Watching this movie from the beginning can entice one into thinking that this is going to be a seductive flick. A female assassin eliminates her target with such stealth that while massaging him she kills him and muffles his scream--which is completely unrealistic as if her hands are made of the toughest metal or plastic or whatever. However, it does strike a match that she is expendable, since she is killed off by her target's henchmen with an RPG. So this is what we have to expect: seductive killers, mind-blowing martial arts--as if(!)
Unfortunately there is more to come to leave one flat-out: wooden dialogue, child abuse, murderous rampage that will make or break the audience, levels of anguish felt by the parents of kidnapped girls (11 - 15 years of age). It will be truly shocking for anyone watching this movie that revolves around the plight of kidnapped children whose lives are further decapitated and childhood scarred for life. Anyone with a conscience would suffer from the very minute of this movie.
There is a police officer on the case, and he hasn't even given himself a time off knowing that every child in this category is being exploited and deprived of their childhood. I can sympathize with him even if he cannot keep his office or himself clean and hygienic. That does not matter when every little girl is being prepared into masseuse assailants, and every mother and father has to endure sleepless nights and vigils for them.
Sometimes it can be a blessing as well as a curse for the girls to be kidnapped and rounded up into the same prison camp. They do form a kinship with each other and bond together anytime they conceive a scheme to escape, though this does not seem to suffice more than once in this movie. As they grow up into women they grow more intimate and form something of a strong instinct to kill, which proves more controversial in one scene of the ultimate test--where they are forced to kill each other even if they had nothing against each other to begin with. One would wonder where this idea came from, and even movie critics would question this as being derivative. Once again I find this scene so distressful and unwatchable that it might as well be a degraded ripoff from the Japanese movie Battle Royale (2000). It took me time to recap this movie but it has dawned on me that part of this movie borrowed elements from the aforementioned film. In the film schoolchildren have to kill each other till the last one stands, in this film it is almost similar. In either case, this one scene alone is far too disturbing.
By the way, there are several instances of unnecessary slow-motion in fight scenes. This does not enhance the tension or the weight of the drama, but prolongs the misery and heartache watching women fight each other for nothing. The fight scenes themselves are nothing spectacular, and the slow motion certainly does not help one bit. There are some fight scenes where the effects from The Matrix (1999) do pay off, however the motivation for these women to fight each other still drowns it out completely. And yes they either pay homage to past martial arts movies or just rip them off completely, including The Matrix (1999).
Once again exploitation is rife in this film. For no real reason to uncover, these women have been sedated and raped by lascivious goons who high-five each other as they violate these poor souls. As if forcing them to kill off the least hateful friend-cum-enemies wasn't gut-wrenching enough, they have to be forcefully deflowered before they can undergo any mission. (And yes, this montage is accompanied by slow-motion.) I guess these rapes are symbolic that they must turn a man on before permanently turning him off.
Isn't it grossly ironic that the boss lady behind all this regime is sitting back witnessing the atrocities against these females? I mean a chauvinistic man I can understand, but a woman? I just can't overlook this at all. She allows men under her and beside her to violate her fellow women like "China Dolls". It disgusts me so deeply.
I must have forgotten to mention that during some fight scenes there are these sound effects created as a result of air friction. they occur during choreographed fights, and also where they are least necessary such as where even Polaroids are being hurled around. Isn't that excessive?
If you love hot chicks and some martial arts, watch this movie. However, anyone with any functional brain cell would rather steer clear of this festering pile of feces because I would not stand for child abduction, brutal training montages, rape, forced violence and the torture parents have to endure losing their female child. Not to mention the lack of originality of this movie overall, though I do have acknowledge that anyone would enjoy some moments if they have not even heard of the other original movies this one ripped off from. This movie belongs to those movies I would rather review than watch again because of the misogynistic undertones.
No comments:
Post a Comment