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Chanbara Beauty
In the increasingly complex hierarchy of
low-budget Japanese horror fare, Chanbara Beauty probably ranks
somewhere in the middle. It’s not as accomplished as Blood: The Last
Vampire nor quite as insanely frenetic as Vampire Girl vs
Frankenstein Girl or Machine Girl, but it’s somewhat better
than the recent Big Tits Zombie, to which it is stylistically and
thematically similar, though Chanbara Beauty features more
zombies and fewer tits.
Madman have the marketing of the genre down
to a fine art – I for one only need know that a film features a scantily
clad Japanese woman wielding a samurai sword or an abundance of tits and
zombies to be wholeheartedly sold, and the stills adorning the Region 4
release of Chanbara Beauty expertly exploit this fact, as does
the tagline of ‘Blades, Bikinis and a Fistful of Zombies.’ So wholly
indifferent these days are the genre’s target audience presumed to be
towards matters of authorship (or auteurship) that neither the front nor
back of the box cover even bothers to mention the names of Chanbara’s
writer, director, producers or cast members. After all there are tits
to be had, and zombies and bikinis too, and that’s presumably all that
really matters.
For those that care about such things,
Chanbara Beauty is a fairly faithful live-action interpretation of
the popular OneChanbara video game. The film revolves around Aya
(Vampire Girl’s Eri Otoguru), a ‘bikini-clad samurai chick’ who
roams a desolate and chaotic future world inhabited by the walking
undead, the results of a series of grotesque experiments conducted by a
deranged scientist. Aya searches for her sister (Chise Nakamura of the
stunningly-titled Saki Secret Undercover Agent: Wildcats in Strip
Royale), finds an unlikely ally in the form of ‘mysterious
gun-toting leather outlaw’ Reito (newcomer Manami Hashimoto), there’s a
bit of back story, plenty of surprisingly well-choreographed fight
sequences, much bloodshed involving plenty of cheap SFX, a bit more back
story, a bit more bikini-cowboy hat-samurai-swordplay, roll credits.
The Other Stuff
The film was written and directed by Yohei
Fukuda, whose previous directorial outing was the highly-regarded
Gakku Ura Site. Whilst far from perfect his Chanbara
cleverly wrings every drop out of its modest budget and many of the
special effects are highly accomplished, at least by the standard of
cheapo Japanese exploitation flicks. There is a glaring technical
deficiency in that the film is remarkably, distractingly dark
throughout, and not just because it’s set predominantly at night – it
really is a bleak, grainy, shitty transfer. This is surprising on two
counts; Madman’s Nippon nipple-fests usually look the tits, so to speak,
and prior to making the transition to directing Fukuda was an
accomplished cinematographer who had worked on a dozen or so medium
profile Japanese features. At any rate the transfer is rough as zombie
guts, though the Japanese 5.1 and 2.0 audio mixes compensate somewhat by
being solid and consistent, if nothing overly special. There are no
bonus features to speak of, just a theatrical and some Eastern Eye
trailers.
The Verdict
Entertaining enough in an Uwe Boll,
I-know-what-I’m-getting-myself-into-here kind of way, Chanbara Beauty
still fails to live up to its titillating* cover art. The shocking
picture quality and lack of extras mark it as something of a
disappointment, but it still has its moments.
*pun most certainly intended |
