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Great Film overall

Excellent but underrated film

Best movie ever!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This movie begins with a beautiful woman named "Ran" (Kaori Shimamura) stealthily wading ashore from a small boat onto the beach of Ishigaki Island which is a small island that is located near Taiwan but belongs to Japan. Not long afterward Ran enters a restaurant and shoots the leader of the Taiseikai faction of the Yakuza, along with a couple of his bodyguards, and then departs the establishment in great haste. Although only slightly wounded, in order to avoid being caught by members of the police or the Yakuza she takes shelter in a bar owned by a man named "Yoichi Fujinami" (Takeshi Yamato) who just happens to be closing for the night. He notices that Ran is injured and after treating her wounds allows her to stay for the night. It soon becomes known that Ran is an assassin from Hong Kong who is known as "the Black Orchid" and that she isn't quite finished with her mission. Yoichi, on the other hand, is a former member of the Yakuza who has broken off his relationship with them but still retains a close friendship with the man named "Yaguichi" (Takanori Kikuchi) who was the second-in-command of the Taiseikai group and needs to capture or kill Ran as a matter of principle. To further complicate matters, Ran's next assignment is to assassinate the leader of the island's Taiwan mafia who goes by the name of "Ho" (Hakuryu). But with the police, the Taiwan mafia and the Yakuza looking for her this won't be easy by any means. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be a pretty good movie in the "xx Beautiful series". One particular difference is that, although it has a couple of scenes of a sexual nature, the film itself isn't quite as brutal or graphic as some of the others and that actually works to its advantage. Likewise, having an attractive actress like Kaori Shimamura certainly didn't hurt either. In any case, I found the movie to be quite entertaining and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

Keeping straight Japanese girls-with-guns movies with titles like Beautiful Beast, Beautiful Prey and Beautiful Killing machine is no mean task - sort of like trying to keep straight the lesser Baldwin brothers - but unlike the Baldwins, most of these are pretty good. This one features Kaori Shimamura as Ran (aka The Black Orchid), an assassin for the Mob who feels little remorse in killing, since her job mostly involves snuffing rival mobsters. When the Mob targets someone half decent for a change, however, Ran's odd morality forces her to wipe them out on his behalf. The resulting sequence of well-staged shoot-'em-ups deliver enough ventilated cadavers for a whole season of Law and Order. Basically that's the plot. There aren't many surprises, but director Ikeda's trademark slick camera movement and wacky tilts give the exercise a lot of visual style (although his equally trademark shadowy urban landscapes sometimes make the action a bit hard to follow). Kaori looks good and gets topless a fair bit - always a worthy distraction - and the action moves along at a brisk pace. Overall, this is a professionally staged and shot and very slick looking piece of cinema. It's just not a very original one.

A hit-woman goes after the Japanese mafia with a mad-on after her sister is killed. This is a merely ok foreign action flick. Has a few sleazy moments meant to shock. But it doesn't tread any new ground, which is fine as it has a style of to it.My Grade:C-DVD extras: Trailers for Terminatrix, Sumo Vixens, Weather Woman, Blowback: Love and death, Tokyo Mafia: Yakuza Wars; a (not very good) trivia game; & cast biosEye Candy: Kaori Shimamura as Ran (the Black Orchid), has a lengthy nude love scene early on. She's topless later on but in a far less erotic way.

This is a great movie!!! It deals with a serial killer; The suspense is quite good and does not follow the Hollywood convention so you don't know what to expect. Plenty of graphic well done sex scenes. Beware that there is also a graphic rape scene. Still a 9 out of 10.