COUNTER-ATTACK OF THE KAZAMA SISTERS (1988, Japan)
Region 1 DVD (Tokyo Shock)
A brief look at the second Schoolgirl Cop movie.
This film followed the third and final TV series. But with more characters and a more involved plot, this film is not nearly as much fun.
Having debuted in the first movie, 17 yr-old Yui (the Sukeban Deka III) shares this movie with her two older sisters, Yuka and Yuma. She is now working for a the Juvenile Security Bureau, a student police force tackling juvenile crime with vicious triple-bladed yoyos!
But Yui rebels against the heavy-handed tactics and quits the force. Teaming up with her sisters and a gang of young outcasts, she tries to prove that the bureau is corrupt - creating crimes to justify their own existence...
The overly complex and political plot doesn't sit well with the patently silly array of weapons our heroines have to use - Yui's sisters have only got knitting needles and a metal origami crane!
Also, there are fewer opportunities for hand-to-hand fighting - there's more cars, tanks, boats and even a blimp - but less time for karate and Yo-yo action! Because of the more complex stunts, the girls are obviously stunt-doubled too.
The fight scenes are also less convincing. The first has Yui leaping out of a river (how?) and diving single-handed into a fist fight with 6 henchmen.
The behind-the-scenes programme makes more sense of the set-up, when we learn that "the Kazama sisters" are a singing trio in real life, performing concerts between shooting days! We also see how they've done a very good job of making actresss Yui Asaka look so young.
The movie lacks much of the originality and simplicity of the first, more low-rent action, but fewer memorable characters.
Mark H
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