Rating: D-
Dir: Louis DeStefano
Star: Masashi Ishizuka, Chris Spinelli, Emiko Ishii, Everett Smith
If you want a tutorial on how not to make a movie, you could do worse than watch this low-budget abomination. The first scene is supposedly set in Japan – the stock photo of Mount Fuji before it, is the big clue. But it’s clearly a Californian parking lot, where Japanese undercover cop Kenji Kai (Ishizuka) chases his yakuza boss target, Masa, who looks like the director ordered Beat Takeshi on Temu. They yell at each other in heavily accented English, before the gangster is shot dead. After that thoroughly unimpressive gun-battle is over (CGI muzzle flashes and absolutely no blood at all), Kenji is sent over to Los Angeles to continue the investigation, where he is partnered up with local detective, Chris (Spinelli). But someone is out for revenge on Kenji for taking out Masa.
The main problem is the lead actor’s unfamiliarity with English. Oh, it’s serviceable enough, in terms of getting across information. But I’ve seen better acting performances from the GPS in my car. Now, I can’t really criticize: Ishizuka’s English is considerably better than my Japanese. But nobody is casting me in the next Sion Sono film. The irritating thing is, the film does have a couple of scenes where Kenji gets to speak Japanese, subtitled in English, and the difference is palpable. They should have gone that route entirely. Mind you, this doesn’t explain why American Chris’s delivery of his lines is uninteresting. Maybe he was being charitable, and doing so out of solidarity with the struggles of his co-star.
My feelings toward this are not helped by the massive bait and switch performed by the poster, because the film contains very little Yakuza girl-ing, especially when it comes to swinging a sword. There is a girl, Miko (Ishii), and to her credit, she can actually deliver a line in a way that doesn’t make it seem she was handed the script ten seconds earlier. Had the film focused on her, and delivered something in the same solar-system of the title… Well, it might have reached the dizzying heights of “almost tolerable.” Instead, we get mind-numbing interrogation sequences which will sap your will to live.
As a result, when a major character is left at death’s door, there is basically no impact. We didn’t care about them when they were alive, so why should we care about them now? I guess it’s apparent that the other people are intended to give a damn, but their reaction certainly doesn’t transfer to the audience. The various plot points are painfully slow to reach any kind of resolution, and when they do, they generate very little reaction either. What you will get is further terrible, bloodless and poorly choreographed action, such as a sword-fight in a house where the makers were clearly more concerned about getting their AirBnB deposit back. This should come with a disclaimer: no home decor was harmed in the making of this film.