Meet Rei. She’s yet another member of the clique of Japanese female assassins, immortalized in movies like Beautiful Weapon, Beautiful Killing Machine, the Zero Woman series (of which this movie is but one of many entries) and Wicked Hot Japanese Girl Who Kills People. OK, I fudged the last one. However, a lot of these movies follow a very set plot: an attractive female assassin for a shadowy corporation/secret government agency/The Shriners is tired of her killin’ ways and wants out. Unfortunately, they won’t let her go so easily, and she has to fight her way out tooth and nail. Think La Femme Nikita (Yay!) or Point Of No Return (Eww!), and you’ve hit the nail pretty square on the head.

Unfortunately, most of these films lack the extra touch that made Nikita great and PONR at least somewhat watchable: be it Luc Besson’s great characterizations, hopeful message of love, or smooth direction, or PONR’s big budget easy on the eyes but painful on the brain execution, these Japanese attempts usually end up ringing quite hollow. Sometimes, you can get a well-done character drama like Beautiful Weapon (review here), but most of the time, it ends up being rather silly, and not in a good way.

We’re thrown headfirst into the film as Rei is committing a daring swimming pool hit, garroting her German diplomat victim underwater (the only cool part of the film), then clumsily blasting her way out. The beginning credits roll, then she’s suddenly being throttled by an American wrestler-looking dude whom she, of course, shoots the crap out of. Guess she took her foreign relations cues from Dubya. The film becomes even more random, as she has flashbacks, gets frequent massages from a woman with a scar, attempts a clumsy romance with a Izod-clad waiter at an Italian restaurant , is coerced into being the hostess for said Italian restaurant (no, I’m not kidding), gets into a gunfight at the fair (while on a date with her annoyingly ignorant beau), and has nightmares which make little to no sense.

Maybe I’m being too hard on the movie because I have no surrounding context in which to review it. The whole time I felt like I was walking into the movie an hour late (sans armload of greasy concession food), as I had almost no idea what half of Rei’s little "quirks" were all about: why did she drop marbles into a fishbowl after each kill? What’s the deal with the little girl whom Rei remembers from her youth shooting her? It’s certainly quite confusing, and doesn’t make the movie any more enjoyable or accessible.

Even worse is the gross miscasting of Rei. The actress playing her, Mikiyo Ohono, is one of the least convincing professional assassins I’ve ever seen. While she may be attractive (the main draw of the movie), she simply doesn’t convey the "killing machine" vibe. When you’re trying to make your main character seem like a tough-as-nails killer, having her run like a toddler and wield her gun like she’s never held one before is the last thing you want to have. She didn’t seem comfortable doing the role, and that was her downfall. Many people may try to say "She looks uncomfortable because she hates her job!" but that doesn’t hold water. Simply put, it’s like casting Brittany Murphy in a remake of Red Sonja, Ted Nugent in Patch Adams, or Carl Lyon: Post-Apocalyptic Gynecologist. It just doesn‘t work.

Asia Pulp Cinema’s presentation of this thoroughly mediocre film is admirable, ironically enough. The soap opera production values are pushed hard, and the picture quality is quite nice, although some digital artifacts pop up in the dimmer scenes. Audio is Dolby Stereo, either Japanese with removable English subs, or a wince-inducing English dub. Extras include outtakes, a still gallery, and a crapload of trailers.

To put it simply, this movie just doesn’t do it right. It doesn’t deserve to be in your collection unless you’re a glutton for hot Japanese female killer action. Needless to say, there’s simply no reason to hunt for this Zero Woman. Bam!

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