MARIA (2019) **** OUT OF ****

Filipino film director Pedring A. Lopez’s fearsome but formulaic female revenge thriller “Maria,” headlining Christina Reyes, makes the gun-toting, blade-wielding, karate chopping dames in “La Femme Nitika,” “Peppermint,” “Atomic Blonde,” and “Anya” look like Girl Scouts soliciting for their annual cookie drive. Clocking in at a nimble 90 minutes, “Maria” never wears out its welcome, though it relies primarily on an inventory of cliches to propel its ballistic yarn. Several factors distinguish this low budget actioneer and enhance its spectacle, principally a persuasive cast, acrobatic combat choreography, atmospheric settings, a sympathetic heroine, thoroughly despicable villains, and some extreme violence in its depiction of its unsavory subject matter. Sensitive souls who abhor graphic violence should skip this bloodthirsty carnage in this martial-arts action thriller.

“Maria” follows the unfortunate fate of a Filipino assassin formerly known as the Black Rose assassin Lily. Our courageous heroine staged her own death, so she could quit the cartel, disappear into obscurity, and start a family. Guess her hormones were crying out to her. Now, after seven years, things are looking pretty rosy for our protagonist. Maria has  married Bert (Guji Lorenzana of “Silong”) who is a decent guy. They have a rambunctious daughter, Min-Min (Johanna Rish Tongcua of “Once Before”) and they indulge her every whim. Predictably, Lopez presents a portrait of domestic family bliss fuzzy with sentiment. Meantime, the Black Rose cartel that Maria deserted is monitoring a controversial gubernatorial race. They don’t like the way things is shaping up and they send their henchmen out to cover it. Maria’s old lover Kaleb (Germaine De Leon of “Here Comes the Boom”) from her Black Rose days reacts with understandable shock when he spots her in a picture at a rally taken by one of his henchmen. Immediately, Kaleb informs his father, the chieftain of the Black Rose cartel, Ricardo  (Freddy Webb of “Etiquette for Mistresses”), about his alarming discovery. Although Kaleb vows to liquidate the dame himself for her treachery, Victor (KC Montero of “Kubot: The Aswang Chronicles 2”) has nothing but contempt for Ricardo’s son. Nevertheless, Kaleb and his gunmen crash Maria’s house without warning and gun down not only Bert but also kill Min-Min! Now, there is no going backwards. Maria vows to rub out her enemies with extreme prejudice, no matter how long it takes her. She convinces her mentor, Greg (Ronnie Lazaro of “Gospel of the Beast”), to provide her with not only sanctuary but also furnish her with an arsenal of weapons to wage her own private war. The only thing keeping Greg from suffering reprisals for aiding and abetting Maria is a gentleman’s agreement with the Black Rose cartel. Imagine that: honor among these thieves.

You’ve seen this kind of high body count thriller dozens of time. What “Maria” lacks in originality, Lopez more than compensates with blood, gore, and more. Moreover, this predictable but exciting yarn never runs out of steam. Of course, Maria whips everybody’s butts! No surprises there! Nevertheless, the violence in the cartel scenes is pretty toxic. Ricardo loves to torture those whom he suspects are traitors within his ranks. Moreover, he  is prepared to do some rather vile things. We see two hefty fellows strung up like beef in a slaughter house who have been beaten half to death. The cartel chieftain is chewing them out before he has two cute little babes with automatic pistols clean the wax out of their ears with lead! The CGI splashes of blood are brief but punctual! Later, the cartel torture a naked man strewn on a table. After beating the poor soul to a pulp but not enough to loosen his tongue, they resort to a mechanical enema, thrusting a rod up his anus. Yes, the guy screams like a stuck hog.  Indeed, if you’ve ever endured a prostrate biopsy, you can sympathize with this fellow’s plight. Granted, these scenes are excessive, but they prove that the Black Rose cartel is not a Sunday School outfit. Their indifference to murder in all forms is clearly sociopathic. Sensitive souls may shrink from these scenes. If ever a mob needed massacring, the Black Rose does and it gets its just comeuppance. As the alpha female, Christina Reyes lives up to her reputation and thwarts her old employers. Word is a sequel is in the works, too.

THE BATMAN (2022) **** OUT OF ****

Prepare yourself for a different kind of Caped Crusader in "The Batman" as a ripped Robert Pattinson dons the cape and cowl. A grave looking Bruce Wayne wonders after two years of crime fighting if he is making a difference. Pattinson's version of Bruce Wayne may be the youngest iteration of The Batman. In fact, he refers to himself as 'Vengeance' rather than Batman and spends more time on crime than climbing the social ladder. Get ready for some heavyweight drama, too. "Cloverfield" writer & director Matt Reeves and "Hunger Games" co-scripter Peter Craig put Pattinson through the wringer in what amounts to a "Mad Max" spin on the Detective Comics hero. Awash in shadowy 1940s film noir lighting, nothing about "The Batman" is either lighthearted or romantic. Gotham City is a sinister Sodom and Gomorrah on the eve of a critical mayoral election. This grim murder mystery about byzantine corruption in both the police department and the district attorney's office has a sliver of the sadistic "Saw" franchise in its DNA. A nonentity who calls himself 'the Riddler' wants to wash away all that evil with some Old Testament retribution. Meantime, The Batman encounters slinky Selina Kyle, (Zoë Kravitz of "X-Men: First Class"), aka Catwoman, who is searching for a friend gone missing. Predictably, the Bat and the Cat team up for different reasons to contend with a hazmat clad Riddler who looks nothing like the spandex-clad Jim Carrey in "Batman Forever" (1995). Watching this grim, serious-minded melodrama, you'll feel like you're caught in a storm without an umbrella because "The Batman" is dark, rainy and ominous. Basically, you'd need a hacksaw to carve the doom-laden atmosphere, especially when it clocks in at 176 marathon minutes. Reeves deliberately takes his time piecing together each part of the puzzling plot without giving away anything. Oscar-winning "Up" composer Michael Giacchino's orchestral score heightens both the suspense and sharpens the chills with a variety of musical cues.

"The Batman" feels more like David Fincher's serial killer thriller "Se7en" (1995), co-starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, than a luminescent, lightweight, costume-clad crimefighting caper. Mind you, nobody has solved the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne twenty years before, and the tragedy still clouds Bruce Wayne's psyche. We see this younger version of Bruce suited up more often as The Batman rather than modeling the latest sartorial fashions with a gold digger hanging onto his elbow. Crime preoccupies The Batman, and he has trouble keeping out of trouble with the Gotham City Police. Although he has won the trust and support of Detective Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright of "No Time to Die"), most of Gordon's skeptical superiors and subordinates regard the Caped Crusader with considerable suspicion. Mind you, the criminal element have even less use for him. Blue collar crooks cringe when the Bat signal illuminates the skies. Mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro of "The Big Lebowski") and the Penguin, Oswald Cobblepot (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell of "Daredevil") dismiss The Batman as a rank amateur. Carmine knew Bruce Wayne when the latter was a child, but he doesn't suspect the orphaned Wayne is The Batman. Neither does Carmine take Selina Kyle seriously either. Actually, she serves drinks in the Penguin's shady nightclub that serves as a front for Carmine's minions. Rarely do we see The Riddler (a bespectacled Paul Dano of "Swiss Army Man") until the last half hour. He doesn't appear very intimidating and that makes him seem twice as intimidating. The Riddler's riddles aren't bright and witty, but dark and dangerous. He has orchestrated a massive maneuver that makes the January 6th riot at the Capitol in Washington, D. C. look like child's play. The huge difference here is writer & director Matt Reeves makes everything appear both plausible and chilling in its audacity. No, extraterrestrials don't enter the fray like in "Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016) or either version of "Justice League" (2017).

"The Batman" begins as a slow burn whodunit as our protagonist assembles clues, but there is no shortage of action. This Batman isn't afraid to tango even when the opposition outnumber him. The harrowing demolition derby freeway chase through Gotham City with The Batman hauling butt after the Penguin is a genuine showstopper. The new, stripped-down, Batmobile muscle car looks nothing like any earlier incarnations of the renowned vehicle. Indeed, this Batmobile has a predatory appearance. Interestingly enough, The Batman relies on his trusty Bat motorcycle to zip from here to there with his cape fluttering in the breeze. Reeves doesn't dwell on many Batman gadgets like a James Bond thriller. While Reeves and Craig are more focused on narrative realism, they equip our hero with some clever gadgets. For example, the smart contact lenses with built-in cameras that recognize and identify people are extraordinary. Occasionally, things don't always work out as smoothly for our hero as he expects them. The scene where The Batman BASE jumps from a skyscraper at night to elude capture goes awry when he deploys his parachute too early. Reeves and Craig surround Pattinson with a sterling cast of infamous characters, and they put the Caped Crusader into some predicaments he cannot get out of even with his gadgetry. Unlike previous incarnations of Batman, Pattinson will have the chance to age in the role, because Warner Brothers has signed him up for a trilogy. He has the tenacity of Michael Keaton's Batman, the guile of Christian Bale's Batman, but he lacks the brawn of Ben Affleck's Batman. Nevertheless, in his freshman outing, Pattinson looks like he has gotten off on the right foot. All quibbles aside, "The Batman" is off to a promising start!

THE WAGES OF FEAR (FRENCH-2024) *** OUT OF ****

No, “Earth and Blood” director Julien Leclercq’s remake of “The Wages of Fear” doesn’t eclipse the grim, black & white, Henri-Georges Clouzot original made in 1953, starring Yves Montand. Nevertheless, Leclercq generates more than enough thrills and chills to keep spectators poised on the edge of their collective seats during its brisk 104-minute runtime. This taut tale chronicles the Herculean efforts of a group of desperate men and a woman driving trucks laden with Nitroglycerin across treacherous terrain to snuff out a calamitous oil well fire. Earlier, terrorists had sparked this blaze when they attacked the site to keep it from being resupplied. Mind you, Leclercq’s version should not be dismissed entirely as disposable. “Cannabis” scenarist Hamid Hlioua and he have reimagined this classic Man versus Nature showdown with similar but different predicaments. Shrewdly, they have altered elements of Clouzot’s masterpiece without tampering with the basic premise. This sprawling spectacle of men against insurmountable odds accomplishing a virtually impossible mission amounts to a tribute to Clouzot’s masterpiece.

The chief difference between this version and previous ones is the setting. Unlike the South American locales in both Clouzot’s classic and William Friedkin’s dazzling remake “Sorcerer” (1977), Leclercq and Hlioua shift the setting to an anonymous Middle Eastern nation bristling with heavily armed rebels, corrupt military officials, and lethal minefields. Specifically, Leclercq lensed this epic in Morocco with its sprawling desert wastelands and towering mountains. Our gritty heroes and heroine must brave an obstacle course consisting not only of an arid desert with mountainous terrain but also trigger-happy gunmen at roadblocks and gimlet-eyed female snipers who kill without a qualm. Were it not harrowing enough, the drivers must cover about 500 miles in under 20 hours to deliver a sufficient amount of nitro to quench the blaze! Two trucks transporting more than enough nitro to excavate another Grand Canyon constitute part of this small convoy. Several armed guards accompany these intrepid truckers, but at least one of them is untrustworthy. Everybody displays credentials that identify them as medical relief personnel. Similarly, they plaster their vehicles with medical relief emblems.
Appropriately enough, Leclercq and Hlioua whittle down the number of characters gradually from the get-go until only a couple survive this white-knuckled odyssey with its nail-biting timetable.
Basically, the premise hasn’t changed much since the 1953 original. An oil well inferno rages out of control in the middle of the desert. Leclercq and Hlioua have upped the ante considerably. Now not only will the well eventually explode, but also the explosion will obliterate an entire village of innocent souls. The clock is literally ticking as our heroes and heroine embark on their mission of mercy. The heroes in Leclercq’s version differ considerably. In both, Clouzot’s original and Friedkin’s remake, the protagonists were destitute individuals. Owing to their extreme character flaws and the hand of fate, these men turned their backs on civilized society and fled to a sanctuary deep in the South American jungles. They gambled that neither the authorities nor any other adversaries looking for payback would follow them to the ends of the earth.
In the Netflix remake, our protagonists are siblings caught up in slightly better circumstances. Fred (Franck Gastambide of “Restless”) and Alex (Alban Lenoir of “AKA”) have reconciled after a tragic incident that landed his brother in prison. Initially, a wealthy client had paid Fred to get him aboard a flight out of a country teetering on the brink of a revolution. Before they could leave, the military gunned down Fred’s client. Earlier, before this man of affluence died, he had paid Fred for his services. When his client wasn’t looking, Fred caught a glimpse of huge stacks of currency which were crammed in the safe. Since the military knew nothing about this loot, Fred wasn’t about to leave this payday behind for them to discover.
After the soldiers shot his client, Fred told Alex about the cache. With this fortune, Fred assured Alex they could return to Paris and live like kings. Moreover, he convinced his reluctant brother to blow the safe because the risks were minimal. Unlike Fred, Alex has a wife and child to consider. Fred had posted himself outside the building as a guard and had watched in mute horror when the soldiers stormed it. Alex had commenced the countdown to blow the safe when the soldiers surprised him. This part of the plot appears in two flashbacks that explain why the brothers were separated. Afterward, the military arrested and imprisoned Alex in a barbaric prison where he was forced to fight his fellow prisoners to survive. Since he is an explosives expert, the corrupt oil company bribed prison officials to release Alex. The brothers resolved their differences and embarked on this journey of hardship. Basically, the relationship between Fred and Alex amounts to this remake’s weakest element because it is rather contrived. Another major departure from Leclercq’s film and the earlier versions is a woman, Clara (Ana Girardot of “Saint Amour”), who accompanies them on this road trip through Hell. Clara is Fred’s girlfriend, and she comes along for the ride as one of the medical assistants.

Of course, Leclercq’s “Wages of Fear” suffers from other contrivances. At one point, a bandit with a machine gun mounted atop a pick-up truck careens after the convoy along a switchback road. The gunner pours a hail of lead into one of the trucks. Miraculously, none of his ill-aimed bullets strike the nitro in either of the vehicles! Had either truck been hit, the entire convoy would have been atomized in a fiery cloud of smoke. Now, the villains could not have destroyed the convoy, otherwise the movie would concluded on an anticlimactic note. Later, the brothers must clear a road sewn with land mines using a spider web of chains to find the mines. Although it suffers from its share of weaknesses, Netflix’s “Wages of Fear” qualifies as an entertaining epic with a stalwart cast and several genuinely traumatic moments.

"WHERE DANGER LIVES" (1950) **** OUT OF ****

“West of Shanghai” director John Farrow’s psychological melodrama “Where Danger Lives” ranks as one of the best all-time film noir thrillers. Furthermore, “Out of the Past” tough guy Robert Mitchum plays a different kind of noir protagonist. Instead of a blue-collar, gun-toting hardnose, Mitchum is cast as a professional, a doctor with a pleasant bedside manner, who neither brandishes a pistol nor beats anybody to a pulp with brass knuckles. Indeed, the first time we lay eyes on him, he is telling an adolescent girl encased in an iron lung a bedtime story about Elmer the Elephant. Nevertheless, like a quintessential noir male, Mitchum swallows every lie this duplicitous dame, Margo (Faith Domergue of “This Island Earth”), conjures up. Mitchum delivers one of his finest performances as Dr. Jeff Cameron, a caring, compassionate, human being who epitomizes the essence of the Hippocratic Oath. His first encounter with the treacherous Margo occurs when this suicidal siren, looking absolutely stunning, is brought in a hospital examination suite. Margo bewitches Jeff, enough that he forfeits all interest in his current girlfriend, nurse Julie Dorn (Maureen O’Sullivan of “Tarzan”), who he had been planning to wed. Comparably, unlike Margo, Julie is neither mysterious nor deceitful.

 

Unfortunately, Jeff is helpless when he comes under the spell cast on him by his leading lady. Domergue gives an equally stalwart performance as the addled dame who leads the clueless Mitchum astray. Later, Margo decides to ditch Jeff to board a plane with her father, Frederick Lannington (Claude Rains of “Casablanca”), and leave Jeff behind. The good doctor refuses to let Margo out of his sight. Boldly, he hires a Yellow Cab to take him out to Margo’s elegant estate. While he visits there, our protagonist learns to his chagrin that Lannington isn’t Margo’s father as she has told him. Instead, Lannington is her husband! Jeff is thunderstruck by this dramatic reversal. She tells Jeff that she married Lannington for his money, and he reciprocates and admits he married Margo for her youth. Lannington ushers Jeff in for drinks. A brief but savage fight erupts between these two with Margo watching the two men clash over her. Frederick seizes a fireplace poker and wields it like a madman, clobbering our hero repeatedly. Finally, Jeff knocks Frederick flat on his back with a fistful of knuckles to chin. The older man staggers backwards from the impact and collapses unconscious by the fireplace.

 

Frederick’s violent blows to Jeff’s head mark a turning point. “39 Steps” scenarist Charles Bennett and “All Through the Night” writer Leo Rosten send Jeff into a bathroom. Farrow stages this scene so we see not only Jeff but also his reflection in a huge mirror while he is bathing his head wounds. For the rest of “Where Danger Lives,” Jeff suffers miserably from the adverse effects of a concussion. Later, he warns Margo that his condition will progressively deteriorate. Eventually, he might not be able to walk. Indeed, Jeff’s prediction comes true, as he steadily go downhill until he pales by comparison to his former self. Actually, this scene serves a pivotal function. Never again is Jeff the same person after his fracas with Frederick. When he comes back to examine Margo’s husband, she informs him that her jealous husband is dead. Initially, Jeff is incredulous. Frederick was still breathing when Jeff left him to bathe his own wounds. Together, Jeff and Margo become a fugitive couple on the lam. They set their sights on the Mexican border, but they must sell Margo’s Cadillac for a vehicle less conspicuous because the police know about it. Ironically, Jeff and Margo never cross the border.

 

“Where Danger Lives” slackens its own suspense when a radio newscaster reveals the cause of Frederick’s death. No, he did not die from a blow to the head. Instead, he died from being smothered under a pillow. Later, Margo in a fit of desperation tries to smother Jeff with a pillow. She doesn’t has enough time to asphyxiate him, because she wants to catch a ride across the border with a theatrical troupe. Despite being nearly suffocated to death, Jeff survives the ordeal and pursues Margo. Now, our misguided hero is in deplorable condition. Wanting nothing more to do with Jeff after she has sold a prized bracelet to get a ride across the line, Margo is shocked to see him staggering after her. Palming a small caliber handgun from her purse, Margo fires several shots at him. An observant lawman nearby blazes away at her with his revolver and Margo goes down. “Where Danger Lives” winds up with a happy ending. Not only is Jeff cleared of Frederick’s murder, but also he rekindles his romance with Julie. John Farrow never lets the momentum slacken in this tense, 82-minute film noir thriller.

"GOD IS A BULLET" (**** OUT OF ****)

"Notebook" helmer Nick Cassavetes's R-rated feature "God Is A Bullet" (2023), toplining Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jamie Foxx, and Maika Monroe, qualifies as an unforgettable crime thriller. Now, using the adjective "unforgettable" to describe a film has been so overdone that you may be inclined to shrug it off. Nevertheless, this 'based on a true story' melodrama takes its violence to heretofore untold levels of sadism. Once you lay eyes on this chilling film, you'll know whence I speak. The depiction of violence here is far beyond what most crime movie aficionados are accustomed to when we watch genre movies. "God Is A Bullet" concerns the search for a teenage girl who has been abducted by a warped family of hooligans who live on the fringe of society and have homicidal tendencies.

Our protagonist is a nice guy, pencil-pushing, sheriff's deputy, Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of "Gods of Egypt"), who has ridden a desk for years and earned little respect from his law enforcement colleagues. A regular churchgoer, Bob believes heart and soul in the word of God. Imagine our hero's alarm when nobody answers the doorbell. He is checking in at the home of his ex-wife and her new husband, so he can see his daughter. Entering the house cautiously with his service pistol drawn, Bob finds the two adults butchered like hogs. His ex-wife's African American husband has been slashed, gashed, and hanged spread eagle from the ceiling by his outstretched arms. He finds his ex-wife riddled with lead and floating face down in an outside pool. Worse, his teenage daughter is missing. The despicable dastards who abducted this innocent girl are the devil's own brood in the flesh. They make Rob Zombie's unhinged hellions look like kindergarten kids. Ghoulish tattoos cover every inch of their bodies. One member of this evil bunch, Case (Maika Monroe of "Independence Day: Resurgence") will quit the gang after the diabolical ringleader, Cyrus (Karl Glusman of "Greyhound"), has kicked her front teeth out of her mouth. Case believes Hightower's daughter is still alive, but for how long she has no idea. This spit and polish sheriff's deputy, decked out in his creased uniform, with his neatly trimmed mustache, struggles to deal with his disaster.

Initially, Hightower doesn't trust Case. He refuses to play by her rules to find his daughter. Case ushers the reluctant Hightower into the world of these subhuman thugs who stole his daughter. Poor Bob must undergo a thorough makeover. He has to shun his boy scout uniform and attire himself like gutter trash. Jamie Foxx appears in a cameo as the 'Ferryman.' He is a legendary tattoo artist who lives in the middle of nowhere. Bob's antagonists are blasphemous maniacs. They suffer no guilt from their depredations, have no conscience, and kill without a qualm. Cyrus has upside down crosses tattooed under his eyes and has no respect for life. In one scene, we see him shoot one of his relatives in the head at point blank range without any warning so her brains splatter the wall nearby like strawberry jam. We're talking about the vile scum of the earth. Reluctantly, Mr. Formal, Nice-Guy Deputy must turn into one of these predators to rescue his daughter.

Not only is Bob compelled to remake himself in the image of his enemies, but he must also renounce all of his Christian beliefs. Once Bob and the villains have met each other in a standoff of sorts, the ringleader Cyrus decides to slip him a surprise present. These fiends catch a rattlesnake, pin it down to a table, and inject the reptile with a solution (presumably speed). The rattler's tail shivers twice as fast, and Cyrus stashes it in a bag and sends a disciple to slip it in Bob's unattended truck. Unbeknownst to him, Bob climbs into his truck, spots the bag, and hoists it into his lap to check it. This rattlesnake surges out of the bag like a whip being cracked and strikes our hero several times. He has to shoot the snake to keep it from streaming more venom into his neck. Afterward, Case takes him to the 'Ferryman' and Bob has to undergo a long process of recovery. Such is Bob's tenacity that he bounces back from this debacle. Nevertheless, the end is no closer in sight because the villains are prepared for him. Bob's arranges a swap with Cyrus involving a bag full of money in return for his daughter. The showdown commences in a quarry with fireworks exploding in starbursts while Bob takes down the bad guys without an ounce of remorse.

Clocking in at two hours and thirty-five minutes, "God Is A Bullet" amounts to a clenched jaw, white-knuckled, ordeal that features heavyweight toxic villains who are scary as all get-out. Director Nick Cassavetes also wrote the screenplay based it on pseudonymous American author Boston Teran's novel which was based on a true story. If you're sick of predictable, namby-pamby crime thrillers, "God Is A Bullet" will hit you like a Mac truck and leave you stunned by its revelations.

"GUN WOMAN" (2014) *** OUT OF ****

Premises don't come either more outlandish or extreme than "Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf" writer & director Kurando Mitsutake's far-fetched, gruesome, but riveting revenge thriller "Gun Woman" with Japanese actress Asami as the eponymous heroine. For the record, Asami is the same actress who appeared in all five installments of the "Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead" series. Although it isn't a ten-star masterpiece, there is more going on in this absurd but satisfying epic about an insane doctor who exacts vengeance on the deranged killer who murdered of his wife in cold blood.

The Mastermind (Kairi Narita of "Into the Sun") is a brilliant surgeon with an uncanny ability to erase knife wounds. After the exiled son of Hamazaki (Noriaki Kamata of "Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf") rapes and kills the Mastermind's wife, snapping her neck in a fit of glee, he kicks the poor doctor nearly to death, breaks one of the guy's legs, and then-the ultimate indignity-urinates on him! Nevertheless, he lets the poor slob live! This psycho villain surrounds himself day and night by a goon squad of bodyguards, and he indulges in the most heinous kind of pleasure know to mankind-necrophilia. The revenge driven Mastermind learns Hamazaki's son visits a remote place known as "the room" where he can screw the dead. The site is maintained by some weirdos who thoroughly check out the corpses as well as the customers before they allow them on the premises. This is the only place where Hamazaki's son can venture into without being under the vigilant eyes of his army of bodyguards. This off-the-grid place provides guards of their own. As it turns out, the Mastermind bribes one of the employees who verifies the dead are really defunct. Next, the Mastermind buys a drug addict, Mayumi (Asami of "The Machine Girl"), from human traffickers and rehabilitates her so she is no longer a meth addict. Redemption saves the day?

Afterward, she learns how to dismantle an automatic pistol, reassemble it, and then empty a magazine of 13 cartridges into a target in under 20 seconds! As he explains to Mayumi, she will masquerade as a corpse in the room. Since the naked bodies are inspected before they are brought into the site, the Mastermind gives her an injection of a drug that will make her appear lifeless. Meantime, he surgically implants the two main parts of a 9mm automatic pistol in her breast and abdomen with the clip stuffed presumably in her vagina. Basically, she smuggles her gun inside her body since she has no other way to take it into the facility. Before our heroine embarks on this outrageous mission, she watches as the Mastermind murders another girl as a demonstration to show Mayumi that once she has extracted the firearm from her body, she has 25 minutes to carry out the execution of Hamazaki's lunatic son. After the 25 minutes elapses, she may die from loss of blood. Naturally, nothing in life is a picnic. Our death-defying heroine makes it into the facility and recovers from the effects of the drug which enables her to play possum, she tangles with a brawny guard. Although the guards and employees have weapons, these weapons have been modified so that only they can discharge them. Our heroine must kill three of these guards before she can get a crack at the heinously demented son. Mitsutake frames the story with another story about an assassin-a bespectacled, mustached American (Matthew Floyd Miller of "Stan the Man") who shoots a woman twice in the head while she is taking a shower-and then is driven to an extraction point in Las Vegas by a contract wheel man (Dean Simone of "Dumb Money") who discuss the bizarre death of Hamazaki's son while they cruise from Los Angeles to Sin City.

Predictably, "Gun Woman" wallows in nudity, blood, gore, and violence. Nevertheless, writer & director Kurando Mitsutake has designed it strictly as a soft-core porno potboiler. The pay-off from the book-ends of the framing story set up is terrific. Now, the acting is nothing that the Oscars would recognize, but "Gun Woman" will hold your attention throughout its 85 minutes, and Mitsutake never deviates from the main plot or squanders a second of screen time. Not for the squeamish, this imaginative but graphic shoot'em up gives new meaning to carrying concealed weapons.