YAKUZA HUNTERS - THE REVENGE DUEL IN HELL
DVD. Cine Du Monde

Less a sequel than a tame retread with the same character – who had lost her fingers at the end of Yakuza Hunters: The Ultimate Battle Royale but appears here with digits intact – Yakuza Hunters: The Revenge Duel in Hell is a rather more sober effort than its predecessor, and therefore less entertaining.

Asami – as Asami – turns up once again in a town besieged by fiendish yakuzas, intent on running out the locals so they can build a casino. As a moody, somewhat traumatised character, she spend the first half of the film hanging out with a local bartender and fighting teacher, as well as Miki, an older yakuza fighter. Eventually, she’s stirred into action as her friends are brutalised and killed by the gangsters, leading to some surprisingly lacklustre revenge battles.

Having little of the camp, trash culture elements that made the first film fun (Asami stays fully clothed in this one), the film instead tries to play like a modern Western. It certainly delivers plenty of gore and violence, some of it quite nasty (the film opens with a woman being chainsawed in the crotch), but does so without much impact – the rather flat video production values that are reminiscent of zero budget efforts like Ninja Battle not helping to create much atmosphere. Asami is shamefully wasted for much of the film, and the supporting cast are ineffectual. While the first film was tremendous fun, this unfortunately seems to be taking itself rather too seriously, and as a result, is a pretty unsatisfying second bite at the story.

In the end, even at 73 minutes, this feels a bit padded out, and the shameful waste of the charismatic and sexy star is fairly unforgivable. This isn’t entirely awful, but never really rises above the level of a time-waster. Fans of sexy Japanese female assassins – and isn’t that all of us? - should stick with the first film in the series.

DAVID FLINT

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