Chanbara Beauty Vortex

Title -

Chanbara Beauty Vortex

Language - Japanese

genre - Zombie, chanbara













 

This is the second film based on the Oneechanbara/bikini zombie hunter games (I’ve reviewed the first film here) but it’s not a sequel in as much as it doesn’t carry on from the first film.  I’m sure if it could be classed as a reboot either as it is based on one of the later games and so the story comes from that and not the early game the first film follows.

Chanbara Beauty Vortex is (loosely) based on the Oneechanbara: Bikini samurai Squad game released for the Xbox 360, which happens to be the only one I’ve played.  The film is set 20 years after the accidental release of the zombies by the organization who are trying to find a way of making themselves immortal.  This time around Aya and Saki are allies and are trying to stop the zombies.  Both of the sisters have Imchi blood, which means that if they get too much blood on them they will go into a berserk like rage.  A woman called Misery meets them and tells them that Himiko, the leader of the Organization wants to use Saki’s blood to finish off the immortality formula; she also manages to convince Saki that she would be able to resurrect her parents but they will also need the blood for another girl. Saki goes along with Misery’s plan and the trick Aya into helping them capture Kei who lives in a camp with other children and is protected by Reiko & Ryo.  Saki and Misery get away with Kei and Aya and Ryo go after them, Reiko is injured and stays behind to look after the rest of the children in the camp.  The rest of the film is taken up by Aya and Ryo’s journey to find Saki and Saki discovering that Misery is not all that she seems.  The film ends with Aya and Ryo catching up with Misery and fighting her for Kei.

As I’ve said Chanbara Beauty Vortex is loosely based up on the Oneechanbara: Bikini samurai squad game for the Xbox 360 and even starts with a shower scene in the same way the game does.  It has the main characters form the game but Reiko’s part in the film is much shorter than in the game and the character of Himiko is different.  The final battle with Misery see’s her using her long spiked sword and the stronger zombies look like men in black rejects.  I was a bit disappointed by the absence of the killer whale zombie; it could have been an amusing addition to the film.

I think that Vortex is the better of the two films.  The Film seems to flow better, there is more time spent on the journey whereas the first film jumps from scene to scene.  Vortex does not seem to use special effects in quite the same way either; there seems to be less use of any magic or any kind of energy blast that the first film had, concentrating more on the rage that the Imchi blood causes.  There are still the blood splats on the camera but as these are part of the game they do fit.

The zombies and the fight scenes also seem a bit better although there are odd bits of continuity that don’t seem to make sense, for example in one of the first fights Aya cuts a zombie in half and the legs and the head remain in motion until she puts he sword through its head but in all other scenes once a zombie has been ‘killed’ it disintegrates even if it’s not killed with a ‘head shot’.  There is also a scene where Aya is fighting with some of the more advanced zombies we see her lose both swords and she gets one for Ryo but after the fight all the swords are back with their rightful owners..

Over all Chanbara Beauty vortex is an entertaining film that doesn’t need much brain power to follow.

Chanbara Beauty (aka Oneechanbara: Movie)

Title

Chanbara Beauty (aka Oneechanbara: Movie)

Language - Japenese

Genre -  fighting, Zombie, Chanbara, Video game

 

Chanbara Beauty is the first of 2 films based on the Oneechanbara & Zombie hunter video games and follows Aya as she hunts for her sister Saki who killed there farther.

Chanbara Beauty is set in the near future; about 10 years after the D3 company has released Zombies upon the world, It’s not fully explained why D3 released the zombies but Dr Sugita, the man who is creating them (and the only person we ever see working for D3) hints that they are looking for Aya.  At the opening of the film we see Zombies attacking a small settlement of humans, just as the Zombies seem to be winning Aya and her sidekick Katsuji enter the fray and Aya kills most of the Zombies, shedding the coat she was wearing to revel her trademark look from the games, a bikini, cowboy boots and hat and a feather bower. A mysterious woman on a motorbike who shoots a zombie that Aya is about to interrogate also joins the fight, I’m not sure what Aya hopes to gain from interrogating the zombie as there is no other point in the film where any of them speak.  Aya and the woman start to fight but Katsuji, who has come out of hiding now all the zombies are dead, breaks this up, the woman introduces herself as Reiko and tells Aya that her sister is with Dr Sugita and she will take her the Doctor if she will help kill him.  The party of three then set off to find Dr Sugita and Saki, apparently leaving the motorbike behind.

The imagery in Chanbara Beauty stays close to the game, you have Aya in her bikini and cowboy boots, Saki in her schoolgirl uniform and Reiko in her cleavage revealing biker leathers and shotgun that never needs to be reloaded.  The journey that the characters take is also like the games, they are in on place and then the next without actual travelling and most of the action takes place in abandoned buildings that soon fill up with hordes of zombies.  The film also uses other imagery form the games, during big fight scenes the camera becomes covered in blood and we get aerial views of Zombies limbs flying through the air.  There is also a ‘boss’ zombie in the form of another girl in a schoolgirl uniform wheedling a ball and chain, possibly a symbolic weapon due to her relationship to one of the other characters is what is chaining them down.  (I could just be seeing too much into this though, I’m not sure that the movie is quite that intelligent)

  The one problem with the film is that it seems to rely on some knowledge of the games, when fighting the zombies Aya pulls off some pretty good moves which could be put down to theatrical license but, as the film progresses she (and Saki) start to blast the area around them with energy from their swords and, at the end of the film they become surrounded with energy and gain super speed and flight.  In the games this is because the two sisters have cursed blood, which enables them to activate their powers, the more they fight and the more they get covered in blood.  The cursed blood is mentioned in the film, indeed it is why Dr Sugita needs Aya as he believes that it is needed to bring the dead back to life without them being total zombies although it’s not explained why Saki’s blood isn’t good enough, but there is never anything mentioned about the blood giving either sister any powers.

Over all I found Chanbara Beauty an enjoyable movie, it’s not high on scares but if you like zombies, action and scantily clad women then it is a good way to kill an hour and a half.