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A few years ago, police Lt Takeshi Hayata (Makoto Sato) wanted to bust
a drug ring that uses a diplomat's daughter as carrier, and since it's
hard to get one's hand on persons with diplomatic immunity, he used
illegal methods to try and get her - methods that only left 6 of his men
killed and no success whatsoever. On top of that, he got fired from his
job and is since working as an assassin. Now though, his former boss asks
him to become the boss of a super secret elite team - consisting of
Hayata, ninja Koga (Sonny Chiba) and klutzy Sakura (Eiji Go) to have
another go against the drug cartel, which is led by Japanese Mafioso Mario
Mizuhara (Masahiko Tsugawa). Hayata, Koga and Sakura are soon successful
at disrupting the daily business of the cartel, but Hayata soon realizes
he has to keep his eyes open because Koga and Sakura repeatedly try to
take off with the drugs on their own, and that he doesn't really pay them
doesn't make things easier. Finally, Hayata learns about a massive drug
deal, and he sends Koga and Sakura to infiltrate the home of Mario
Mizuhara, who's having a party to celebrate the deal. Problem is, Mizuhara
has invited quite a few martial arts experts from around the world to make
sure Hayata's crack team won't cause any problems, and then Koga is
captured and used as a human punching ball for the guests' amusement. But
Koga isn't that easy to beat, and then Hayata shows up with
reinforcements, and after fight after fight, Mizuhara, upon realizing his
game is over, throws himself off a cliff to his death, but not before
destroying all his drugs - so Koga and Sakura get out of the whole affair
victorious but empty-handed. A rather disappointing martial
arts vehicle starring Sonny Chiba: Sure, there is plenty of fighting here,
and the fights are violent enough as well ... but the film just doesn't
click, narratively, it sits rather uncomfortably between being a crime and
action flick and being a comedy and (self-)parody, while its basic premise
is little more than a hanger for fight after fight after fight. On top of
that, the whole thing is carried by a pack of weakly fleshed-out
characters: Hayata the man of honour is plainly uninteresting, Koga the
superhuman ninja lacks any real character motivation, and concerning
Sakura the klutz one only wonders why he would be accepted in an elite
team of only three members. As for the film's directorial effort: There
are a few times when director Teruo Ishii's predilection of the perverse
and macabre does shine through, but that sits uneasily with the movie's
simplistic action plot, and in all it's one of Ishii's lesser films and
despite Chiba's star power/cult credibility a footnote in Ishii's
filmography at best.
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