GUN WOMAN (2014)

Japan. Direction: Kurando Mitsutake. Production: Tomokazu Koseki, Tomokazu Sato, Chiaki Yanagimoto / MAXAM. Screenplay: Kurando Mitsutake, Chiaki Yanagimoto. Photography: Toshiyuki Imai. Music: Dean Harada. Edition: Takamichi Glenn Sawa, Moco Woods, Kurando Mitsutake. Cast: Asami, Kairi Narita, Noriaki R. Kamata, Matthew Miller, Dean F. Simone, Tatsuya Nakadai. Running time: 86 min

LANGUAGE: Japanese / SUBTITLES: English, Spanish

Joe Dante wrote in the press book of this movie from the director of Samurai Avenger (2009) that Asami, Lady Asami, is “brutal, disturbing, terribly stylish and incredibly off her head”. As if we didn’t know that already. We saw her in The Machine Girl (2008) and Dead Sushi (2012), so it comes as no surprise that the queen of rough/robotic/bloody/romantic Japanese film has morphed into a delightfully beautiful killing outfit. A perfect weapon that... bleeds. In the platforms for more or less legally downloading films, this one appears under the “Sadism and gore” heading, a classification to which we would add “fetishism, vengeance, madness...”. Not to mention a hugely powerful soundtrack, a sticky blood texture and gloriously framed brutal aesthetics.