XX: Beautiful Hunter (1994)

Sorry, this movie sucks

One of my all time favorites.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Adopted at a young age, "Shion" (Makiko Kuno) was raised to be an assassin for a religious cult which also doubles as a crime syndicate. However, during one of her missions a target named "Ito" (Johnny Okara) manages to escape and carries with him photos that could destroy the crime syndicate. As a result, Shion pursues Ito with the intention of retrieving the photos and killing him. However, when she finally corners him, she suddenly has a change of heart and lets him live. One thing leads to another and soon they become romantically involved--and this creates a terrible situation for both of them. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that it had one really good thing going for it—the presence of Makiko Kuno who was absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, there were some scenes that I thought were a bit too graphic--and in some cases simply unnecessary—which ended up hurting the movie somewhat. But other than that I thought everything else was pretty good. That said, I rate this movie as slightly above average.

There is not a lot of story here: woman becomes a hit-man for a blind "priest" who leads a crime family. She is caught on camera by a third-rate news photographer. She falls in love with him.But, there are three interesting details about the movie that made it somewhat interesting.First, the incredibly beautiful Japanese star, Makiko Kuno. She also makes the movie worth watching.Secondly, as many times as i have seen someone begging for their life, I have never seen a situation like the one in this movie. Let's just say that Johnny Okura used his tongue for more than words and hit the jackpot.Finally, there is the torture when Kuno was caught. I do not think the CIA will rendition any Americans to japan for torture. Despite the use of an electrified prod as a dildo, the fact that Kuno and Okura could make love once they escaped shows that Maiko Kazama is not a good torturer.Despite the fact that I did not find this one great, I will be looking for more Makiko Kuno under directors Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Takashi Miike.

I mainly picked this one up because the director did one of my favorite pinku films, WIFE TO BE SACRIFICED. Being that BEAUTIFUL HUNTER was made 20 years later, I wasn't expecting it to be quite the same, and it wasn't - but it was a fun enough diversion...Shion has been trained to kill since she was a child. Her latest mission goes wrong when a photographer catches her in the act of executing some witnesses. She finds the photographer and scares him into giving up the pics and negatives - but after he gives her some head (?!?), she goes home, masturbates with her gun, and realizes she's in love with the photographer. Shion's mentor tells her that she must kill the photographer because he is a liability - but Shion refuses and the two go on the run. With her mentor and his gang gunning for her and her boyfriend, Shion is going to have to use all her skills to stay alive...BEAUTIFUL HUNTER is an entertaining "shoot-'em-up" action film with some of the sleazy sex elements that pinku fans have come to love. An "interesting" torture sequence featuring some whipping and creative use of a cattle-prod are especially of note. I wouldn't rank this one among my favorite favorite Japanese exploit-style films (typically preferring the 60s-80s era stuff to the newer ones), but it's worth a look to genre fans...7.5/10

Plotting and logic are not this film's strongest points: just the usual story of a female assassin (with impossibly good aim) who falls in love with one of her targets and wants to start a new life, but in this line of business "There's No Easy Way Out", as that song in "Rocky IV" said. Basically, "Beautiful Hunter" is an exercise in perversity: of the two main characters, the woman caresses her own naked body with a gun, gets whipped, electrocuted and kills about 20 people, while the man performs oral sex on her to save his life (!), gets shot multiple times and stabbed in the neck with a pen. The female lead is compelling, but this film needed a stronger script to work. By the way, I watched the dubbed version, and the dubbing is surprisingly unobtrusive. (**)