Beautiful Weapon (XX: utsukushiki
kyoki)
Director: Kazuo Komizu
Year: 1994
Running Time: 93 minutes
In the pitch black darkness moans fill the
space with a sexual urgency until two brief flashes signal the completion
not only of the act itself but also of someone’s life. A beautiful woman with
long black hair and bright red seductive lips makes her way to the couch
in her living room and pours herself a drink and cuddles up to her doll.
She (Masumi Miyazaki) is an assassin for the Yakuza – but a very specialized
one – all her hits are done in her bedroom (no commuting to work!) after
she has sex with the man and he is at his most defenseless – two small shots
to the head. Afterwards, a cleaner comes in and takes the body away – no
fuss, no muss. Even with all these great benefits, her work is driving her
to drink and self-pity, but she feels like she deserves this “dirty work”
for things unexplained done in the past. She is also blind.
Of course in Japanese film blindness is no obstacle when it comes to killing
people and they have a great tradition of being an equal opportunity employer
when it comes to the handicapped – Zatoichi, Crimson Bat and the Whipmaster
(in the Wicked Priest series) were all blind and all very deadly. In fact
blindness seems to actually be an advantage in the killing game as you are
forced to enhance all your other senses. The Whipmaster can smell blood and
Zatoichi can hear an ant crawl. This woman (whose name we never learn) isn’t
quite at that level yet – but she can smell the sexual desire in the men
who are brought to her for their final feeding frenzy.
Kenji (Masao Kosakari) is a piano player in a bar with a sideline as a hitman
for the mob – but he is no longer a star – his drinking and his attitude
have made him undependable in the eyes of Masahiko (Kunio Murai) who assigns
killings to his stable of talent (including the woman). How could you trust
anyone who can play “I’m in a Sentimental Mood” to carry out a hit? So Masahiko
has turned over most of the work to a young stud and Kenji wants to find
out who he is. So one night he follows Masahiko who picks up this new assassin
and takes him out to the woman’s house with instructions to kill her – but
not until after having had sex with her and Kenji sees the whole thing unfold
as the young killer becomes one more notch on her bedpost. Apparently he
was getting too cocky. Afterwards he watches her and falls in love “with
a woman who cried herself to sleep”. A few days later, Masahiko comes to Kenji
with an assignment – there is this woman who needs killing – but not until
after you have slept with her. Kenji goes along. After all he is in love
with this woman and though some might have performance anxiety knowing that
at the end of the ecstasy you may likely be killed – but not Kenji who is
a fairly cool guy with slicked back hair and Pierce Brosnan looks. He also
winces a lot when he downs slugs of whisky which shows that he is tough but
tender.
For what I assume was a straight to video production, this is a solid piece
of work with an interesting story, decent acting and some nice camera work
and editing. There is not a lot of action though – in fact practically none
– one might assume the budget would not allow it. Other budget limitations
are indicated by the fact that most of the film takes place inside three
different locations – the woman’s house, the bar and the house of the big
boss. It is really more of a drama and a mildly perverse love story with
a few flashes of gunshots mixed in with a sizable amount of nudity – all
seemingly very directed towards a male audience in tune with their feelings!
A few other films that Masumi appears in are "Be-Bop High School", "Yumeji"
directed by Seijun Suzuki (which played at Cannes) as well as appearing in
some J-Dorama’s like "Stewardess’s Sweetheart" and "Hotel Story". Primarily
though if you put her name in the Google search engine, you will get a long
list of sites with the word “nude” in it! Director Kazuo Komizu had his share
of extreme cult hits before this - "Entrails of a Virgin", "Entrails of a
Beautiful Woman" and "Living Dead in Tokyo Bay" so in comparsion this is
pretty mild stuff.
My rating for this film: 6.0