If you know me you know I love those Baby Assassins, the adorable pair of professional killers from the movies BABY ASSASSINS, BABY ASSASSINS 2 and BABY ASSASSINS 3, as well as the tv series Baby Assassins Everyday, which I’m currently watching now that it’s on Home Box Office Maximum. (You could start there, if you’re curious.) The Babies are two hilarious young Japanese women who have murdered for a living their whole lives but otherwise are total sweethearts who enjoy soups, desserts, friendship, etc. It’s hard to explain, but they’re the best.
So I didn’t need convincing when I heard some film festival hype about GHOST KILLER and I looked it up and saw it was BABY-adjacent. It’s written by BABY writer/director Yugo Sakamoto, and directed by BABY action director Kensuke Sonomura. You may also know him from directing HYDRA and BAD CITY or from choreographing John Woo’s MANHUNT. He’s developed one of the most distinct and consistent action styles of the modern era. You can’t really go wrong with Sonomura, and for better or worse this has more violence than desserts. (read the rest of this shit…)
BABY ASSASSINS is a 2021 Japanese film that I really enjoyed on Hi-Yah! a while ago and it has a sequel coming out soon (it already played at Fantastic Fest), so I figured I better get off my ass and finish writing the review. This is a movie that has some really well-executed fighting and bloody violence, but it’s really not focused on action. It’s mostly a very dry comedy about the lives of two freshly-graduated-from-high-school roommates, Mahiro (Saori Izawa, stunt double in the last two 
HYDRA (2019) is a modest Japanese crime movie that I enjoyed for its simplicity. It begins harshly, with a very efficient killing and disposal of a guy in a public restroom. The very human detail that the victim can’t stop peeing as he’s stabbed and dragged from the urinal to a stall ups the disturbing factor by about 150%. And that’s before we see a man wearing tight swimming trunks (Takashi Nishina, GAMERA 3: REVENGE OF IRIS) so he can chop up the body and then hose himself off before giving a few chunks as treats to his piranhas. Seems like he’s got the process down pat.
