{"id":53,"date":"2007-05-10T16:33:06","date_gmt":"2007-05-11T02:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.studionewmedia.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/10\/dokuritsu-shoujo-gurentai\/"},"modified":"2007-05-10T16:33:06","modified_gmt":"2007-05-11T02:33:06","slug":"dokuritsu-shoujo-gurentai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/05\/10\/dokuritsu-shoujo-gurentai\/","title":{"rendered":"Dokuritsu Shoujo Gurentai"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just watched the DVD of the movie\u00c2\u00a0Dokuritsu Shoujo Gurentai <\/em>(lit. Independence Girl-gang) 2004,\u00c2\u00a0retitled for the USDM as “Samurai Chicks” (Tokyo Shock, 2006).\u00c2\u00a0 I really wish US releasers wouldn’t go messing with the titles,\u00c2\u00a0not only because it is both f#@king unnecessary and is culturally insulting and ignorant, but because it makes it really difficult to identify the movie by the title.\u00c2\u00a0 When I first saw the title listing, I thought it was Samurai Gal 21<\/em> with Koike Eiko and Satou Eriko.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I was elated until I found out that this was a different movie…\u00c2\u00a0after which I remained elated, but for different reasons.\u00c2\u00a0 Viz was one of the first “insipid title” offenders by retitling the USDM release of Shimotsuma Monogatari<\/em> as “Kamikaze Girls”.\u00c2\u00a0 WTF?!<\/p>\n

Anyway, this film is b-grade all the way.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not saying this in a perjorative way – it is as good as anything from Japan shot on HDV in under two weeks!\u00c2\u00a0 The story centers on 4 dancers\u00c2\u00a0who are selected from their school\/agency to train to become assassins in order to bring about revolution in their “Southern island” home.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It’s never spelled out, but with all the references throughout the film, you won’t need to be hit over\u00c2\u00a0the head with a brick that says “Okinawa” on it to figure it out (unless you are completely without\u00c2\u00a0knowledge of post-war Japanese history).\u00c2\u00a0 The girls are shipped off to Tokyo where they perpetrate acts of terrorism based on instructions given them through messages coded into music videos.<\/p>\n

I thought this was riotously funny.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps it is because I remember the whole Amuro\/MAX\/Chinen era when anything\/everything\/anyone from Okinawa was popular whether it had to do with style, music, or “culture”.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Even the names of the 4 MAX-like girls and the Amuro-like character and her horrible song are parodies of the real thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Although taking cues from the real and devisive\u00c2\u00a0movement for autonomy in Okinawa, the film takes liberal jabs at the whole “pop culture export industry” -\u00c2\u00a0from the artists themselves to the “official school” where all pop idols from Okinawa hail from.\u00c2\u00a0 The result is a great parody, mixed with some bad b-grade fighting and\u00c2\u00a0a fair amount of blood.\u00c2\u00a0 It is\u00c2\u00a0the ultimate payback for all those MAX\u00c2\u00a0movies from the 90’s!<\/p>\n

Directorially, it is a little flat and 2D, even though the writing is great and the same person did both.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for a few high-angle shots, it is mostly from eye-level.\u00c2\u00a0 This is more of a story-driven than an image-driven\u00c2\u00a0work.\u00c2\u00a0 The fighting is on the weak side as are\u00c2\u00a0the shootouts, but they\u00c2\u00a0exist to drive the story forward.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0There is an ongoing\u00c2\u00a0narrative throughout the film that\u00c2\u00a0at first seems superfluous, which is core to the story at the conclusion.<\/p>\n

Thumbs up.<\/p>\n

Oh, and look out for duck-assassin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just watched the DVD of the movie\u00c2\u00a0Dokuritsu Shoujo Gurentai (lit. Independence Girl-gang) 2004,\u00c2\u00a0retitled for the USDM as “Samurai Chicks” (Tokyo Shock, 2006).\u00c2\u00a0 I really wish US releasers wouldn’t go messing with the titles,\u00c2\u00a0not only because it is both f#@king unnecessary and is culturally insulting and ignorant, but because it makes it really difficult to identify […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paJYlx-R","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}