explains that a zombie plague has broken out, taken over the world and turned it all into shit. Wow, that is the shortest summary of Romero's Dead series in history! In fairness, The Road Warrior summarized WWIII in its opening credits, so this is not unheard of. Anyhow, this is just the framing as the real story involves a group of looters and partiers who get interrupted by a bullet-proof zombie. Why is he bullet-proof? Good question. So he gets some friends and tears up the place. This is interrupted by the sudden arrival of a woman in a cowboy hat. Should they be worried? This question is answered when she begins slicing and dicing the undead with her sword. The effects on display are rather silly and never get better. She is joined by her fat sidekick who helps her....um...I got nothing. When it gets down to her and the lead zombie, she disrobes, revealing her real outfit. She is wearing a cowboy hat, fur-lined bikini and a scarf. Maybe you should not always be so literal when it comes doing the game outfits. She takes him down and asks about Saki (not the drink), but is interrupted by a gun shot. A mysterious biker lady with a shotgun is on the scene and has her own agenda!

The fight between the two women is...interesting to say the least. Our heroine manages to slowly deflect a bullet with her sword. I'll give them credit for showing the bullet spin a bit before it goes off. She also manages to back-flip upwards, somehow making the bullets go around her. The fight is broken up by the guy who explains that they both want the same thing: revenge on the person behind the zombie outbreak. They all agree to join forces and go off. That night, the people make all of their back-stories clear. The lady with the gun lost her daughter to a zombie attack and wants revenge, while the rotund man has had his sister kidnapped by the scientist. As for our heroine, her kid sister Saki killed their dad and joined up with the evil man. Got all of that? Good, because that's the bulk of all of the characterization in the film. This comes into play quickly as the scientist turns the man's sister into a zombie version of Kill Bill's Gogo Yubari. She looks cool, but dies. At a hospital, they manage to protect a young woman- whom the gun-lady likes due to her familial resemblance- from death, but she still gets bit. Time to kill her, right? Wrong!Our two main heroes leave and go after the scientist, while the woman tries to protect the dying girl. She actually manages to fend off the beasts, but has to kill the girl when she turns. That was pointless- thank you. Our heroes get into the scientist's building, but walk into a, wait for it, trap. The fat guy crawls away while our heroine battles the shambling horde. The catch here is that these undead jump around and run occasionally, but also do the 'zombie walk.' Way to be non-committal, movie! She begins to lose when the gun-lady returns and helps turn the tide. It turns back however and she gets overrun. This is enough to push our heroine to break out her D.B.Z. powers and kill everyone. Why not do that sooner? In our other plot, a zombie kills the scientist and inadvertently saves the fat guy. This leads to our heroine vs. Saki in a duel. It turns against our heroine, but she uses her powers again (again, why wait?) to stab her sister. Unfortunately, she also has powers and this fight goes into Round 3! After a big, flashy fight, our heroine kills her sister and saves the day. She goes off with the fat guy as they walk into the sunset Kung-Fu style.

This movie is oddly put together. The premise just screams 'action comedy,' but it is played 100% straight! This is not necessarily bad, mind you, but it is odd. Only in Japan could this movie be turned so dramatic and so Shakespearean! The special effects look silly the whole time and were probably not meant to look great. Then again, this is a drama, so I'm not sure. Again, this movie is simply non-committal. The action is pretty good, although a lot of the film is shot too dark for its own good. If you can embrace the ridiculous moments and the strange plot, you can have a good time. There are certainly worse video game movies out there and stranger Japanese movies out there (see every other WTF Japan?!? entry). Onechanbara is not as bad as you might think, nor is it as silly as it should be.

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Up next, I celebrate 300 posts with a logical follow-up to the 100th one. It's going to be scary and bad. Stay tuned...