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 RUROUNI KENSHINs and SNAKE EYES) and Chisato (Akari Takaishi, MY HAPPY MARRIAGE), whose “main job is killing.”
The movie opens in the back room of a convenience store, where Mahiro is badly interviewing for a job, which turns out to be an undercover mission to kill the manager. She shoots him and fights the rest of the staff on her way out, until Chisato shows up to help finish them off and joke about how annoying the manager was. Just a couple of friends getting through life together.
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.
