Review of 009-1: The End of the Beginning (2013) by Darth V — 07 Jun 2015

I was gonna point out how this film felt like it was straight out of a manga and, surprise surprise, it's actually based on one. I think it's cool that Japan has a lot of these ridiculously over-the-top action films with female leads in them.

They may have a terribly low-budget, poor special effects, acting and writing, but at the very least they're more willing to do something crazy and silly. Granted, by the same token, a lot of these films have an overtly erotic tone, so that's a bit of a drawback.

This is clearly meant more for the boys than it is action film pushing the empowerment of women in some form or fashion. And this film is no different, honestly. There are a lot of gratuitous and shameless ass and tit shots that it's definitely gonna turn off more than one woman who decides to watch this.

There's also one completely unnecessary scene where the lead, whose name I forget, is strapped to a table with her topp removed, she has a steel bra on to stop her boob gun, yes. The other cyborg, the one modeled after her mother, gets on top of her and starts licking and kissing her seductively for no real reason whatsoever other than to give 15-year-old boys something to jerk off to apparently.

With that said, this is still a low-budget, ridiculously over-the-top action film. And it's not a very good one at that. But, in this film, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it's a purposely bad film.

I mean it's so over-the-top and silly that you couldn't help but not take it seriously. Even if it was made in earnest. At the very least, with this approach, the film embraces its sillier aspects and they run with it.

This might have been a more entertaining movie if it was made seriously, so getting ahead of the pack may have cost them in the long run. I don't know, but purposely being bad just kind of ruins the fun.

It's like you're winking so much at the audience that you can't get into it because that was the desired result. This isn't like The Room, at all. I hated Snakes of a Plane for the same reason.

It focused so much on being a bad movie that it wasn't entertaining, it was actually just a bad movie. This isn't nearly as inept as Snakes was. But it's a little disappointing in that regard.

I mean it's still goofy and it still makes you laugh at some of its attempts at badness. But I couldn't fully get into it because it was trying much too hard to be bad. The action sequences are actually somewhat decent.

It's not like the choreography is out of this world, but it's watchable enough. Though it makes no attempts to hide the fact that a lot of the scenes are done by the lead's stunt double. You can very obviously notice when it is and isn't her.

But at least they put in somewhat of an effort with the action. It's not like you'll confuse this with The Raid, but it's decent enough considering how purposely bad everything else is. I'm not even gonna comment on the story because, honestly, is it really worth it? If you're watching this, unless you're a big fan of the manga, it's not because of the story.

It's because of the action and, theoretically, hot women wearing very little clothing. That's all dependent on your tastes. With that said, this is a somewhat entertaining, purposely bad film, but it's also one that sometimes misses the point of why people enjoy bad films that were made in earnest.

I can't really recommend it. It's not like it's THAT entertaining in its badness. Still, not much to see here, so you can avoid this and you won't be missing out.