5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Ghost in the Shell director Oshii Mamoru takes on live-action for the first time in eight years with the sci-fi action film Assault Girls. A continuation of his shorts in the omnibus films Kill and Shin Onna Tachiguishi Retsuden, Assault Girls stars hot young actresses Kikuchi Rinko (Babel), Saeki Hinako (Trick), and Kuroki Meisa (Crows Zero) as three butt-kicking warriors in a post-apocalyptic future. Fans of the director will immediately recognize his traits: deliberate pacing, cerebral storytelling, and a haunting score by Kawai Kenji. Similar to Miike Takashi's Sukiyaki Western Django, Oshii decided to shoot most of Assault Girls in English - a major challenge to his stars (and possibly to his viewers).
Starring: Rinko Kikuchi, Yoshikazu Fujiki, Meisa Kuroki, Hinako SaekiAction | 100% |
Sci-Fi | 35% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Anyone who has ever seen any of Mamoru Oshii’s films knows one thing for certain: this is a writer-director who thinks. Now that thinking may never find artful expression in Oshii’s actual writing, where he attempts to deliver unusually philosophy-laced screenplays in sometimes incredibly verbose scenarios where characters talk, talk, talk and yet seem really to be saying little that makes any sense. And so in one way Assault Girls is a welcome respite, as it contains virtually no dialogue whatsoever, at least after a mind-numbing and completely incoherent narrated prologue which lasts fully one tenth the rather truncated length of this film (a mere 70 minutes more or less in total). What this narrator is talking about is anyone’s guess, and even the basic plot points the narration divulges are vomited out with such labyrinthine grammar and weird combinations of adjectives and nouns that one has to wonder after a while if things simply got lost in translation. Even four brief interstitial “chapter” headings, which mark supposed breaking points in the film, offer even more bizarre musings on the nature of God and, believe it or not, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Yes, you did read that right: I attempted to keep the sentence fairly straightforward and declarative, but if you’re still scratching your head, that’s probably nothing compared to how you feel once you actually settle down to watch Assault Girls, Oshii’s first foray into live action, and a linked piece to his previous Avalon, after a long hiatus spent making his acclaimed animes like Ghost in the Shell.
Anyone expecting the visual mastery Oshii has shown repeatedly in earlier works is going to be sorely disappointed by Assault Girls' AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Is this the fault of the Blu-ray? Probably not. Oshii has shot this film on HD video, probably for budgetary reasons, and so we get that smooth textureless appearance that lacks depth and seems to place everything squarely in a two dimensional, shiny flat environment. There is next to no color in this film, obviously by design. Therefore, when we do get brief flashes of outrageous color, like the red-orange dress or the similarly colored snail shell, it seems like a visual breath of fresh air, to mix metaphors. The image is overly soft most of the time and the CGI elements are extremely basic. The overall pallor that this film offers is too uniform to ever generate even "stylistic" interest.
Though you'll see the audio specs describe the soundtrack as being Japanese, both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and the Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks are mostly in English. Oshii gets around this seeming discrepancy by having one of the frankly completely arbitrary "rules" of the virtual game be that "native" languages (in this case Japanese) can't be spoken during the game. That means we get all of the major characters, obviously native Japanese speakers, sputtering semi-English for the bulk of the film. There is one brief sequence in Japanese toward the end of the film. Be that as it may, the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is certainly going to be loved by any of you who favor LFE. This is one of the most relentlessly "thumpy" soundtracks in recent memory, with aggressive low frequencies emanating from the subwoofer for virtually the entire film, by virtue of either Kenjii Kawai's pulsating score, or any number of roars from the sand whales or shots from various weapons to bring them down. The sound effects are fairly impressively splayed over the surround channels, but dialogue is almost always squarely front and center. This isn't an overly expressive Kawai score, relegated mostly to heavy bass work that may tend to annoy some listeners after a while. Fidelity is very good to excellent, with a definitely robust low end that will set the floorboards vibrating.
There's nothing here that I count as a "real" supplement, simply the Theatrical Trailer and some promos for other Well Go USA films and home video products.
Despite the sometimes pretentious aspect to many of Oshii's films, I've always been a big fan, and I personally love Ghost in the Shell. I didn't know quite what to expect going into Assault Girls, so I don't think anyone could accuse me of having false preconceptions. I also can't imagine most Oshii fans not being radically disappointed with this effort. There's simply nothing here on virtually every level: no visual splendor, no real storyline, no drama, and really when you get right down to it, not even very much action. Maybe some people will find this a convenient sleep aid, but otherwise stick with some of Oshii's more impressive outings.
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