- Directed by: Kensuke Sonomura
- Written by: Yugo Sakamoto
- Stars: Akari Takaishi, Mario Kuroba, Masanori Mimoto
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YTtAT3-IyI
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
An ordinary young woman gets stuck with a murdered hitman who wants her help for revenge against those who killed him. The acting and writing is excellent, making an absurd situation seem realistic – sort of anyway. It’s a Japanese film, and we watched a subtitled version – it was worth the read. There’s a lot of dark humor with a body count. A ghost is one of the main characters, but that’s really the only horror element – it’s heavy on action. We both really enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man fights off three knife-wielding ninjas for way longer than is even remotely realistic. He eventually beats the three. Then he runs into a man with a gun, and there’s no fight at all. Credits roll as watch the shooter’s spent bullet casing get kicked all over town.
We cut to Fumika, who’s helping out at a restaurant, and she hates it. She then goes to a bar and talks to a man who’s infatuated with cinnamon. She wants to talk business, but he’s only interested in her. As the sun comes up, she’s had enough of his nonsense and punches him. She then trips and finds that bullet casing. It affects her somehow.
When she gets home she finds her friend Maho waiting for her, but then she sees a strange man in her kitchen. Maho doesn’t see anyone there. The man has a bullet wound in his chest, and he’s bleeding all over. They come to the conclusion that it’s a ghost. Maho leaves, and the ghost shows up again. He talks now.
Later, she can hear his voice in her head– he’s inside her now. She runs out of the apartment and sees Maho’s boyfriend beating her up. The ghost offers Fumika power to help, and she agrees to let him possess her. The now-possessed Fumika is now a super-fighter and knocks him right out.
Fumika, Maho, and the ghost go out for coffee and talk about exorcisms. They figure out that the bullet cartridge did this. Hideo Kudo is his name, and he’s– was a hitman. To make him go away, she needs to kill the man who killed him.
She gets a text from Narumi, the social media influencer. She goes to meet him and runs into Masaki, the cinnamon guy, there as well. She starts getting dizzy and wonders if they drugged her drink. “It worked faster than I thought,” Narumi laughs. Fumika stands back up and asks for Kudo’s help again. Kudo already knows about those two guys. They do this all the time to innocent girls. He warns her that if she fights, she’s the one who’s going to take damage.
She’s ready, and it’s ass-kicking time! The two influencers are easy, but the two waiters are professional fighters. As Kudo leaves her, she finds herself with four dead or unconscious sex traffickers. She’s in a lot of pain from the fight, and it was scary for her. He wants to call in another hitman friend to help deal with the bodies. Kagehara, the other hitman, soon shows up, and she tells him her whole ghost story, and he helps dispose of the bodies.
Kagehara and Fumika talk about “the organization” and the boss’s son, who ordered Kudo’s death. Turns out, their four victims aren’t dead, but Kagehara wants Fumika to shoot them. She refuses, so Kagehara tortures them and finishes them off. Fumika goes home and thanks Kudo for his help today; he appreciates being able to do some good after being evil for so long.
We cut to “The Boss,” who uses a bowling ball to torture the man who killed Kudo. Kagehara turns up and tells what he knows about Fumika. The boss then sends his goons after her, but she’s passed out from all the fighting today. Kudo manages to wake her up and reports that four assassins are outside; Kagehara must have betrayed them. Katsura, the boss’s new main assassin, is outside and watches his men die.
After the ensuing gunfight, she berates him for messing up her apartment. Kagehara appears and warns them both about the boss. This results in another fight, and Kudo realizes that Kagehara was the man who killed him. Kudo understands the position he was in and doesn’t really hold a grudge. After the battle, Fumika, Kudo, and Kagehara are all friends now.
Fumika wants revenge for all this, not just for Kudo’s sake, and Kagehara offers to help them. There are twenty men inside the hideout, and only two physical people on the good guys’ team. That number falls rapidly until Fumika/Kudo has to fight Katsua alone. The battle goes on for a long time. Eventually, the boss shows up with a machine gun and just shoots Katsua. The boss is a bit of an idiot, and he doesn’t last long.
It’s over. No, wait, it’s not. Fumika’s beaten up pretty badly, but she kinda had a good time beating up all the baddies. Kudo is gone. Kagehara promises to end the organization to keep Fumika from getting killed. Later, she finds another cartridge casing on the road and picks it up…
Brian’s Commentary
This blends humor at the ridiculous situation with lots of action and fighting. I like how sometimes we see Fumika fighting, but mostly it’s Kudo, so we know who’s really doing the action. Plus, he’s a trained stuntman and martial artist, and she’s not. They make use of the fact that no one else can see or hear Kudo as he wanders around the enemy stronghold to scout the place and instruct Fumika about exactly where to stand and what to do.
It’s hardly what I’d call a horror film, although there is a ghost, but it’s a lot of fun.
Kevin’s Commentary
The hitman and the young woman made an excellent pair, they really had good chemistry together. Even when she was possessed and playing both characters. The acting, writing, and direction all give a realism to the movie that was really engrossing. Okay, movie fantasy realism. It was cool how Kudo and Fumika worked together with him going in and out of her body, using his invisibility advantage to scope out the bad guys in their lair. But the problem is that while they have Kudo’s experience and fighting knowledge, they have the body of a petite woman.
It is more of an action flick than horror, but I thought it was very entertaining. Big thumbs up from me.