Battle Girl: Living Dead in to

If I had read them, I wouldn't have wasted an hour and a quarter on this muddled, aimless silly film. The premise is that a meteor lands in Tokyo Bay and a resulting mist combines with an unnamed heavy metal to create some kind of barrier as well as a contagion that causes the dead to rise as zombies. Young K-ko, daughter of the chief local military officer -- who's off on an unspecified rescue mission -- is given a battle suit and ordered to locate other survivors of the catastrophe. A fellow officer, however, has a scheme of his own, and complications ensure, sort of. The special effects can't even compete with many of those from films of the 1950s, and much of the film is given over to perfunctory dispatch of shambling zombies in suitable make-up whose main purpose is to grunt and cast shadows of themselves feasting on body parts. The hand-to-hand fight scenes are ludicrous, slow motion affairs in which each combatant seems to wait for the other to assume the correct position before they execute the next hackneyed move. The plot is rife with inconsistencies and non sequiturs, and the dialogue -- even allowing for translation effects -- is often simply ridiculous. Visually, there are a few nice moments, but precious few. A trio of what appear to be young gunrunners operating out of a bus might have been interesting, but they ultimately amount to nothing, in keeping with the movie itself. If you're thinking of buying this because it features a woman in black rubber body armor, think again. There's nothing to see here, folks. And nothing to hear from the one special feature, a very boring and useless interview with the director. This isn't even worth renting.

I waited months to see this movie after I heard Synapse films was putting it on dvd. I really like most of the movies Synapse puts out like STREET TRASH, THE DEADLY SPAWN, & BRAIN DAMAGE are some of my fav horror flicks. So I bought this movie right away. Battle Girl looked like a cool cheesy horror/sci-fi movie and it's NOT! I didn't even finish watching this movie! Yeah, that's how boring it is. GORE? NO! ACTION? NO! COOL PLOT? NOT REALLY. K-ko ( Cutie Suzuki) a Japanese Pro Wrestler plays Battle Girl and let me say I have seen better acting in porn. WOW. Pro Wrestling in japan must be waaaaay different because this Battle Girl can't even throw a punch! I would hate to see her in the ring. lol.
If your looking for a Gory goodtime from japan get "RIKI-OH THE STORY OF RICKY" Synapse films should be ashamed of putting this crap on their lable. Save an hour of your life and just watch Godzilla.

Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay, (Batoru garu), is a 1991 film directed by Kazuo Gaira Komizu. If I had to pick one genre to describe it, I suppose I'd have to lean more towards horror, but this really does have a science fiction theme to it that may garner the movie a wider fan base. Either way, if there's any following at all, it's of the cult crowd.

In a nutshell, a meteor crashes to earth, namely Tokyo bay, which creates a sort of alien fog that resurrects the living. In the fallout, the area is taken over by zombies, villainous military personnel, and apocalypse-punks. Enter K-ko, (played by Japanese wrestler, Cutie Suzuki), who dons one of the more tackier suits in cinematic history to fight the legions of listed baddies.

The movie is just bad for a multitude of reasons. I won't bore you with the entire laundry list of failures, here, but I'll list a few because it's entirely possible they might actually be appealing to someone considering investing in the DVD.

The soundtrack is entirely synth and poorly orchestrated. Off and on, I actually caught brief bits and pieces that sounded an awful lot like snippets from Janet Jackson's, "Rhythm Nation 1814" album. Specifically, "Escapade". You may have seen this movie and find my observation completely unfounded, which is fine, but I'm sticking with my guns, here. Janet's album came out two years before this movie, so the timing is just right considering the travel time for pop music in that era. Also, to further support my theory, the video for Jackson's title song, "Rhythm Nation" holds a striking similarity to the foggy, industrial-style setting housed in Battle Girl. (Judge me if you'd like, but the fact remains that by being attracted to this movie in the first place, I proved myself a little wobbly. I can't be blamed.)

These would be the most flaccid fight sequences I have ever seen. The DVD case boasts that the protagonist is played by a professional wrestler, but she must have caught whatever scoliosis bug was making its rounds through the director's crew during the filming. Every scene consisted of her squaring up, taking a swing, getting dumped on the ground, then jumping back up vaguely surprised and squaring up again. Randomly throughout the film, she would have to disarm someone with the same sort of softness previously laid claim to by boiled carrots, and somehow succeed. It was devastatingly boring to watch. So much so that I sort of nodded off a little about mid-film and then jerked awake because my foot had slipped off my coffee table.

K-ko's Battle Suit was ridiculous. Nothing on board looked remotely helpful aside from adding some extra padding, and most of that went over her breasts. Round breast cones that spent the duration of this movie crooked. One side would be fine, the other would be drooping south a good 4-6 inches. It reminded me of Thom Yorke's eyes. (Oh, and I'd like to add that she's apparently of some military background, hence the suit, but she clearly had zero training with any military personnel prior to this production. In fact, I think it's safe to say that she's never even seen anyone in the military do anything remotely military-like at any point in time ever.)

I'm rambling. So...

I highly advise not watching this movie unless you're surrounded by a group of friends famous for their MST3K-like abilities. The only treasure found in, "Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay", as far as I'm concerned, is in the people that will make fun of it.

Rent this puppy.

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