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You didn't think I was kidding with that Bikini Samurai Squad comment, did you? Seriously though, I expect good clean wholesome fun from this one. That last movie was some kind of fluke. Weird Japanese stuff tends to be pretty prudish on the nudity front and cartoonish with the gore, just the way I like it. Plus we have an actual menu here, from which there are trailers. Trailers for things I know are totally cool, like Machine Girl, and Zeiram! Hey, have you ever seen Zeiram? This crazy thing that's like Alien meets Critters, and it had that OAV prequel with the exploding tops that was one of the classier things Sci-Fi would show all the time? Anyway though, movie.
We've got a really rapid fire text narration sort of deal that basically says "So zombies happened," and then we just cut directly to two dudes passing an AK back and forth shooting at zombies for fun. Also, blue tinted as heck. Someone comes wandering up who might not be a zombie, but is definitely bulletproof, and then we jump out of I guess it was a flashback, to the way less blue tinted but honestly still pretty blue tinted present, and here's this invincible hooded weirdo barging into some kinda gang member clubhouse. And yeah, Hoodie's a zombie, just, special I guess. Things go all slow-motion and... I guess it's implied that there's violence going on. Then the main character shows up. She's got some fat guy sidekick, a cowboy hat, a katana, and a big ol' poncho. And.. wow. This fight scene might as well be animated. There's so much ridiculous sword flash and CGI blood explosions what's under them is pretty inconsequential. And after a while she charges her sword up and takes out a whole room full Zelda slash attack style. And I mean it. The sword goes all glowy and everything. Then when all that's left is the special zombie, who has knives apparently, she removes the poncho to reveal the bikini you'd figure she'd have just started with. Also a big doofy scarf. They have a crazy high speed duel for a bit, then some other weirdo shows up on a motorcycle with some guns to kill the more zombies that just kinda showed up. Apparently Biker Girl here is the Protoman to Bikini Sword's Mega Man. They fight for a while. Bullets are dodged and parried. Which, considering that's a shotgun, is pretty impressive. So did I mention that this is based on an obscure videogame? It's entirely possible that it's like the most accurate videogame adaptation ever, because it sure feels videogamey, but I doubt this is at all what the actual game is like.
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So after these two arbitrarily try to kill each other for a while, they decide to team up and go after someone at Umbrella's labs or whatever, because that's just how it goes. And then we have... the intro to the game this is based on. Now here's some scientist at Umbrella playing with a severed head and mumbling incoherently. By the way, the obscure game this is based on? I don't really know anything about it, but apparently Suda 51, the game developer who's famous for just being an insane artsy weirdo making weird stuff that makes up for honestly generally lousy gameplay through sheer enthusiastic weirdness pretty much decided to run with the exact same premise recently. He's working on something called something like Lollypop Chainsaw, which seems to be going for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer deal (the movie, not the show) except, you know, with zombies and a chainsaw. And the only reason I have for mentioning this at all is that going by the trailer when you cut a zombie in half down the middle and it falls apart, rather than a big fountain of blood, there's a pretty rainbow and sparkly sounds. And I mean, I just had to share.
Getting back on task here, Scientist is all evil for a while, then we see this girl who's maybe the main character's kidnapped sister or something being your standard Japanese schoolgirl with an arbitrary katana, and she just kinda randomly murders some random dude. Meanwhile, Player 2 and Fattie are talking about Player 1's backstory. Nothing really important here, just, yeah, that's her sister, and she's totally evil, and she's out to kill her I guess. More plot than I was looking for. Now he's getting into his own tragic backstory. Also totally generic. Incidentally, Player 1 put the poncho back on. We're taking the high road and saving the bikini for special occasions it seems. Also, Fattie needs to shut the hell up already. Seriously, this is all boring stuff and we're clearly not going for any kind of deep character study here.
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Ah finally. A random fight scene out of nowhere... nope. Just more minor characters using violence to say hi... and then randomly having sex! No! Not again! Post paragraph 3 boobs and everything! Thankfully, these two ARE interrupted by a zombie, as they are supposed to. Actually, several, random dude gets eaten. His girlfriend tries to pull him free, and only gets an arm. He.. actually pretty instantly turns into a zombie. Then zombies attack the characters we care about in their sleep. And hey, with the scarf and bikini thing going, Player 1 kinda looks a bit like Yoko from Gurren Lagann. But with a cowboy hat. Now here's yon couple, the girl sans shirt, almost killing Fattie but Player 2 saves the day. Then she covers up those exposed boobs with a convenient tarp. Thanks Player 2. Now here's Scientist being arbitrarily evil in the general direction of Sister. By which I mean feeding her pudding. I suppose that's not especially evil. Also, someone get Scientist's dub voice a new microphone, I can't make out a word he says. "I said come here!" Oh, well thanks. Can you talk at that volume all the time?
The next day, here's a zombie! Oh they killed it. Now here's Scientist extracting some zombie virus from Sister and injecting it into some random other girl's corpse to make her a zombie. Because of course. Now here's another fake out not actually doing a fight scene, which this movie has an unreasonable affection for. They find some kid. She seems pretty uh... Special. And hey, now here's Fattie getting attacked by a zombie version of Gogo from Kill Bill for no apparent reason. Like, this is frame by frame recreation of that fight scene. Except, you know, Fattie can't dodge so well. Also apparently Zombie Gogo is his little sister. And also, Sister is suddenly here and taking Special Girl hostage, apparently, for some reason. Fattie keeps trying to reason with Gogo. And man, she should really have a board sticking out of her head, because I mean it, they're being so blatant with this. Anyway, Player 1 eventually shows up to rescue Fattie, who of course has to kill Zombie Gogo himself, because that's how it goes. Then he gives some big doofy sorry I suck speech to her.
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Well, that was something. Player 1 then goes off to deal with this other situation. On seeing her, Sister just goes ahead and kills her hostage, and they start sword fighting. Fattie with his little knife tries to come lend a hand, Player 2's just kinda shocked at the stabbed kid and trying to administer medical attention or something. Said kid's name is Maria apparently... which was given a Japanese pronunciation... which the dub here is really trying to recapture, which... is a pretty weird end result. Anyway, they take her to the hospital to try o get her some help. Fattie wanders around on his own some, looks in the corner, sees a zombie nurse hunched over. "Ohh @#$%," he says. Meanwhile Player 2 is all against Player 1 killing the kid upon noticing come on that's totally a zombie bite on her. Also here's a big wad of zombies breaking into the hospital for good measure. Fattie goes running through the hospital with zombie nurse here chasing around after him, up the stairs and everything. It is totally giving me Siren flashbacks watching this. You'd think Silent Hill, right? But no, the one guy getting dogged everywhere by the single zombie nurse he can't do anything about, that's Siren. Eventually Player 1 shows up to resolve this patheticness.
Player 2 refuses to kill Special Girl, observing she had to kill her own actual daughter a while ago after SHE became a zombie, and wants a do-over. Fattie's all "Dude, I JUST killed my own zombie sister like... 10 minutes ago. You can't play that card now. So those two leave, and she milks this scene long enough for the whole zombie horde to come in, she turns to gun them down, kid gets up attacky, she spins around to kill her, and all of this has the sound dropped out for some sappy music. Oh and did I mention how Sister kinda teleported away from that fight earlier? It was implied at least, right? Anyway, off to the Umbrella labs. Scientist starts expositing as Player 1 and Fattie arrive. Again, not here for plot. Sister eventually shows up. Fattie says "You take her, I'll take the other guy." Which... yeah, I don't know if he could take the scrawny old guy in a fight even. Doesn't matter though. They leave, random zombie horde appears, and we finally kinda get a straight up fight scene. And poncho stays on. Again, I'm really impressed y he defiance of the title this movie keeps showing. That's classy. Anyway, much cartoony zombie fighting. Also, Fattie actually does sneak off to go beat up Scientist, which is good for him, except that it's really kinda stupid to go off solo.
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Anyway, eventually Player 2 who so obviously wasn't dead catches up to help fight all these zombies wearing raincoats. Then the poncho comes off for some trailer fodder posing mid-fight. Oh, and I was right. Fattie totally can't take Scientist in a fight, even getting the drop on him. Fortunately, a random zombie wanders in and lends a hand who can handle him. So... Fattie gets to just lazily grab a sword off the ground and stab both as they wrestle around. Meanwhile Players 1 and 2 continue to fight random raincoat wearing zombies. And NOW Player 2 dies. Which enrages Player 1 enough that she remembers she has that Zelda spin move. Also that Zelda shoot projectiles when at full HP move, apparently. After some dying last words and Player 2 blowing her own head off to not be a zombie, Sister just kinda wanders up all like, so, climactic fight scene time now then? It is, so they wander off into a big field by some trees to have it. It's high speed ridiculous cartoony katana stuff. Jumping into the air, just kinda hanging their and trading like 20 blows, that sort of thing. Then Sister just kinda pommel punches her to the ground and here's some stupid flashback about their dad I couldn't care less about. Sister killed him. We knew that. Remembering this gives Player 1 the strength to get up and keep fighting though. And to have more flashbacks.
By the way, this right here? This is why you don't just do ridiculous implausible combat. When you try to put real emotional weight behind it it totally doesn't work. This is just boring filler with a predictable outcome. Also the flashback to actual fighting ratio here is pretty odd. Anyway, Sister's motivation is apparently just jealousy about Player 1 being better at totally implausible sword fighting. Like how she can go all hyper mode here, and shoot energy blasts. Sister can't do that. Or teleport around while in hyper mode. You know, this is a pretty stupid movie. I mean, yeah, obviously, but at this point I can't not comment on it. So eventually she wins. But Sister is the last boss so obviously she has two forms you need to kill. And oh, I guess she can go all hyper mode and fire energy blasts too. So now these two are just teleporting all over and locking glowing swords and, seriously, there's just no possible way to care about this fight scene at this point. It's too stupid, and ungrounded, and lacking in any substance, and making stuff up as it goes along, and ultimately we've just got a big ol' lens flare filling the screen. Eventually though, they do the Ninja Gaiden thing. Player 1 wins. No surprise there. Now she gives her big stupid dying speech. Which... really is exactly the same as her big fight starting speech.
So they bury the dead, then Fattie says "So. Feel like KILLING SOME ZOMBIES!?!" And then they leave. Because apparently she does. But.... there aren't any around. Then we suddenly flash to some kinda sequel teaser sorta thing of her killing some zombies. But with two swords, because she swiped Sister's. OK. I am done watching random Japanese garbage for a while now. Well, except for this one last one sitting in the queue. Plus I still totally need to see that one movie by the Tokyo Gore Police guy Netflix doesn't have, but that's not weird Japanese garbage. That's a whole separate category of crazy.
