Gosh, you gotta love the titles of Japanese SODDTDVD films.
Rei (Maiko Tono) is the amnesiac top agent of the especially secretive Japanese Zero Section. Her top agent status isn't all that impressive anymore when one keeps in mind that she and her boss (who seems to reside inside a metal container - no secretary for you, sir!) also very likely are the only operatives this highly impressive organization possesses.
But woe! Rei's lone wolf ways are in danger when she is assigned young and innocently naive geek girl Sara from the Japanese version of the Center for Disease Control as a partner in her new case. A terrorist group has abducted a government scientist and samples of the highly lethal virus he was working on and are now threatening to let the virus loose on Tokyo, to cleanse the corrupt modern world and build a new and better society.
As if this wouldn't be enough trouble (or even the sort of case on would prioritize), Sara gets it in her head to find out more about her unwilling partner's lost past.
Of course, both plot lines will collide in the end.
Well, the 70s Zero Woman was a lot better (also, you know, played by Miki Sugimoto).
Nonetheless, I have seen much worse films than this. When you are venturing into the abyss that is contemporary Japanese direct to DVD action films without a budget, you have to be happy if you return at all and don't die from the special kind of boredom these films provide.You should also try not to stare into that abyss, of course, or Riki Takeuchi will stare back into you.
Many people don't seem to know it, but the truth about this kind of action film is simple - they usually don't contain much action to speak of (it's just too expensive to shoot), but instead concentrate on so-called drama and character, which mostly manifest through very badly played and not much better written dialogue sequences of often surprising length. The "talk is cheap" rule is in full effect here.
Of course there are exceptions to this. This film is half of one. There is still too much inane dialogue here to make the inexperienced viewer cringe, also a lot of bad acting, but there is a relatively satisfying amount of action here. Some of it is even quite inventive - even though it is shot and cut by someone who had a bad case of the shakes.
Cut twenty minutes, add a little of the sleaze the film promises but then proceeds not to deliver, give your actors a few acting lessons (or more than one take per scene) and you'd have a sprightly little film set in the strange world of cheapest movie Japan - a place without a population, yet full of empty warehouses and ruined buildings.
In this form, it's still a watchable little number, and most certainly the only movie I know in which the terrorist virus plot is only a ruse to manipulate mineral water company stocks (don't ask).
That's something, right?
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