Bullet Points: Karate Kill
I have learned a lot in my time on Earth but one thing that is possibly the most important is that anything can be accomplished in life using one’s own mastery of karate. That is obviously something that director Kurando Mitsutake has known for some time as he has continued to show love for the martial arts going way back to Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf. It’s never more abundantly clear that karate may be the cure-all to any situation than it is in Karate Kill. The fact that people still enroll their children in colleges and universities instead of seeking out karate masters and having them trained in the art from sun up to sun down baffles me. Boy, are we sheep…
Synopsis: Karate master Kenji’s (played by Hayate) moved to L.A. to be an actress but has recently gone missing. Kenji travels to the West Coast to find that she was abducted by a gang of merciless psychopaths who stream random and gruesome acts of violence on the dark web. Now Kenji must use all the karate skills he possesses to bring down anyone standing in the way of rescuing his little sister.
- Prepare for Karate: The poster for Karate Kill is one of the best I’ve ever seen. The fact that I don’t own it at the moment is devastating to me. It’s not exactly accurate in its depictions of some of the characters but between the title and amazing poster the viewers should most definitely be prepared for plenty of kills using the Japanese art of Karate. They should also be prepared for other amazing things like Asian strippers, former pro wrestlers, and people getting punched so hard their bones explode.
- Wetting the Appetite: Kurando Mitsutake isn’t afraid to show copious amounts of violence. He also isn’t afraid to linger with is camera on the beautiful breasts of a woman. He’s a man after my own heart! But one thing that I love about the Mitsutake films that I’ve seen to this point is that he always starts his movies off with a bang. He grabs you by the balls (figuratively) and then drags you wide-eyed for the length of the movie, all the while teasing you with enough violence to make you start picturing the final kill in your mind. Every minute of screen time for the villains are spent making them more and more monstrous so by the end of the film there is almost no death that will seem worthy. Almost…
- Kenji and Mayumi: As brother and sister, Kenji always promised to look after and protect his sister. That was the reason he learned karate in the first place. When she decided to leave for America, it was a difficult break for the two and one that eventually found Mayumi working in a seedy place trying to earn some extra money. Kenji never stopped thinking about his promise to protect Mayumi, however, and it didn’t take long before Kenji was on a plane to seek out the missing girl.
- Real Bad: Kirk Geiger plays the insane leader Vendenski. The number one psycho who leads the Capital Messiahs. They murder, rape, and do just about any other horrible thing while streaming it live for the weird people at home. Katarina Leigh Water, also known as former WWE Diva Katie Lea Burchill, plays the female eye-patched muscle next to Geiger. Along with his other maniac followers, Vendenski kidnaps Mayumi and another girl from the club they were working in, setting in motion a metric shit-ton of ass kickings.
- Gun Woman: Asami, who played the lead in Gun Woman, shows up midway through the movie as the only person to escape the Capital Messiah group. Now she only has one hand, is really pissed off, and ready to kill every single member of the crazy cult. I had hoped that she was actually playing the same character that she had played in Gun Woman but I guess that might not have fit the story. Either way, it was very cool seeing Asami, especially since she’s basically guaranteed to get naked at some point and everyone knows I love me some solid nudie scenes. Especially a Top Gun-like sex scene featuring a woman with a hook.
- Never Enough: When someone kidnaps your little sister and does horrible things to her, there is no amount of violence where I would stop them and say “Whoa man, don’t you think that’s enough?” Kenji certainly isn’t looking to talk it over with anyone. That fact that he spends his time learning to dodge bullets (literally) like David Blaine should tell you that he isn’t there to pay a ransom. Early in the film we’re treated to a pretty long uncut fight scene which soon leads to a very bloody climax. Dudes get their ears ripped off, some throats get sliced a prosthetic limb, and a guy has one of the gnarliest hand breaks in recent memory. The action in Karate Kill is almost non-stop, which is what you should have probably expected when you saw the poster featuring more than half a dozen people aiming guns and fists at you.
Unless you’re out there avenging the kidnapping of your own siblings then you need to sit down and partake in these Bonus Bullet Points:
- A belt full of shotgun shells looks cool but how does one reload a shotgun with only one hand?
- No karate movie is complete without the kata/training sequence.
- Why do police always have such terrible timing in movies?
- Mayumi is played by the unbelievably cute Mana Sakura. She may have stolen my heart, and I got a major Weird Science vibe from her outfit.
The Verdict: Karate Kill is excellent in all the ways that a movie of this kind should be. It is exploitative in its use of blood, violence, female nudity, and all the other things that I love in action movies. If the Predator had shown up halfway through to fight Rocky and Dutch then it would be my new favorite movie. Watch it if you’re looking for a movie to watch with your friends, drink a few beers, and maybe then browse for nude photos of the actresses involved. You won’t be disappointed.
