YAKUZA HUNTERS - THE ULTIMATE BATTLE ROYALE
DVD. Cine Du Monde

When a film opens up with a topless girl clawing her way out of a shallow grave and then wandering across the wasteland with a crucifix strapped to her back, you know you are in for a treat. And so it is with Yakuza Hunters – The Ultimate Battle Royale (aka Yakuza Busting Girls: Final Death Ride Battle), which takes the current Japanese trend for insane ultra-violence, sexy action heroines and demented black humour and weds it to the sort of cross-genre referencing normally found in a Tarantino film. Well, if he could do it with Kill Bill, then turnaround is fair play I guess…

Asami, all smouldering attitude, plays Asami, former girl gang leader left for dead by her traitorous friend Junko (Jiro Sato), who has now thrown her lot in with a violent Yakuza gang and used her feminine wiles to reach a position of power. Asami initially decides to go after her alone, but after being captured and tortured, teams with her surviving gang members to wage all-out war on the Yakuzas and her former friend. This involves lots of fighting, gunfire and ‘the finger cutting game’, which I suspect will never really replace drinking games at parties…

With a gloriously mad blaxploitation soundtrack, spaghetti western imagery, action movie shootouts, crazed splatter (courtesy of Yoshihiro Nishimura, who is credited as ‘cruel effects director’ – possibly the greatest screen credit of all time), pinky violence sexual kinkiness and slapstick comedy, Yakuza Hunters – The Ultimate Battle Royale pretty much has everything the discerning exploitation movie fan could hope for, and it rarely pauses for breath. Writer/director Kazushi Nakadaira keeps the film thundering along while giving it a suitably slick style, and Asami is the ideal action heroine – sexy, tough and intense, she brings an authenticity to her lust for vengeance with some great fight sequences and just a hint of vulnerability. Her performance is actually quite subtle – not something you can say about the rest of the film!

As crazed a piece of action cinema as you’ll ever see, this is hugely entertaining. Even if you are not a fan of Nishimura’s demented splatter movies like Helldriver, this film – more grounded, if you can say that about a movie featuring a lingerie-clad heroine who wears a bullet belt filled with severed fingers – might well appeal. And if you are into the genre-defying madness of the lunatic end of Japanese cult cinema, then this will be welcome indeed. I can’t wait for Part Two!

DAVID FLINT

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