The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

This review originally ran at Inside Pulse. To read more reviews, news and columns, visit movies.insidepulse.com.

God bless the Japanese. As a country, they might enjoy technical advancements, social prosperity and a lovely education system but when it comes to monsters, they are shit out of luck.

Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay, or Battle Girl as I will refer to it from now on, is a 1991 Japanese zombie movie scheduled for release on DVD in February from Synapse films.

Japanese female wrestler Cutie Suzuki plays the titular (huh huh) Battle Girl, a woman sent on a rescue mission to help the survivors of a deadly zombie outbreak that has overtaken Tokyo.

To help her combat the horde of deadly zombies swarming the city streets, K-ko, the Battle Girl, is armed with a Battle Suit — a body-armor get-up that comes with all kinds of essential features: bullet-proof pads, hidden blades and retractable sunglasses. Now the epitome of cool, K-ko is ready to kick some zombie tail.

Unfortunately for our heroine, zombies are not the only threat she has to contend with. An evil military genius has gone rouge and is using the zombies in an experiment designed to further his goal of world conquest. Using a version of the very bacteria that causes zombification (a mixture equal parts meteor goop and ocean water sludge), the general is creating an army of unstoppable zombie solders — brain-eating killers that can not only repair any wound but are proficient at using military weapons.

Even worse, K-ko must combat the general’s elite task squad of soldiers — The Monsters. These fools are a group of androgynous football pad-clad warriors with ridiculous looking face paint that leaves them looking like KISS castoffs.

When she’s not kicking in the soft, green goo-filled faces of zombies and evil solders alike, K-ko must gather up survivors and lead them to safety.

Trouble comes, though, due to an invisible shield that was put up immediately after the zombie outbreak. This barrier has not only turned Tokyo into a dark dreary post-apocalyptic wasteland, it fries anybody who tries to cross it — including a poor hapless pooch who finds death at the hands of the granddaddy of all invisible fences.

To the tune of a cheesy synth soundtrack, K-ko uses a variety of weapons to dispatch both zombies and solders with extreme prejudice.

Using all the various early ‘90s gore special effects at his disposal, director Kazuo “Gaira” Komizu showers the screen with all the bright green zombie blood he can afford.

Battle Girl is a bad movie — of that there is no question. What’s debatable, though, is whether or not it’s a fun movie.

While I can appreciate a cheesy Japanese zombie movie as much as the next guy (a bit more then the next guy, some might argue), there was just something missing from Battle Girl that was needed to get my nether-regions all wet with excitement.

Maybe it was the lack of a tongue-in-check attitude or the extremely slow progression of the story, but the film was just not the cheesy exploitation gorefest I had hoped it would be.

It certainly has tone and atmosphere — that’s not in debate. Komizu does an excellent job of building a dark and foggy Tokyo that could be right out of a Ridley Scott film. But that’s about where the comparisons to Blade Runner end.

Not insightful or original enough to be considered a classic for its quality, Battle Girl is also not terrible enough to recommend for its campiness.

If you are a huge fan of Japanese zombie movies or the thought of a live-action anime staring a female wrestler who has body armor designed to accentuate her breasts sounds like your idea of a wet dream, then by all means check out Battle Girl. Otherwise, there is absolutely no need to break down the doors of your video store in an attempt to pick this flick up.

Robert Saucedo is also neither insightful nor original enough to be considered a classic. Follow him on Twitter anyway @robsaucedo2500.