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Sukeban Deka
Japan 1987
produced by Toei
directed by Hideo Tanaka
starring Yoko Minamino, Yui Asaka, Haruko Sagara, Ayako Kobayashi, Akie Yoshizawa, Masato Ibu, Hiroyuki Nagato, Keizo Kanie, Shinobu Sakagami, Tetta Sugimoto, Goro Kataoka, Katsumi Muramatsu, Yuma Nakamura, Yuka Onishi, Yayoi Tanaka, Taketoshi Naito, Shinji Wada
screenplay by Izo Hashimoto, Tokio Tsuchiya, based on the manga by Shinji Wada, music by Ichiro Nitta
Sukeban Deka, Sukeban Deka (Yoko Minamino), Sukeban Deka (Yui Asaka)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Saki (Yoko Minamino) has long quit her job as Sukeban Deka (= yo-yo
armed undercover cop posing as a highschool student), but then she learns
about a school on a secret island where principal Hattori (Masato Ibu)
trains his students to be the perfect, sheep-like soldiers for his coup
d'etat, and when she sees one of the deserters from this school (Shinobu
Sakagami) shot before her very eyes, she knows she has to do something
about it ... so she gathers a few girls - her successor as Sukeban Deka
Yui (Yui Asaka), her friends Okyo (Haruko Sagara) and Yukino (Akie
Yoshizawa), and Megumi (Ayako Kobayashi), the sister of one of the
students at the school -, gets a special all-powerful yo-yo from the
Sukeban Deka organisation, and off she and her friends are to the island
school. Once ther, everything goes a bit too easily for our five
heroines, and eventually they have to notice they have walked into a trap,
a trap Hattori could send up because the girls had been betrayed by one of
them, Megumi, whom Hattori promised the return of her brother (Tetta
Sugimoto) in return. Only when Megumi finds her brother a lobotomized
idiot does she realizes what she has done, and she frees her friends and
helps them free the students and blow up the school, even if it costs her
own life. And in the finale, Saki fights Hattori, and finds out he's a
robot - but using her special yo-yo that almost crushes her own shoulder
due to the impact, she ultimately manages to electrocute him. With
Hattori out of the way, there is no reason why this movie wouldn't have a
happy ending (and it has, too). Above all else, this film is
fun in a campy way, and though the film takes itself pretty seriously, I
advice you, the viewer, not to - after all, this is a film about five
girls in schoolgirl uniforms armed with yo-yos attacking a paramilitary
camp. If you can se this movie's humourous side though, you'll be richly
rewarded by some crazy action that might make little sense but is great
fun nevertheless.
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