User reviews

Yet another remake of "Fistful of Dollars", Sergio Leone's remake of Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" (suggested by the novel 'Red Harvest').

This one is strictly a B-Movie; taken as that, it is rather enjoyable. the direction is crisp, the acting full of verve, the limitations of its 'direct-to-video' photography well-handled.

The weakness of the film is in the disastrous decision to marry the 'fistful'/'yojimbo' plot to a sub-plot from Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West'. Although leone directed both 'Fistful' and 'West', his motivations behind the two films couldn't be anymore different. The 'Man With No Name' (Eastwood) is a borderline socio-path with a soft spot for broken families. Harmonica (Chaeles Bronson) is obsessed with his own broken family, and obsessed with revenge. These two characters would not have had much to do with each other. In order to bring them together, 'Gun Crazy' has to twist it's plot and complicate it until we lose track of which story we're actually following.

But this is a B-Movie after all, and filled with action and silliness; it's entertaining on that level, just don't expect anything more.

The advertising blurb for the movie said it was "a Japanese take on a classic spaghetti Western", and sure enough, it is. Although that genre actually has its roots in various samurai films, most notably Yojimbo, this movie definitely seems to draw more from Segion Leone's westerns.

The plot is largely "Once Upon a Time in the West", except instead of Charles Bronson, the person wanting revenge is a young lady, Saki, played by the very attractive Ryoko Yonekura. Then it sort of switches to "A Fistful of Dollars" for a while, has a brief "A Good, the Bad and the Ugly" interlude, then goes back to "Once Upon a Time...". The ending is pretty original It's enjoyable, but the production values are pretty low. While it tries to emulate the style of HK gun-play, it comes off more as a community theater level of special effects/stunts/gun-play.

With better action choreography, better gun effects, and the movie just filled out more (it's only about 65 minutes), it would have been a much better movie.

"Gun Crazy: A Woman From Nowhere" is a Japanese female action film along the lines of the "Zero Woman" series, only considerably better. It is just as violent (which means VERY violent), less sleazy, and more action-packed, fast-moving and stylishly-executed. It's still a low-budget shot-on-video film, so don't expect anything flawless (for one thing, a lot of the characters sure could use a little more shooting practice), but it does not lack ambition (there are strong music and plot homages to Sergio Leone's westerns). Ryoko Yonekura is an impressive heroine (and probably one of the most beautiful women in the world - there is also a bad girl who is a stunner herself), and "Mr. Tojo" is a cruel, sadistic and smart villain. Worth getting if you like this kind of stuff. **1/2 out of 4.

Director Atsushi Muroga's 'Gun Crazy: Episode 1 - A Woman from Nowhere' is a calculated attempt at cult coolness that admittedly, on paper, sounds rather promising: hot female bounty-hunter Saki ( Ryoko Yonekura), clad in leather and brandishing a pair of over-sized hand cannons, rides into a lawless 'town' in order to settle an old score with evil gang boss Mr. Tojo (Shingo Tsurumi). Styled after the classic spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, the film features a suitably barren landscape, slow motion gun battles, menacing stares in close-up, and even a Morricone inspired score (complete with whistling).

Sadly, Muroga doesn't quite fulfill the potential of his premise thanks to a rather cheap shot-on-video look, the lack of convincing gun-play from his star, and not nearly enough of the insane OTT violence one might reasonably expect from a Japanese film called Gun Crazy. Sure, we get the guns, but there just ain't enough of the 'crazy' on display for my liking (the film's closing minutes offer the most outrageous moment, but it's all a case of 'too little, too late').

If it had been up to me, I'd have given Saki a wider variety of weaponry throughout (and a lot less clothing), made her take at least one unnecessary shower, included a lot more in the way of bloody squib shoot-em-up action, and featured a climactic battle in Mr. Tojo's booby trapped lair against an army of robot ninjas, albino kung fu dwarfs, zombie gimps, and a pair of lesbian conjoined-twin assassins! (okay, okay, that might be going a bit too far, but you get the idea...).

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

At first I have to admit, that I had my share of fun with 'Gun Crazy: Episode 1'. You certainly are not surprised about the fact you do not get a masterpiece of modern cinema, as the movie never pretends to be. Nevertheless the impact of wooden acting and lurid dialog is quite a blast. If you can handle this, perhaps with the help of some alcohol, switch of all higher brain activities and .... voila the raw & simple story develops a certain kind of charm. The heroine is cute and her garment plus arms look good as well. Gun battles are the movies central element and they are not something never seen before - partially even plagiarizing - , however they do not let you down. I was not bored at all and enjoyed the hour watching. Besides, the two GI's at the beginning are my favorite bad guys. Wooohah! Do I recommend 'Gun Crazy: Episode 1 - A Woman From Nowhere'?

No way, people with good taste could ruin their sensitiveness.

6/10

Silly, simplistic, and short, GUN CRAZY (VOLUME 1: A WOMAN FROM NOWHERE) goes nowhere.

This brief (just over sixty minutes) tale isn't so much inspired by the classic spaghetti Westerns as it is a rip-off of Sam Raimi's THE QUICK & THE DEAD (his admitted homage to the spaghetti Westerns) brought into a contemporary setting. In QUICK & DEAD, Sharon Stone's character seeks revenge against the dastardly sheriff (played by Gene Hackman) who, when she was but an urchin, placed the fate of her father (a brief cameo by Gary Sinise) in her hands; she accidentally shot him through the head. In GUN CRAZY, Saki (played by the nimble Ryoko Yonekura) seeks revenge against the dastardly Mr. Tojo (played with minimalist appeal by Shingo Tsurumi), who, when she was but an urchin, placed the fate of her father in her hands; she let her foot slip off the clutch, and dear ole dad was drawn and quartered by a semi truck. The only significant difference, despite the settings, is the fact that Tojo sadistically cripples Saki with … well, I won't spoil that for you in case you decide to watch it.

In short, Saki – a pale imitation of the Clint Eastwood's 'Man With No Name' – rides into the town – basically, there's a auto shop and a tavern alongside an American military base, so I guess that suffices for a town – corrupted by Tojo, the local crimelord with a ridiculously high price on his head for reasons never explained or explored. Confessing her true self as a bounty hunter, Saki takes on the local gunmen in shootouts whose choreography bares more than a passing similarity to the works of Johnny To and John Woo. Of course, by the end of the film Saki has endured her fair amount of torture at the hands of the bad guys, but she rises to the occasion – on her knees, in a laughable attempt at a surprise ending – and vanquishes all of her enemies with a rocket launcher.

Don't ask where she gets the rocket launcher. Just watch it for yourself. Try not to laugh.

The image quality is average for the DVD release. There is a grainy quality to several sequences, but, all in all, this isn't a bad transfer. The sound quality leaves a bit to the imagination at times, but, again, it isn't a bad transfer.

Rather, it's a bad film.

I found this movie on Amazon in one of my continuously ongoing quests for finding Asian movies that I don't have in my collection. I wasn't initially expecting too much from "Gun Crazy: A Woman from Nowhere", so there wasn't much to live up to from the movie.

And now having seen the movie, I can say that this is indeed an action movie, and nothing else. The story in the movie was so weak and thin that it was more transparent than air. This is basically about a woman who comes to a small military base where corrupt people control everywhere, and she must clear out the 'trash' and seek the revenge on the leader here because he wronged her when she was a young girl.

Yeah, that is it. Then it is all action, fighting and guns shooting for the rest of the money. Oh, and I almost forgot about the hidden rocket launcher inside a prosthetic leg. Yeah, one of those in the movie too! Forget about acting, because there is very little of it in the movie, but then again, the action and shooting does make up for that and make up for the lack of a properly coherent story. And the dialogue, well, let's just say they tried to put in some - let's leave it at that.

One of the most memorable parts of the movie were the Westerners at the military base. Let's put foreigners in a Japanese movie, and have them come off a cocky, arrogant people lacking intelligence.

"Gun Crazy: A Woman from Nowhere" is a movie where you just sit back and disconnects your brain entirely, just watching the shooting and action unfold on the screen. The movie requires absolutely nothing from your mental capabilities. And it is actually an enjoyable enough result, and I have orders more movies from the series.

Solid, no frills, nineties Japanese gun action. Definitely enjoyable. I liked the main character. The gun action is weak by modern standards. And there's hardly any ornamentation to the story. Except for a couple smirks from the MC. So it's a seven. But it should be on your list if you're looking for old dubbed action. Just maybe not in the top dozen.

The story of "A Woman From Nowhere" is rather simple and pretty much adapted right out of a Eastwood Spaghetti Western: A mysterious stranger comes into a lawless town run by a kingpin and starts shooting up the place. Even the opening credits and music have that spaghetti feel: Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone would be proud. The really interesting twists are that the stranger is a beautiful (!) woman, Saki (Ryoko Yonekura) on a Harley, and the location is in a town somewhere in Japan.

In this actioner, there's a considerable amount of gunplay, some of it good, some predictable, and other spots somewhat hokey, but it's a whole lot of fun. Ryoko handles her guns with believability and aplomb and gives the thugs their due. It wasn't much of an acting challenge for her as it was a physical challenge, but she handled things very well. She shows her acting skills much more as Otsu in the NHK drama, "Musashi."

I'd highly recommend film if you're a Ryoko Yonekura fan (which I adoringly am) and/or a "girls with guns" movie fan and it does hold up to repeated viewings. To me, there's something eminently and inexplicably appealing about "girls with guns" movies like "La Femme Nikita" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight." And to have a gorgeous gal like Ryoko starring in it as well is just gobs of icing on the cake.