Why So Blu?

Gun Woman (Blu-ray Review)

Brace yourself for a mind-blowing thriller that delivers high-octane action, blood-soaked violence and a riveting tale of revenge in equal measure.  From director Kurando Mitsutake, who dazed genre fans with his Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf, comes GUN WOMAN, a dark postmodern film-noir starring Japanese gore queen Asami (The Machine Girl, Dead Sushi). Watch crazy meet crazier in this no-holds-barred revenge flick whenGUN WOMAN arrives on Blu-ray™ and DVD from SCREAM FACTORY™.  This film is a blood drenched revenge thriller with a a lot of disturbing elements wound into its finer details.  Its one of the most extreme things I’ve seen Scream Factory put out as well.

Film 

A brilliant doctor vows revenge on a crazy sadistic killer following the murder of his wife… and devises the perfect assassination plan by turning a young woman into the most lethal assassin the world has ever seen. This outrageous plan will unfold in the killer’s heavily fortified underground lair. The lethal assassin will be placed into a temporal state of death and send into the facility as a dead body… but when she wakes, it is everyone else in the compound who will be deprived of their lives.

But there is one catch. What will she use as a weapon? The staff of the underground facility is armed with weapons that have fingerprint authentication systems so it’s impossible for her to use their weapons. The doctor’s genius plan is to surgically hide the gun parts into the woman’s body, so she can rip off her stitches when she wakes, take out the parts, assemble the gun and become the ultimate Gun Woman.

First off, woah!  Scream Factory went extreme on this one.  There’s a ton of nudity, rape, violent sex and necrophilia in this film to go along with a load of blood and gore.  Took me by surprise, but here we are.  I think I even caught a shot of jizz going by in a frame at one point.  And all of this stuff is done by one damn character.  And this guy is a sick sick SICK bastard.  Kudos to the actor who played him, because man, he was just off the handle, disgusting and made me feel uneasy looking at him.

The story here is like a Japanese, extreme, grindhouse version of the La Femme Nikita mold.  Basically a guy trains a junkie woman to go on a big time hit for his own personal revenge.  Its an interesting and entertaining transformation and execution.  The structure is really weird too as it feels like there was this Japanese film that got bought by some American company and this filmed this wraparound with two American actors that doesn’t feel connected to sort of make it more accessible to domestic audiences.  There is a lot of stuff to really take from this movie and like.  On the other side of things, the other side of the coin with this movie not really being that good is all to easy to see.

This script feels like something a middle schooler would right to be “hard, edgy and adult”.  It shows no restraint and wastes too much time on trying to shock and be ridiculous which lessens a lot of the impact of events in the film.  The words and dialogue in the film are ones that come across as very juvenile and inexperienced in life.  There is talk of drugs in the film that just sounds like someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.   Low and behold, yes, the director is an adult.  However, had some of the restraint I asked for been shown, and the editing, pacing and action been a bit stronger and inventive it might have been able to fully overcome these shortcomings on the page.

Gun Woman is all right.  If there’s one thing it is, its entertaining.  The film just is a bit much for likely many.  What the film could have used was another draft or two of its script and a more mature or seasoned director at the helm.  There is something here that could have easily worked, as we’ve seen from the Nikita mold many times in the past.  This one just can’t overall do it.  It does and doesn’t at the same time leaving for an unbalanced feel by the end.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1o80p

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Clarity/Detail: This one has a nice clean, modern digital look.  At times some areas can look smooth, but overall its pretty sharp and detailed.  Clothing fabrics and textures look great.  The workshop/training area has many surfaces that show chips, smudges and defects.  Gun detail features indented lettering, texture and glistening.

Depth:  Three dimensional work, or field depth is pretty good here.  Foreground and background images share some good clarity.  Movements are smooth and characters along with objects look free in their environments.

Black Levels:  Blacks are deep and a little inky.  Some crushing appears but its very minimal. Not a lot of detail lost, mainly just solid shading work.

Color Reproduction:  There aren’t really any big and bright colors here aside from the main villain’s attire (which he barely wears).  But the dingy colors have a nice vivid appeal to them.

Flesh Tones:  Skin tones look natural and consistent.  Skin detail like pores, blemishes, stubble and different tones of dried blood all come through.

Noise/Artifacts: Clean

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English/Japanese 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English/Japanese 2.0 DTS-HD MA

Subtitles: English Subtitles For Japanese Audio Only, English Subtitles For All Dialogue, English Commentary Subtitles For Japanese Commentary

Dynamics:  This is a pretty solid track.  Its above average, more than takes care of the job, but doesn’t really feel huge as it could.  Effects are full and the 5.1 mix is overall nice and loud.  The film is loose like you’d want, with all the effects, vocals and score balancing each other out and never stepping on one another.

Low Frequency Extension:  Gunshots get a boost as well as the score.  The sub provides for some solid moments.

Surround Sound Presentation:  Rear speakers contain some solid ambiance and scoring, but aren’t really entirely active throughout.  The front speakers accurately depict pitch, placement and movement between the front channels.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Dialogue is crisp and clean.

Extras 

Gun Woman’s cover insert features reversible alternate poster art.

Audio Commentary

• With Writer/Director Kurando Mitsutake and Actress Asami (Japanese Audio)
• With Writer/Director Kurando Mitsutake (English Audio)

Making Of Gun Woman (HD, 47:46)  – An extensive look at the film featuring interviews with cast and crew as well as plenty of behind the scenes footage.

Trailers (HD, 3:43)

Summary 

This film was a balance of things to really like and things to not care much for.  The film is quite extreme, and I don’t take issue with that aspect, its more in the how its presented and handled by the script, characters and dialogue.  The extras feature a lot of info on the movie via two commentaries and a lengthy making of.  It looks pretty nice too, feature a really good audio and video transfer.  If you’re looking for some graphic violence, gore, nudity and necrophilia on a evening night or slow afternoon, check it out.