Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Look at that box cover right there will ya?  Let me be the first to tell you that that woman right there, Chieko Shiratori, is the absolute physical truth.  Tall, pretty, shapely, athletic AND she makes her money, at least back in the late nineties when this thing was shot, by being a professional nude model.  As opposed to an amateur nude model I suppose.  She’s so tall (for a Japanese woman at least) and shapely that she would look completely ridiculous in a plaid school girl outfit and white knee high nylons, though I’m sure somewhere some Japanese photog stuffed her in said costume and has snapped some pictures.  As far as the Zero Woman series of movies go, and I think I’ve seen about five of them, Ms. Shiratori is the best Zero Woman of ALL-TIME!  And if you’ve seen a Zero Woman movie then you already know that they are some of the lamest pieces of dreck to come out of the Rising Sun.  Awful, awful, awful movies.  But this one here, ‘Zero Woman: Dangerous Game’, though filled to brim with supreme lameness itself, still sets itself apart as the best of Zero Woman series of movies.

As our film opens, the Zero Woman super assassin Rei (Shiratori) is lounging around her apartment nude after taking a shower, looking mighty depressed and feeding her fish.  Eventually, after sitting around for a good 10 minutes being naked and depressed, she gets dressed, grabs some guns and goes to some location where she kills up some dudes and a doctor, I know he's a doctor because he’s wearing scrubs, who are illegally operating on people.  With those dudes totally dead, she walks out to the car where her boss is waiting for her who is looking real depressed too.  She asks him, still depressed about something, if he wants to fuck, (direct quote mind you) he says no(!?!) explaining in his depressed way that though he likes women, he just too depressed to screw.  I think I just made that last sentence up, but he did say no to free sex with Rei which is just plain crazy.  I’m almost willing to bet that the actor who played the boss probably said yes to that question in twenty straight takes before they convinced him, under the threat of firing, that the answer is ‘no’.  ‘Wanna fuck?’ ‘Why yes I do.’ CUT!  ‘Wanna Fuck?’ ‘Hell to the Yeah!’ CUT!  ‘Wanna Fuck?’ ‘Uhhhh… Line?’ CUT!

Anyway, the dead dudes are part of some black market organ donor ring run by transvestite, cannibalistic mob boss Kanaeda.  Kanaeda’s super irritating moll Nana (Ichucho Matsuda) has decided to roll on Kanaeda and the boss who didn’t want to screw Rei has dispatched her to ‘witness protect’ Nana – at her own house!  Obviously the mobsters didn’t have to look too long and hard to find the woman since she’s right there at her crib, so they bust in and kill up some dude, and were going to ice Nana or something before the Zero Woman came a blasting.  Now the powers that be decide it’s a good idea to move Nana from her own damn house and to somewhere where the mob might not know where she is, so Rei takes her to her house where the two women at first hate each other but soon begin to bond.  If you know what I’m sayin’.  Other stuff happens, like Rei taking more showers and walking around naked and Nana walking around naked and flashbacking to getting punched and screwed by her lover. Then they throw in a lot plot points from seemingly nowhere and then abandon them and then the two women get all Sapphic on us and then there are some shootouts coupled with disconnected confusion.  Roll credits.

‘Zero Woman: Dangerous Game’ is not a good movie.  The story is disjointed, discombobulated and hard to follow, the pacing is erratic, the action lacks energy and the acting is pathetic.  As fun as Chieko Shiratori is to look at, I’m assuming that she must have a hard time remembering lines or smiling on cue as director Hidezaku Takahara gave her very little to do that required dialog or facial expressions.  However, when it comes to walking around nude or taking shower you would be hard pressed to find anyone who does it better than she does.

There really is no dilemma involved for anyone who wishes to see this particular installment of the Zero Woman series.  It’s an unnecessarily complex and confusing story with a nude model for a star who is at the top of her game at what she does.   If you just want to look at Chieko Shiratori naked, and who doesn’t want to see that, then Google Images the girl.  If you want to see her naked and in motion, then you may be stuck watching this movie.  If you want to see naked women and be entertained then you may want to let ‘Zero Woman: Dangerous Game’ slide, and I will tirelessly keep searching for that film to fill that empty void.

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