Chanbara Striptease

Title -

Chanbara Striptease

Language - Japanese

genre -  chanbara, Ninja, time travel BooBs

I came across this film whilst looking for the second Chanbara Beauty film. A lot of sites recommended it or seemed to put it as a third film in the series.  I think it is just because it has a similar title and is stylistically similar but Chanbara Striptease has no connection to the Bikini Zombie Hunter games.  In fact it doesn’t even have zombies in it, it does have Ninjas and boobs.

 Chanbara Striptease starts with Lili, the youngest member of her family as she is about to receive the secrets of ‘Sayama Hashinryu’ a secret way of fighting that is past down to one woman of each generation.  It is a fighting style so dangerous that no one who has ever come across it has lived to tell the tale.

Lili’s grandmother starts the ceremony by checking if Lili is sure she wants the burden of Sayama Hashinryu.  Lili agrees to the burden and is presented with a sword and a box containing the sacred nightgown, which she is told not to open unless she is in dire danger.  Lili is then blindfolded and told to drink a strange potion. 

When Lili takes the blindfold off she finds that she is in a forest and completely naked, next to her is the box with the nightgown and the sword.  Lili goes of to put the nightgown on and emerges just in time to see a young woman being attacked by three ninjas.  Using the skills of the Sayama Hashinryu Lili defeats the ninjas, killing one of them and helps the woman back to her village.  Lili finds out that the Ninjas are lead by Lady Okinu and are demanding protection money from them; she also finds out that she has gone back in time around 300 years, to the period that the Sayama Hashinryu was first used.

Whilst in the village Lili falls in love with a man named Hikochi and vows to protect the village but, in her first fight Lady Okinu uses the Sayama Hashinryu and Lili starts to fade away as she is about to kill her. This makes Lili think that Lady Okinu is the first user of the Sayama Hashinryu and if she kills her then the future will be changed and Lili will not exist.

Whilst deciding what next Lady Okinu goes to the villagers and tells them she will stop the demands for money if they hand over Lili, this leaves Lili little option but continue the fight.

So the plot to Chanbara Striptease is half decent until you realise that to charge up the Sayama Hashinryu Lili (and lady Okinu) have to take off there tops, this some how frees purple energy that comes from their breasts and makes them almost unstoppable.  There is also a hint that having sex before a fight may increases the strength of the attacks but it may have just been that sex feels good.  Needless to say there is a lot of fighting and a small amount of sex.

I did enjoy the film but it was pretty terrible, Lili was not trained in any way in how to use the Sayama Hashinryu, she just appears in the past and knows to ‘drop her top’ when she is attacked.  The affects are not great but are about the same quality as the ‘Chambara Beauty’ films but with added sound effects when the breasts start swinging, again this happens a lot.

Then there are the ninjas, now these are, surprisingly all male, I would have thought that in a film that is set up to get breast on the screen at least some of the ninjas would be female but they are your normal run of the mill, black clad Ninjas.  That is except for two of them and these are almost set up as ‘mid level boss’s’ but with no explanation for why they are different.  One looks like a budget Ryuk for death note.

                                                    The middle ninja

                                                                   Ryuk from Death note

The other has his head covered with bandages.  The latter of the two seems to just disappear after his fight and not in a cool ninja puff of smoke it’s just like they’d finished with him so he was no longer included.

This brings us to the time travel, in part this is covered quite well, in a film where bear breast can enhance fighting prowess I can believe that a potion can send you back in time.  The film seems like it is going to try to tackle paradox theory but then that just seems to fizzle out.  We don’t find out why Lady Okinu know the Sayama Hashinryu and, with out spoiling too much we don’t actually find out how the person who does start the school of Sayama Hashinryu actually leans it or passes in on to anyone.

Then there is the final battle.  It seems that those who possess the Sayama Hashinryu are protected by breasts that cannot be harmed by swords and the fighting style possesses some interesting moves.  I can cope with holding your sword between your breasts, it would be, I imagine an odd weight but your power is in your breasts so I guess it’s ok but can anyone explain how you would fire the sword from between said bosoms.    

So, is Chanbara Striptease a bad film? Yes it’s an obvious attempt to put as breast on the screen as possible and, in some places the acting is flatter then the cast but, it’s a good sort of bad.  There is an attempt of a story.  There is some thought gone into the time travel aspect, there are sword fights and Ninjas and, for those of us with no pretence of culture there are always BOOBS.

I am almost expecting some one to bring out an anime of this possibly along the lines of Samurai Princess.