A while ago I reviewed BABY ASSASSINS, the really fun 2021 Japanese action-comedy about two teenage assassins forced by their organization to get an apartment and day jobs. It has a bunch of top notch martial arts action choreographed by the great Kensuke Sonomura (MANHUNT, HYDRA, BAD CITY), but it’s mainly about the friendship, personality conflicts and growing-up-struggles of these two goofballs who have fun killing people but mostly enjoy laying on the couch eating desserts and talking about anime and stuff.

There’s actually a part 3 coming out, it played the New York Asian Film Festival in July and Fantastic Fest yesterday and I’ve seen more than one person saying it’s one of the best action movies of the year. Also, in Japan it’s already continuing as a TV mini-series called Baby Assassins Everyday (I watched the first episode on Youtube, and it’s a delight). So, shit, I better get caught up by finishing my review of part 2!

We’ll see about the new one, but the first sequel is not a drastic reinvention or anything. It reunites director Yugo Sakamoto, action director Sonomura, and stars Akari Takaishi and Saori Izawa as the adorable protagonists Chisato and Mahiro. I’m still amazed that Takaishi is an actor and Izawa is a stunt woman (she doubled the title character in the RUROUNI KENSHIN movies and Rina Sawayama in JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4), because the former does great in the fight scenes and the latter is just so funny and perfect in depicting a constantly exhausted and low-grade depressed young person (who kicks ass).

This one opens by introducing a boy version of the baby assassins, Yuri (Joey Iwanaga, SAMURAI MARATHON) and Makoto (Tatsuomi Hamada, various Ultraman shows), bickering and munching on fast food in a car. Their manager/go-between Mr. Akagi (Junpei Hashino, NINJA GIRL) sent them to kill some guy named Bony, they kill a whole house full of mah-jong players, but it’s the wrong guys, so they don’t get paid. They’re not in the assassin’s guild like our babies, and they’re tired of being sub-contractors, part-timers, and being totally screwed when a job like this doesn’t pan out. Mr. Akagi tips them off that if one of the full-time contractor teams ends up dead, “their positions open up.”

So that’s how these boys become our villains. Like Chisato and Mahiro they’re opposites: Makoto is a giggly slacker who doesn’t like the idea of going up against pros because “it’s way too hard,” but Yuri is hungry for success and pushes him into it.

The financial situation isn’t great for Chisato and Mahiro either, but mostly by their own doing. They’re two years behind on assassin’s insurance, and owe almost 4 million yen in dues to a gym they went to one time and then ignored the monthly bills from for four years. Whoops! Both due by 3pm Friday.

Another thing: there are some boys they’re nervous about running into too many times and seeming like stalkers. But I’m pretty sure it’s just Yuri and Makoto stalking them.

This is a laid back series, so on the way to the eventual fight to the death between these two teams we gets lots of funny vignettes about their lives. For example when the girls go to pay their bill the entire bank gets taken hostage by masked gunmen. They play along at first but worry they’ll miss their deadline so they cut their zip ties and have a great fight where rolling desk chairs, telephones and binders are among the weapons used.

Another one is when Chisato decides to bet all their cash gambling against a street hustler (I’m not sure what the game is). It’s a great joke how her confidence and unorthodox moves intimidate all the dudes hanging out into rapt attention, and it’s not until she loses that they realize she has no clue what she’s doing.

They also get a job where they dress up as a panda and a tiger and get manhandled by kids. This allows for 1) a big fight in animal costumes and 2) using IRON MAN style cutaways to their faces inside the masks.

Obvious parallels are drawn between the two pairs. The boys are also always eating, including at a favorite restaurant where they’ll eventually cross paths with the girls. They don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. More than once they try to ambush them and fail. But the girls are suspended for killing guys at the bank, so they’re not allowed to kill them yet.

Tasaka (Atomu Mizuishi, Tokyo Vice), the body disposal guy who hates them, returns, now with bubbly co-worker Miyauchi (Tomo Nakai). He’s still a pain in the ass and scolds them about what will be covered by the guild and what they’ll have to pay for. But he also has a little bit in common with them (he loves pudding) and somehow the movie manages to make me sad for him when (spoiler) he gets shot in the gut by the part-timers and instructs Miyauchi about what to do with his body and how to fill out the paperwork. That’s when the movie shifts into “we gotta kill these fuckers” mode… (double spoiler) but only for like a minute because hey, he’s fine! But so pissed he personally hires the babies to kill those guys, and tells them to make as big of a mess as they want.

Without having rewatched the first one to be sure, I estimate that the sequel is about 5%-10% more light-hearted and goofy. In many respects it feels just the same, but I remember the first one having a little more weight in the way it dealt with Mahiro’s depression, and having to grow to understand herself better and communicate about it in order to repair the friendship. I also think that in this one they practically seem like Bill and Ted or somebody in the ridiculousness of their choices and failures. But it’s very funny, and the juxtaposition of their light-hearted hijinks with such nihilistic violence remains interesting. There’s a tragic irony in these young people who are so happy when consumed with noodles, cat t-shirts and Tik Tok videos but have to kill people in order to fund this lifestyle. I don’t take it that literally, though. The genre trappings make them unusual, but their lazy goofball side is what makes us love them.

The choreography is so good and well executed that setting the long showdown in the generic locations of a junkyard and a dilapidated warehouse seem like smart moves, allowing you to focus completely on the fighters and their interactions. I’m not a gun guy, but the shoot out scene is really special, they’re close range rapid firing hand guns at each other while running and spinning and sliding around too fast to be properly aimed at. And don’t take it as a quality comparison, but in a certain way the Mahiro vs. Yuri fight reminds me of Mad Dog’s big fight in THE RAID. It just keeps going and they’re so beaten down and exhausted you (and they) can’t believe they’re still going. But it remains riveting. Izawa is so fun to watch, the way she rolls around and scrambles and slides between opponents’ legs, rarely more powerful but often 2 or 3 moves ahead, and never willing to give up until she’s done. (Then she’ll drop to the floor and practically take a nap.)

I also caught up with the movie A JANITOR on Hi-Yah!. This was Sakamoto’s movie before the first BABY ASSASSINS, released the same year. It’s about a shy high school janitor who is actually a former assassin who’s there as secret bodyguard to the daughter of the Yakuza boss who raised him. Its world of crime is somewhere between HYDRA and BABY ASSASSINS, but definitely not as jokey as the latter or as exciting as either of them. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that Takaishi and Izawa play a pair of assassins trying to kill the daughter. They’re not named and this can’t really be in continuity with BABY ASSASSINS (if you know what I mean) but they’re the exact same characters. I don’t really know the story but I’m betting when they did that movie their chemistry was so undeniable he realized they should have their own movie.

A JANITOR is more for completists, but the rest of these I suggest checking out if they sound fun to you. Get on board before all out Babymania sweeps the globe.