Onechanbara The Movie Review

Let’s make a checklist of things that I like:

Cute Japanese girls? Check.
Girls in fashionable outfits? Check.
Cowgirls? Check.
Samurais? Check.
Schoolgirls? Check
Gun-toating girls? Check.
Zombies? Check?

The fact that a product actually exists that encompasses all of that seems impossible, but that’s exactly what developer D3 did when they created the Onechanbara series of video games in Japan. The only thing better, I thought, was somebody having the courage and passion to take such a masterpiece of storytelling and bring it to the big screen.

Last year, I found out that my wish had actually been granted, as Japanese writer/director Youhei Fukuda took up the unenviable task of trying to translate this epic saga into movie form.

The result? I’m kind of surprised that you could make a movie about a Japanese samurai cowgirl who wears a fur-lined bikini while killing zombies and not have it be the best thing since sliced bread.

Questions as to if the folks behind Onechanbara really understood the source material existed right off the bat, as for the first thirty minutes of the film, we’re treated to scene after scene shot in dark buildings and outside settings. The film’s very own theatrical poster flaunts the unapologetic sex appeal of our main heroine Aya, and actress Eri Otoguro was obviously hired to play the part due more to her visual appeal than her acting or combat training ability—and yet, for a good chunk of the movie’s scant 86 minutes of runtime, she’s presented to us in poorly-lit scene after poorly-lit scene. Why build your movie around an alluring half-dressed leading lady (in a story that can we can pretend justifies such a character), and then hide her in shadows for a good part of the movie?

There’s a bigger problem presented in this element of the film, however. The use of darkness as a creator of mood and atmosphere works only when you’ve got creative minds that know how to use it; if you aren’t quite as talented, then it comes off as a sloppy and lazy way to make up for other aspects of your film that are lacking. Think about the different between Aliens and Alien vs. Predator—one felt like a suspenseful action movie that just so happened to be dimly lit a lot of the time, while the latter was a film where you were constantly annoyed because you couldn’t see what the hell was even supposed to be going on.

The reason I’m making such a big deal out of the unbalanced feeling of Onechanbara in terms of its light and dark scenes is that it also represents the split between good and not-so-good elements of the overall movie. At times throughout the film, the darkness is broken by the light of a welcome daytime shot, just in the same way that—at times throughout the film—some true glimmers of quality and enjoyment break through what can otherwise be a lot of camp without enough fun.

Indeed, Onechanbara does work at times, and when it does, it works pretty well.

Look, seriously Japan—you’ve known about the existence of swords and their use for thousands of years now, so I can no longer forgive you when you make a movie with swordplay that is anything less than stellar. Onechanbara‘s fight scenes can be downright dull at times, yet there are other moments that are completely brilliant. Shockingly, when Aya’s battles with the undead work best are when they are at their most CG-enhanced. As her sword slices through countless bodies with a very video game-esque motion trail, the over-the-top attitude of the game shows through, and the whole thing just feels oh so right. Then, however, hits just don’t have the impact they should have, or other CG effects look ridiculously bad, or whoever was in charge of audio completely missed out on important sound effects that should have been in place, and all of the potential that existed is wasted.

Go watch Kill Bill Vol. 1 again; watch as The Bride battles the Crazy 88. Feel the weight and impact behind every movement and attack. Listen to the sounds and cries of pain. Pay attention to all of the little movements, the dance that takes place between hunter and hunted. Slap Uma in a bikini and swap out masked Yakuza for a zombie horde and you’d have a style and attitude that Onechanbara desperately needed.

Onechanbara is a movie that I really wanted to like, but is one that, while I can’t at all hate it, I also can’t find it in myself to think about watching again. Machine Girl—another example of Japanese B-movie offerings that I watched recently—was also a film that ridiculously failed when it came to its action scenes, and yet totally redeemed itself in its quirky charm and utterly ludicrous storyline and violence. Even if it didn’t have the budget or talent to pull of its zombie-slaying scenes to a level that would have done justice to its gaming heritage, Onechanbara had all of the pieces in place to be one heck of crazy and campy experience. Unfortunately, it was too restrained when it needed to go all out, and too lackadaisical when it needed to try harder.

I still hold out hope for the “Japanese samurai cowboy who wears a fur-lined bikini while killing zombies” movie genre. Somebody ship Quentin a copy of the game and see if maybe he’d give it a shot.

D Poor	Even if it didn’t have the budget or talent to pull of its zombie-slaying scenes to a level that would have done justice to its gaming heritage, Onechanbara had all of the pieces in place to be one heck of crazy and campy experience. Unfortunately, it was too restrained when it needed to go all out, and too lackadaisical when it needed to try harder.
Onechanbara the Movie was reviewed using review code, physical copies, or hardware provided by myself. Scores are graded on a scale of E (Bad) to S (Special) in homage to Japanese video game grading scales, with the understanding that an S still does not denote a "perfect" score. Scores may have been adjusted from the original source to better fit my personal scale.