Gun Woman (2014)

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General		Extras
Category	Action / Horror	Theatrical Trailer-x 4 Gallery-Photo Trailer-Monster Films releases x 8
Rating
Year Of Production	2014
Running Time	82:39 (Case: 86)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Kurando Mitsutake
Studio Distributor	Gryphon Entertainment	Starring	Asami Kairi Narita Noriaki R Kamata Matthew Miller Dean F Simone
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Dean Harada

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, extra scene after end credits

     Gun Woman starts with a gunman (Matthew Miller) murdering a woman in her shower. He exits the house and gets into a car with a driver (Dean F Simone) and the two travel across the desert heading for Las Vegas. During the drive they talk about the killing of a Japanese man named Hamazaki (Noriaki R Kamata), a wealthy, crazed serial killer into various kinds of perverted sex. Hamazaki had raped and murdered the wife of a doctor (Kairi Narita) and maimed the doctor before leaving Japan for the US where he was well protected. So the doctor planned a special revenge; he purchased a female sex slave and meth addict named Mayumi (Asami) and prepared her to kill Hamazaki when he was at his most vulnerable, during sex. This involved the Doctor surgically inserted the parts of a gun into Mayumi’s body and once near Hamazaki Mayumi had to break the stitches, reassemble the gun and kill Hamazaki before she bled to death. What happened, and the relationship between the two in the car and Hamazaki, is revealed by the end of the film.

     Gun Woman features full frontal nudity as Asami, her body covered only with blood, embarks upon her mission. Asami is a well-known face in Japanese gorefest films and has had roles in films such as Machine Girl (2008), RoboGeisha (2009) and Mutant Girls Squad (2010). Those films, while replete with blood, gore and gruesome special effects, were horror / comedies; in contrast Gun Woman has no comedy elements, intentional or otherwise; it receives a justified R rating in Australia and is certainly not for the squeamish as there are scenes of blood and gore, rape, torture, violence towards women and necrophilia that are hard to watch.

     Asami is obviously a good sport, going through a lot of the film being doused in water, punished with a grueling training regime or performing stunts naked and covered in blood, and she is certainly a compelling presence. The performance of the others in the cast varies: Kairi Narita is good as the doctor bent on revenge by any means but Noriaki R Kamata is just too crazy for words and the English language actors Matthew Miller and Dean F Simone are hampered by some very clunky dialogue, probably a result of the dialogue originally being written in Japanese by writer / director Kurando Mitsutake.

     Gun Woman is only Mitsutake’s second feature, after Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf (2009), in which he also played the lead, and he and cinematographer Toshiyuki Imai throw in a plethora of film school camera tricks including jumpy hand held cameras, lens flare, intentional glare and slow motion that, together with jerky, quick cut editing, gets a bit distracting especially when backed by a loud rock score. Subtle does not form part of this film’s vocabulary!

     Gun Woman is a crazy, violent, disturbing, bloody film in the genre of J-gore films such as RoboGeisha but without the humour. However, the film is far enough out there enough to be of interest to fans, Japanese actress Asami is certainly worth watching and the seemingly unrelated stories do merge in the end.

Video

     Gun Woman is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, the original ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     As noted, this is a film which uses a range of camera tricks that do effect how the print looks. Close-ups are sharp enough and colours generally vivid, with the blood a deep crimson but backgrounds are often soft. Blacks and shadow detail are OK, brightness levels and contrasts deliberately vary. Skin tones however are natural.

     Artefacts and marks were not evident.

     English subtitles in a pale yellow font appear for the sections of Japanese dialogue, although they can be turned off if people understand both English and Japanese. There are some errors, including “maybe it’s no? so bad” at 48:20.

     The layer change at 46:17 created a pause in the middle of a scene.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio is English / Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 at a low 192 Kbps. It is surround encoded.

     Both the Japanese and English dialogue was clear. Effects were understandably dull although the gunshots did have some sharpness. A little music and ambient effects were redirected to the rears and the subwoofer did add a bit of depth to the wind and the music.

     The score by Dean Harada was loud and sometimes intrusive, which suited the film!

     There were no lip synchronisation issues.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers

     Four trailers for Gun Woman (2:00, 1:04, 1:04, 0:34). They use basically the same footage but different music.

On Set Slideshow (13:19

     On set slides of the cast and crew. No music, the slides advance automatically.

More from Monster Pictures

     On start-up there is an ad for action figures Champions of Zorb then trailers for ABCs of Death 2, Dark Tourist, Devil’s Tower, Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla and Throwback that collectively run 9:22 minutes. These trailers can also be selected from the menu plus trailers for The Search for Weng Weng (2:56), Found (2:03) and Raven’s Cabin (1:55).

     The Region 2 UK release of Gun Woman looks to be the same as ours and there is not currently a Region 1 US release. The Japanese Region A Blu-ray is not English friendly and has no extras listed.

     Gun Woman is not for the squeamish and it lacks the comedy elements of earlier J-gore films but Asami is certainly worth watching and the film is crazy enough to be enjoyed by fans. Not a film to show to your grandmother however.

     The video and audio are functional. Extras are trailers and some stills.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall