YAKUZA HUNTERS 2: REVENGE DUEL IN HELL

Blimey, Yakuza Hunters 2? I've only just reviewed the first film, and here we are with another one? Hmm. Judging by the quality of this offering, it's not impossible that it has in fact been made and released since I wrote the review of Yakuza Hunters...to be honest, it would be feasible that this was made in someone's lunch-break.

Right, the plot, such as it is, runs as follows: we start by seeing Reiko, the evil girl gang member turned yakuza harpy from the first film, not preparing herself for revenge as you might expect her to do, but getting dispatched rather unpleasantly with a chainsaw through the crotch. So...even though this is the world of Japanese cinema and people sometimes grow mutant limbs when this sort of thing happens to them, you get the distinct impression that our would-be star is out of the running, not least because I don't think the team behind Yakuza Hunters 2 have the budget for any Machine Girl type shenanigans! Asami, however, is still around, and we see her returning to suburban Japan after another few years away – though the script doesn't tell us what she's been up to, and her girl gang seem to have been long forgotten too. I also thought that the last film was sort of maybe set in the 60s, but that can't be the case, as we're bang up to date in this film with the mobile phones to prove it. Oh, and – spoiler alert – but remember how her fingers all got sliced off in the last outing? They've grown back, amazingly!

Asami goes to see an old friend, a bartender, who helps her to find a place to stay. He explains to her that a yakuza syndicate are making the lives of many of the locals hell by trying to get them to relocate – he's been told to go himself, but he won't. Nor will her new BFF and landlady, Miki, who, wouldn't you know, has a history of yakuza-stomping herself. So that sets up a bit of a ruck waiting to happen, which you'd assume would form the bedrock of the rest of the movie. However, there is very little fighting, or anything you'd expect – a couple of yakuzas vs. Asami sequences, nothing more. As for the 'revenge duel' promised by the title, having killed off the character who might have legitimately wanted revenge on Asami, they need to draft in a new girl. Cue Ms. Akira, who has little to say, not much to do with anything, and – perhaps worst of all – the fighting isn't great. There's no big showdown here.

The first Yakuza Hunters film was by no means a masterpiece, but it rendered itself watchable because it had the sense to keep Asami on-screen for as much of the time as possible, and gave her something to work with, including some very fun, over-the-top scenes. Asami does her damnest here, but there is just very little for her to do. In fact, there doesn't seem to be enough footage here for a feature-length film, to be honest. It scrapes in at one hour and ten minutes, and that's with a fair amount of filler scenes, some material from the prior film, and even a weird 'sorry – missing footage' insert from the director, which you can't tell me is to do anything other than to pass the time! Having no money for a film is one thing – you can see that they had very little to play with in the first movie, for instance – but having no screenplay is quite another. What you get here is almost no plot refracted through a very raw, unpolished-looking film. If you are a fan of Asami, then there are many other films out there which show her off to best advantage; don't come here expecting to see any of the high-falutin' madness she's so good at. Yakuza Hunters 2 is half a film at best, and 'Is that it?!' will be its new slogan. Revenge Duel in Hell, indeed...

Review by Keri O’Shea