Yakuza Hunters: Final Death Ride Battle (Japan 2010)

Rating: **
Review Date: 6/2/18
Cast: Asami

It takes more than being tased in the neck, shot through the heart, and buried in a quarry to keep Asami down. This homage to the pinky violence films of the 1970's features Asami as a girl gang leader who comes back from certain death to get revenge on the yakuza clan that ruined her life. She takes refuge at Dr. Inokuma's house with some other girls that survived the yakuza massacre, and they eventually launch an attack against the bad guys and their sadistic leader, Miss Junko. Asami manages to get her revenge and escape before the cops show up, but without any fingers on her left hand.

Asami is delightful throughout, and the outrageously trashy outfits and hairstyles harken back to the garish sensibilities of the 70's and 80's. The movie does a good job of evoking the pinky violence style, with a funky soundtrack, drug trafficking, extreme makeup, and lots of women behaving badly. There's even a musical number with a ridiculous shootout at a nightclub. Asami is an amazing warrior, who can catch bullets and throw them back with deadly force. In one of the film's craziest moments, she manages to kill someone with a pair of severed fingers that she keeps in her bandolier. Naturally, the girls go into battle wearing lingerie, which makes as much sense as anything else the film has to offer, but I'm not one to complain. Asami is such an intense and compelling performer that she can sell pretty much anything and I'd buy it. The action scenes are weak, and gratuitous digital blood effects ruin any potential impact they might have had. Digital blood looks bad to begin with, and in this movie it's especially awful. The production values are pretty low and the lighting is barely competent, but Asami always looks great. She's the only reason to bother watching this otherwise forgettable B-movie mess.