SUMMARY
THE FOLLOWING REVIEW IS ONE OF AN ADULT
NATURE. PARENTAL DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
SUMMARY
Section Zero is the
police's best kept secret. Very few know who they are or what they
do. Their operatives are equally mysterious, and are only identified
by the name Rei.
Rei has been ordered to take some stock certificates
from a gangster. When street punks take them from her, she is
re-assigned to get them back.
She is teamed up with a local cop named Kishima. It seems
that Kishima has plans for the stock certificates of his own.
With no one to trust, Rei must wage a one woman war against the corrupt
and the guilty.
DVD VISION TEST
VIDEO: The DVD is of moderate quality. There are
pixels, wrinkles, and other digital garbage all over the place.
AUDIO: Well done for both the English and Japanese Dolby
2.0 tracks. The English track is louder in volume, but the Japanese
language track has a fuller sound. On both versions, the sound is crisp and rich, full of surround sound during the
action elements.
EDITS: The Japanese opening credits have been overlaid with English credits and the closing credits have been replaced. No edits to the movie have been made.
EXTRAS: No extras. Not even a trailer.
WIDESCREEN REVIEW
STORY:
This is a pretty typical "exploitation" film. Attractive
women with guns, hard as stone Yakazua, sneaky crooked cops who play both
sides, and plot twists you can see a mile away. Its ending is also
nihilistic, which is usually the only route these films can take.
ACTING: The Japanese cast is
decent. Natsuki Ozawa looks good holding a gun, and can do a sex
scene very well. The rest of the cast is pretty typical for a made-for-video
movie, so don't expect a lot.
The English dub is horrible. Few of
the voices matched the character, and their delivery was flat and dull.
This shows why live action films should never be dubbed.
FAN SERVICE:
Well, if girls with guns is your fetish, then this movie will fill you
up. Just about every female is nude at some point. Sorry guys,
no lesbian scenes in this one.
CONCLUSION
The Zero Woman films have been a staple of the
made-for-video market since the early 90's. Like James Bond,
there always seems to be another Zero Woman. Many of the actresses
move on to bigger and better projects, allowing a new actress to continue
on the track of stardom. Harkening back to the days
of the "Nikkatsu" films of the 60's, the scripts are pretty much the
same. The characters are not that complex, there is lots of nudity and
sex, and the violence is plentiful. Each Zero Woman director infuses
their own style, in the hope that one will stand out from the other.
This
one is no different. While a decent one to start off with, there are
better (Dangerous Game is my personal favorite). The formula is the
same. Rei finishes a mission, gets assigned a new one, and spends
the remaining 45 minutes trying to complete it. A "successful"
mission usually involves most of
the cast getting killed. To be honest, you
don't watch Zero Woman for the plot. You watch it to see lots of
violence, sex, and hot babes using big guns. What more can you ask
for?
This is not actually the first Zero Woman movie. The first,
also released by Tokyo Shock, is under the title "Zero Woman: Finial
Mission".........oops!
Those of you who love Hong
Kong films may find the action scenes a little stiff, and the gun play,
while plentiful, is not of the high caliber (pardon the pun) we have come
to expect from Asian movies.
As
this was an early release for Tokyo Shock, I am inclined to cut them some
slack for the so/so quality of the DVD. With so much of this movie
set in the dark or at night, you can see every single piece of digital
crap. Thank goodness the source was pretty grainy, or it would have
looked really bad.
There are actually two versions
of the movie on this disc. There is a English language version,
where the movie is in the center. The Japanese language version has
the image pushed up to the top, with the subtitles burned into the black
area. I don't like having the screen pushed up on the Japanese
subtitled version. While I appreciate the reason, I have no problem
with the subtitles on the screen.
So,
if you need your fix of Japanese women running around in tight dresses
shooting things, Zero Woman is the right movie for you. Don't expect
a lot, and you will have a good time, even if it's not your
birthday.
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