If you're looking for a zombie flick starring two of the hottest zombie slaying babes to ever slice and dice legions of the undead, Yohei Fokuda's Chanbara Beauty will diplomatically detonate your appetite.
Based on a series of video games from Japanese publisher Tamsoft and D3, Chanbara Beauty unravels in a world populated by the living dead, created in (larger-than-life) mad-scientist Sugita's laboratories. Sugita believes the ancient and purebred blood of a prominent Japanese family will supply him with the ingredient he needs to create obedient super-zombies with whom he can rule the world. In order to do this, he lures Saki (Chise Nakamura), the clan's jealous younger sister, into a sinister plot whereby she becomes his Queen after he murders her unsuspecting father. In retaliation, her older and more talented sister Aya (Eri Otoguro) embarks upon a unilateral and ferociously focused quest for revenge, with the accompaniment of motorcycle-riding-machine-gun-toting Reiko (Manami Hashimoto) and the only Japanese man who eats once every three days and still weighs 280+ pounds.
The secret to Chanbara's beauty is its complete lack of pretension. Inconsequential logical inconsistencies abound which make it evermore the endearing each and every time Aya flips off her dainty cape to reveal her sultry bikini-clad cowboy-hat-wearing frame, in the middle of battle. Reiko's hot too, as is the treacherous Saki, who, during the film's dénouement demonstrates that even the living dead can embody the tenacious and transcendent spirit from whom their lineage was cast.
Do members of the aristocracy possess a god-like heritage which legitimizes their political prowess? Are zombies symbolic representations of the working class and those who attempt to harness their power symbolic dictators who care not for their impoverished needs?
These are questions which Chanbara Beauty thankfully does not try to answer, insofar as their intellectual assiduity would have crushed its kitschy commerce. Some may say it’s just a fun, dumb, run of the schlock zombie flick, with hot babes, and zombie's whom bullets cannot kill, but others, possessing more insight, looking towards the future, will likely note Chanbara's evanescent essence, wherein the entertainment provided by both video games and films are inflamed.
Favourite scene: in the opening moments when Aya leaps into the air and then balances herself by placing each of her high heels into a different zombie's face.
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