Rating: **
Review Date: 1/1/19
Cast: Kanna Hashimoto
Thirty-five years later, someone decided to make a sequel to "Sailor Suit And Machine Gun" (1981). After avenging the death of her Yakuza boss father, Izumi Hoshi (Kanna Hashimoto) just wants to be a normal high school girl. Unfortunately, drug dealers, rival gangs, shady businessmen, and corrupt politicians get in her way and make things tough on her. After losing her friends and being pushed to the edge, she finally picks up her trusty machine gun again and storms the enemy's office building. But her fury only leads to impotence, and even though she haphazardly sprays a lot of bullets, she can't actually pull the trigger on the villain himself. It's a good thing her subordinates step in and take care of business for her.
Just like its predecessor, the film is long-winded and dreadfully dull. The camera work is sloppy, the cinematography is weak, and the lighting tends to be awful. Kanna Hashimoto is cute and fun to watch, but she lacks the ability to carry the entire film. The action scenes aren't very good, and it's laughable how many bad guys can shoot at pointblank range and not manage to hit anything. That takes an amazing amount of skill. Sadly, Kanna Hashimoto's action scenes are weak and unconvincing, and she only succeeds in shooting the floor and ceiling. This really drains the drama and tension out of her revenge story. The innocent romance angle fares a little better, and her budding relationship with a Yakuza enforcer is predictably doomed. The music is forgettable, and when Izumi finally graduates, she inexplicably sings a song onstage for her classmates. I had low expectations going into the film, and it pretty much turned out to be a complete waste of time.