Genre – Action
Movie Total Runtime – 1 Hours 13 Minutes
Spoilers – Yes

A RightStuf blind box purchase, I have no idea what this film is about. It is Japanese. It has subs but no Dub. Moving right along.

We start with a fiery car crash in still images switching to a chaotic scene of survivors running or stumbling along. Survivors of what is unclear, since it appears to be a genetic riot. Pregnant woman goes into labor as the unborn child narrates from the future. We skip ahead to a rainy night as a car carrying three men in suits with one handcuffed to a case drives along until running over a woman. She takes offense at that and snags the man with the case with a wire through the back window. The other two men get out to go after their absent third. The woman throws a boob grenade on the street and gasses the men… I am not making this up, she tears off a fake breast and throws the Q-Part on the ground where it emits gas. Amidst the gas, the two begin trying to use guns, but girls two and three take them out. With the aid of girl four, the first recovers the case by severing the arm of the courier and they run off.

We get an awful music number showing on an outdoor billboard as the four stop to watch Billboard Idol with creepy intentness. They interrupt back alley dancers with their own dance moves as limping bum picks up the case stolen earlier. As this provokes no reaction from the girls, I assume this was the plan. Narrator Girl buys bento and gets pestered by an old man who used to be her neighbor. Narrator Girl denies her identity to Old Man Neighbor who continues on mopingly.

Narrator Girl dreams of her backstory as a CGI plane overflies her apartment at a dangerously low altitude. She was at some sort of Dance academy trying to make idols when Limping Man came by, not looking like a bum, and announces he is the instructor for the expert class. She is transferred to the ‘expert’ program, which is not about dance but covert operations. There are not enough distinguishing features between these actresses for me to tell who’s who. I also get the impression that acting talent was not a primary casting criterion, as, well, they do not have any. I don’t speak the language, but they are clearly wooden in performance.

Limping Man and Billboard Idol lead the four into the basement where the other trainees are drilling. We get the backstory that these trainees are to help ‘the kingdom’ gain independence from Japan. I can guess which Kingdom it is, but I’m waiting for confirmation of my assumptions. (Hint it begins with a Ryu and ends with a Kyu). We get a training montage with music unsuited to the montage format. Sick Old Man (no relation to Old Man Neighbor) declares them graduates of the covert academy.

Back in Tokyo, they go to where Limping Man in Bum disguise drops a can containing further instructions. They are targeting the National Security Director who meets the man who lost the case along with his arm in the previous ambush. I can’t tell if the Guard Suits are the same people as from the car or very similar replacements. National Security Director talks about expansion of ‘the base’ and having the American Army keep a closer eye on the supporters of the Kingdom. I’m going to conclude that this is Okinawa, which is in Ryukyu.

For the purposes of this movie, I’m going to stipulate to the existence of a terroristic Ryukyu separatist faction. From what I know of real life, there is not, but this is not a serious movie. For being the office of the National Security Director, there is very little security around his car, and the girls ambush the Guard Suits easily. Fighting four to two, they take out the Guard Suits as the National Security Director gets a shotgun and opens fire. One girl is injured in the leg while the other three flee. National Security Director gloats, even though his whole operation was sloppy as anything.

We get a backstory dream sequence where a propeller plane flies overhead and Narrator Girl’s mom simply falls over dead. She finds a bolt in the mother’s head wound, presumably haven fallen from the plane. She kept the bolt as a memento.

Not-wounded girls run, err… jog unconvincingly, back to the idol billboard for further instructions. They are picked up by Limping Man in a van. They review video from a mole of the captured girl being executed by flamethrower. The effects are so bad that it takes me out of the moment. I understand this is a zero budget film, but even that should have standards. Limping Man announces he’s going back to investigate suspicious things at the academy. The girls announce their intent to continue the mission against the National Security Director. Limping Man gives them Checkov’s Stringed Instrument and drives off.

Narrator Girl has a dream where she is buying bento, the clerk invites her to a dancing event but gets shot by a bullet meant for her. Now awake, she turns on the television to see reports that the academy has been burned to the ground “accidentally” with many of the students and instructors found dead inside. After watching Billboard Idol for a bit, they do their back alley dance routine, but one of them despairs that the organization is dead. Narrator girl talks her back into the mission before the back alley dancers start shooting at them. It is a weak action scene but Narrator Girl is wounded as a swarm of Guard Suits show up. One-armed man begins following the blood trail. The Guard Suits hound the girls through the tunnels until a guy with a fire extinguisher shows up. Yes, a Fire Extinguisher. I suppose it was meant to be the flamethrower dude, but they ran out of money. Girl in yellow takes him out, allowing the others to escape, but gets a ludicrous number of bullets in exchange. She drops a grenade on death, further disrupting pursuit.

Last two girls have a poorly acted heart to heart as Narrator Girl continues to bleed from the gut wound. Girl in red is shot in the head by a Scuba Trooper with a fake duck on his head. Narrator Girl kills Scuba Trooper before she too can be taken out. Nothing about Scuba Trooper is explained – not how he came to be waiting there, nor why nobody checked on his absence as the narrator lays there bleeding till nightfall for her mother’s ghost to show up.

Fine – I’ll come up with something. How about – He’s not with the security services, he was just playing live action reverse duck hunt on hardcore mode.

The Ghost of Narrator Girl’s Mother strokes Narrator Girl’s hair for a bit before she brings Narrator Girl to Old Man Neighbor’s tavern. Old Man Neighbor laments the choices that led him to sell the farm to the Americans and open this tavern. Honestly, it’s the best performance in the movie. Ghost Mom pulls an off camera disappearing act while he’s talking. We get a disjointed sequence of quick cuts to things around the American base before returning to the tiny apartment where Narrator Girl and Old Man Neighbor are. Old Man Neighbor sees the bolt and realizes Ghost Mom was a Ghost, as he already knew she was dead.

Old Man Neighbor stares are the billboard but gets nothing before shopping for groceries and getting tailed by Guard Suits back to his place. Narrator Girl mopes against the wall, staring out the window. When she remains silent, Old Man Neighbor leaves her to open his tavern. Newspaper exposition informs us that Billboard Idol has gone into sudden retirement. We cut to one-armed man with a pack of white coats in a hospital prison, I guess. Billboard Idol has been imprisoned in a padded cell and interrogated but fails to break. Limping Man is also in an adjacent cell but badly burned.

The dead girls silently haunt Narrator girl as the patrons of the tavern turn out to be all security services and gun down Old Man Neighbor. The noise leads Narrator Girl to escape the building and start to flee. Ghost Mom distracts the security services some more, leading to a getaway.

Billboard Idol is led from her cell to… the boiler room I guess. She is strapped into a chair by white coats while the One-Armed Man and National Security Director watch. I think it’s supposed to be an electric chair, but the props are so bad I can’t tell if it’s that or some alternative interrogation device. Anyway, the machine fails because an intruder has opened all the cells and started a fire, then the lights go out. When they come back, the white coats are dead and Billboard Idol is loose. Stumbling through the smoke and the crazies, One-Armed Man and National Security Director try to make their way out.

They find Narrator Girl with Chekov’s Musical Instrument – which has a sword in the neck. She slays some more unnamed staff as the two look for an exit. Narrator Girl links up with Billboard Idol, who is still not all there while a still not dead Limping Man jumps on the National Security Director, pinning him in place. Narrator Girl kills both of them, stabbing through Limping Man to get the National Security Director.

Narrator Girl puts Billboard Idol in a plastic canoe telling her she’ll meet in the Kingdom. Since Billboard Idol is semi-catatonic and has no bearings by which to even interpret the real world, how is she supposed to row from Tokyo to Ryukyu? Or even just to a shore not swarming with Guard Suits?

Narrator Girl faces off against a swarm of Guard Suits with guns using just the musical sword. Narration switches to Billboard Idol who never saw Narrator Girl again.

Roll end credits.

This is a dumb movie in a Glibflicks kind of way. A lot of the commentariat would probably love it to bits. It’s got bad acting, bad effects, an absurd premise, and it doesn’t care, it runs through its plot with the sincerity of somebody who’s convinced themselves they’re a genius.

I think you’d have fun in one way or another.