Hard Revenge Milly (2008) and Hard Revenge Milly Bloody battle (2009)

It doesnt take long for Hard revenge Milly to show that it will be great fun, when the lead character splits open a bad guy with her sword, giving us those glorious sprays of blood that only happen in Japanese movies. There must be something seriously wrong with the Japanese people, only a small nick in the skin results in a bloodspray two meters into the air. And we do get a lot of these here.

This is actually two movies, the first only 45 minutes long named Hard Revenge Milly and a 70 minute long sequel called Hard Revenge Milly - Bloody battle. It is set in Yokohama after some sort of war, stylishly postapocalyptic yet with working cellphones, telling the story about Milly, a woman out for revenge towards the Jack Brothers who killed her family and butchered her. Actually, they killed her husband, set fire to her baby and threw it against the wall all while cutting her to pieces. Seriously, I have no idea how she survived the treatment she got as she is stabbed in the gut over and over and over again. As we learn in the fullength sequel, a somewhat disturbed doctor rebuilt her body with mechanical parts, giving her some extra powers that do come in handy. Milly gets her revenge, violently, but the Jack brothers have more friends than she knows, as she will soon learn. In the meantime a young woman seeks Milly out wanting to hire her to get revenge for her dead lover, something that will have even more consequences.

You have to love a movie that has a scenetransition beginning with someone shaking a can of beer, opening it and then the movie cuts to a geyser of blood from a head sliced open. As plain and simple entertainment goes, this is top quality stuff. Writer/director Takanori Tsujimoto has a good eye for stylized fightscenes full of well choreographed violence, and that violence is lovely over the top. If you've seen Tokyo gore police, Machine girls and/or all the other fun movies of the new Japanese gorewave, you know what to expect (They even share the same makeupsfx artist). Storywise, both of the movies arent anything special, variations of the age old revengetheme with a sprinkle of Frankenstein but together with some excellent lowbudget visuals. Actingwise, both movies benefit greatly from the presence of the lovely Miki Mizuno as Milly, an actress who does seem to be a fairly accomplished martial arts artist(I havent watched the extras yet, but another review I read suggested this) and she carries the movie well. The other actors do a fine job, if theý have speaking roles or are there to be cannonfodder for Millys sword or shotgunleg. Yes, shotgunleg.

Excellent stuff indeed. Truly recommended.