7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Chisato and Mahilo are two high school girls who are about to graduate.They also happen to both be highly skilled assassins.When the organization they work for orders them to share a room, the relationship between turns sour.
Starring: Saori Izawa, Akari TakaishiForeign | 100% |
Drama | 12% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Baby Assassins takes a number of ideas that have been part and parcel of other films and throws them together in a kind of crazy quilt assortment that ends up being one part smackdown action and one part goofy comedy. Any number of films have had young female assassins as focal characters, and in fact some have even taken place in Japan and included schoolgirls (in uniforms) taking out assailants, but Baby Assassins is perhaps a bit more on the "slacker" side of things, if that "movement" (does a slacker really ever move?) was ever a "thing" in Japan. The film begins with what initially seems like a job interview (and in fact maybe that's what it's supposed to be, since some elements in this film are never really fully explained) involving an almost androgynous looking young woman named Mahiro (Saori Izawa). It's an awkward interchange between Mahiro and her prospective employer that goes completely gonzo when Mahiro, tired of answering what she perceives to be stupid, meaningless, questions, pulls a gun out of her purse and simply shoots her interviewer dead. It turns out she's in the backroom of a convenience store, and the store's employees have realized what's going on, and then confront her, one of them with a utility knife which Mahiro promptly grabs and then viciously stabs her would be attackers, leaving the store littered with corpses and lots of blood. Into this maelstrom Chisato (Akari Takaishi) suddenly appears, and it is instantly clear these two young women know each other and are evidently already employed as hired hitwomen (hitgirls?). Now, one assumes the store owner was supposed to get killed, since Mahiro is "required" to snap a photo of the corpse, but as to whether his charges were meant to be slaughtered is never sufficiently answered, but considering the fact that Chisato soon enough goes berserk at a cafe where she's supposedly there to help may give credence to the idea that neither Mahiro nor Chisato is completely able to control their "killer instincts", and both in fact seem to suffer from a serious lack of impulse control.
Baby Assassins is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The IMDb has no real technical data, and the closing credits roll for the film is almost entirely in Japanese with no subtitles, so I can't definitively state what camera was used, other than that this is a digital capture that I'm assuming was finished with a 2K DI. This is a rather odd looking feature at times, though I'm assuming some of what's on display is intentional tweaking, which looked to me like it might have even included twiddling with gamma and luma levels, since there are a number of scenes with hazy contrast and where blacks are almost greenish. In fact quite a few scenes have a green tint to them, though as can pretty easily be seen in a number of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review, there are other moments where the palette looks at least relatively natural. Detail levels are generally very good to excellent, though typical "action movie" grading choices like deep cobalt blues can diminish fine detail levels.
For a film made expressly for a streaming audience (at least initially), Baby Assassins sports a rather aggressive Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that not only regularly engages the surround channels, it kind of assaults them at times with a battery of percussive sound effects and some floorboard rumbling LFE. That hyperbolic quality is at least somewhat balanced by putatively quieter scenes of the girls at home, though even there skirmishes can erupt. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
With an understanding that I have an unabashedly jaded and un-PC sense of humor, I actually got an unexpected kick (no martial arts pun intended) out of Baby Assassins. The deadpan performance of Izawa in particular seems to capture the ultra-dark comedic aspect of the film, though Takaishi has her moments as well, as do several of the supporting cast. This is not going to sit well with those who don't like rampant killing being made fun of, but for those with similar sensibilities to mine, Baby Assassins may provide a laugh or two, along with some expertly executed fight scenes. Technical merits are generally solid, though I'd recommend parsing through the screenshots to get an idea of how this looks. With caveats noted, Recommended.
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