Ghost Killer (2024)

Passive and more than a little alienated college student Fumika Matsuoka (Akari Takaishi) goes through life with only the minimum required amount of enthusiasm. She likes to introduce herself with “just another college student”, which might be the purest expression of non-suicidal youthful ennui possible. Her life takes quite a turn when she picks up a bullet casing on her way home.

Suddenly, Fumika finds herself haunted by the ghost of murdered assassin Kudo (Masanori Mimoto), one of those near-mythical super-fighters doing that kind of job in the movies instead of the boring psychopaths of real life. When she invites him in by giving him her hand, Kudo can even possess Fumika and pilot her body. Kudo believes that he might be able to pass on if Fumika lends him her body to kill the people responsible for his death, which might be preferrable to having a middle-aged dead guy hanging around you for the rest of your life.

Fumika, a woman of a generally non-murderous disposition, isn’t into the idea of lending her body for bloody vengeance at first, but after Kudo helps her out with some toxic masculinity problems that turn out to be not completely unrelated to his former business, his vengeance might also save her life.

Kensuke Sonomura is the action and martial arts choreographer of the rather wonderful Baby Assassins movies, but his own directorial efforts until now suffered from scripts too bare-bones even for action movies. Getting Baby Assassins writer/director Yugo Sakamoto to do the scripting honours and teaming up straight action actor Mimoto with half of Baby Assassins’ leads in form of Takaishi finally brings out the best in the guy – turns out Sonomura’s love for intricately choreographed and highly technical martial arts fights also mixes wonderfully with Sakamoto’s sense of humour and humanity when Sonomura’s the man on the director’s chair. There’s a sense of human stakes here Sonomura’s earlier films lacked for me. As in the Baby Assassins films, Takaishi’s style of expressive acting is a wonderful foible for the more limited talents of a great action actor/actress in this regard, while she is by now able to show off some pretty great on-screen action chops as well, though the film does shift to Mimoto’s body for about half of the action.

Pleasantly, and frankly surprisingly, given how Japanese films often go, there are no attempts at sexualising the relationship of the main characters – in fact, the early victims of some righteous ass-whupping are the only creeps of that sort on screen here. In fact, one of the ways the film justifies the increasing violence is by showing us an action-movified version of the kind of crap women all too often have to go through in real life.

While the action is as fast (and I mean fast), furious and regular as one would hope for, and the jokes as well-timed as expected, the emotional beats are just as important to Ghost Killer, so these characters in their somewhat absurd world and situation feel believable  and real enough to care about. And even though Kudo is quite the bad-ass, this isn’t the case of a Steven Seagal bully “hero” – there are physical and emotional stakes here that turn this into more than a pure action display.

In short: Hydra (2019)

Takashi (Masanori Mimoto) is a quiet yet rather intense guy working as a cook in the titular small restaurant/bar in Tokyo. He’s a bit of a mystery to young bar owner Rina (Miu), but she clearly sees him as her slightly weird brotherly protector. Which Takashi in a way is, for he once worked as an assassin for a secret group murdering untouchable baddies in ways that don’t embarrass the establishment. Rina’s father (Yoji Tanaka), who officially disappeared three years ago, was something of Takashi’s mentor, yet it is also Takashi who is responsible for his death.

Obviously, the past is not going to stay dead, and soon Rina and Takashi will find themselves enmeshed in a fight between Takashi’s old group and a much more malevolent force that operates in a similar style.

Kensuke Sonomura’s Hydra is a somewhat frustrating film. It’s not because what’s there is bad, but rather because its miniscule 77 minutes runtime (and probably its small budget) is absolutely not enough to flesh out concepts and characters in a way that feels satisfying. I’m usually the first to say a film could use a good shortening, but here, it is absolutely the opposite.

This isn’t quite as bad as it could be because Sonomura (otherwise a stunt specialist) is a rather efficient director who doesn’t waste any time anywhere, though he still does understand the need for calm moments (which also happen to be cheaper). But there’s really only so much anyone can squeeze into any given amount of time, so much of the narrative feels rushed and lacks detail.

On the visual side on the other hand, there’s little to complain about here. Sonomura is particularly good at mood-enhancing shots of Tokyo, but there’s also quite a bit of careful framing in the character moments on display, the sort of basics that make one hope a director will get more opportunities.

Last but certainly not least, the film’s three main action sequences are absolutely great, simple, nearly minimalist in set-up and surroundings but staged and executed with verve and visual intelligence, violent and elegant at the same time.

Which may not turn Hydra into the satisfying narrative it could be, but should certainly make it worth watching.