Assault Girls has no real story. Also, since it is set in a computer game world, there is no real threat. Then why was I so engrossed by it all? It was simply a bizarre mix of many things that I love, served up in a very short movie. It all begins with a lumbering voice over that really doesn't fit with the film. I was worried by the pomposity of it. Next up came long takes sweeping the vast desolate landscapes. There was also a shot of a snail slowly crawling along. It was like something from a Terence Malick movie, where nature triumphs over story, only here it was in a funny Japanese OTT action movie. Soon we see a man walking and he certainly walks for a while. It was reminiscent of Omar Shariff in Lawrence of Arabia. As the film finally unfolds its basic story, we see this is all set in a computer game, where 4 characters are finding it hard to defeat the final boss. They must band together if they wish to destroy it. Quite why this story is that of a film is beyond me. Perhaps it is showing how people have become wrapped up in computer games and they are an extension of our lives and characters. But probably not. I really enjoyed its serene and quiet nature, but wish there had been more story. The effects were fantastic, and I loved each and every CGI creation. Kikuchi was once again the standout star in once again a mute role. Her screen presence is undeniably exotic and unique. Her quirky dancers, and the way she can captivate by looking at a hat. You wont get much from this movie, but it was a wonderful 70 minutes.

Mamoru Oshii's latest film is a supposedly linked to his film in the portmanteau film called Kill. It is also a second go round in the world of Avalon, which is the name of one of his other live action films. The earlier film deals with a woman who is paid to play in an online game set in a world called Avalon. The earlier film is a very good looking film but one that people either lover of hate.Assault Girls is a film that I think most people are going to hate. The film begins with a very dense very complicated narrated sequence that sets up everything and explains a new version of Avalon. Its a sequence that is so long and so rambling that I ended up checking how much time elapsed on the DVD, eight minutes and it was still going.Once Oshii gets all of the words out the way the film descends into the excesses of the earlier film which are these beautiful but almost silent sequences that seem to have been designed to look good but don't really work outside of that. Yea things like the giant worm gotcha bit that immediately follows the narration is nice but it takes too long to get to the punchline.Give the film points for looking good and very much like anime come to life, but strip away even more for technical gaffes like having all of the battlefield dialog spoken into masks which makes understanding what is ever is said near impossible. The fact that this Japanese film was made in English with actors who don't speak the language well enough doesn't help either.(yes they speak fine when unmasked, but with the masks its a almost unintelligible.) Worse is the pacing. Outside of the early worm hunts not a whole heck of a lot happens until the end. This is not real life reflected back at us, this is four characters walking across a blank landscape. Yea there is some action at the end but I'm guessing that most people who have the film play out to the end credits only had it do so because they fell asleep on the film and were woken up by the loud music that plays with the credits.Give the film 10 points for the look. Take away about twenty five for the boredom.

If you really want to watch this movie after reading all the reviews, I recommend renting rather than buying because I doubt that you would want to watch this movie twice. The CGI special effects were almost video game quality and minimal. Most of the time the characters are wandering around volcanic soil with no other discernible landmarks other than a small mountain in the background. There are too many slow moments when the camera would focus a close up on a snail, voice overs that sounded totally gibberish, and confusing plot lines. The characters were wooden with no developments and added little to the plot line. Worse, when the characters spoke, they often spoke broken English with bad accents under muzzle type face masks that made it very unintelligible (even to me, an Asian, that is used to bad English). I guess to some (0.01%) of the population they would say that this movie is arty or avante garde. But if you are looking for a fun movie full of hot girls with guns (as I expect you would by the title "Assault Girls") this ain't it.

The only reason to watch this film is because it has three hot Japanese babe in it.Sadly, they are given very little to do. The plot is I guess is that for some reason, three babes are in this Virtual reality game because the world outside has been largely wiped out, but apparently, the game merely consists of hunting CGI sand-serpents with elaborate weapons. Or something. Let me know if you figure it out...The special effects aren't bad, but the characters are so dull, and there are such long gaps in action, such as long shots of a huge snail before the male lead eats it....Maybe this is a treatment for insomnia in Japan.