Reviewed By

Christopher Armstead
If the little girl, Shion, dressed in the tiny nuns uniform, who looks to be about six, wants to be a Warrior of God, then she has to take the .45 that Blind Father (Kozi Shimizu) has given her and simply pump the petrified man chained in the chair full of hot lead.  That's it.  I mean who doesn't want to be Warrior of God?  The little girl does this thing and while she's upset about it, a Warrior of God is born.  Or more accurately, if we want to roll with the title, a 'Beautiful Hunter' is born.

Fast forward ten years, according to the movie, though I'd guess it's more like twenty since Shion (Makiko Kuno) looks to be about twenty eight, and no doubt she's beautiful and we assume she hunts.  She has just received her latest assignment from the Holy Church of the Murdering Lunatics and she jumps in the van to handle her business.  Unbeknownst to Shion and the other priests in the van is that they are being followed by an investigative reporter named Ito (Johnny Okura) and his best friend.  Don't ask me how they got the scoop on these psychos but they are on the trail.

Shion shows up at the gig, and we gotta admit she didn't do much hunting since wasting these people was pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel, but she did do it with a minimum of bullets and that was some economy we can appreciate.  Somehow, however, a maid got away.  Somehow she ended up in the sedan being driven by Ito and his boy and Shion and her crew are now on their trail.  Ito, on his friend's suggestion, leaps out of the car so he can live to tell the tale, and he tragically witnesses Shion execute his friend as well as the maid, but at least he made it.

Not for long though because Shion is well aware of Ito's existence.  Eventually Shion tracks Ito down, gets the photos she needs and back at his place was about to put him out of his
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misery, but my man falls down crying and screaming like a big old sissy, and just by chance, during this pathetic begging session, his face falls in Shion's crotch.  And her left titty magically pops out when this happens too.  Apparently Shion has never had a face fall in her crotch and this is having a strange effect on the young woman.  Hmmm… note to self, when faced with certain death from an assassin, allow my face to fall into said assassins crotch.  Unless this assassin is a dude, in which case I guess I'm a dead man.

Now we have a bit of situation.  The Church of the Murdering Lunatics really needs Ito dead, and Shion really wants to do what the church wants… but it looks like she might be falling in love with the guy.  Maybe it's the white suit or the Elvis side burns… I don't know… but she's got it bad for Ito and he's got it bad for her.  We know why he's falling for her.  If it wasn't for the fact that she's a cold blooded insane killer, Shion would be just about perfect. 

Well, you know as well as I do that you just can't leave the game, the game leaves you.  Shion and Ito tried to run for it, but they suck at that.  The worst ever at that.  Shion is captured and while I would've advised Father to just kill her and get it over with, he needs to make an example out of her and puts his Mistress of Torture Mitsuko (Maika Kazama) on the case.   This lady likes her job a little too much.  I don't want to say much about how she goes about her business, but just think 'electrified billyclub' and its potential uses, and you have an idea of what Shion is up against as she hangs from the ceiling soaking wet.

Ito isn't going to let his girl go out like that however.  Well… he is kind of since Shion had to go through the entire torture sequence before Ito finally made it there to help out a little, but now Shion is free and she's not happy.  She's going to be way less happier in about ten minutes.  Remember what we told you about Ito and Shion sucking at running away?  The operative word in the term in running away is 'away'.  These kids never did figure that out.  Nonetheless, The Church of the Murderous Lunatics is going to regret doing Shion wrong… Praise the Lord. 

Masaru Konuma's 'XX: Beautiful Hunter' is fairly typical fare in the genre of the Hot Japanese chick Assassin flick, the kind we've seen in those awful Zero Woman movies… but the good thing for us here in this exploitation corner is that 'Beautiful Hunter', heck if we know what the 'XX' stand for, isn't awful.  I mean it's certainly no work of art, with the probable exception of the existence of Makiko Kuno who is tailor made for artistic appreciation, but the movie is kind of fun to sit through.

In addition to Makiko Kuno, we can also attribute a majority of the competence in this film to director Masaru Konuma who has plenty of experience directing this type of controlled nonsense, and believe me… 'Beautiful Hunter' is complete nonsense… but at least it is self-aware nonsense in that it takes itself serious enough not to be total camp, but fully recognizes what kind of movie this is supposed to be.

There were times that movie did drag a little during the middle sections while Ito and Shion were getting to know each other and some of the torture scenes were somewhat difficult to watch, but for some quality Japanese exploitation cinema, 'XX: Beautiful Hunter' isn't so bad.
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