Zero Woman continues with the second installment of the Media Blasters version of the series. This time, we get a new woman playing Rei (as always), a different interpretation of the story, a new adventure, but the same action, blood and sex you would come to expect from Zero Woman franchise.
In this tale, Rei is sent on a mission to investigate Kayama; the main channel to the outside for dirty cops selling confiscated drugs and guns. But as the theory goes, like attracts like and Rei finds a soul mate in her target…a man, who like her, doesn’t really exist. As serious as it all sounds, this has to be the lightest, most humorous, touching and sympathetic of the Zero Woman installments. Don’t get me wrong, right from the beginning, we get violence as Rei shoots a hole right in some guy’s head (I love how they made the blood squirt out), but aside from the violence, this is a rather fun side to Zero Woman that I didn’t think existed.
For some reason, Rei needs to feel connected with the outside world when she is not going out for the kill. So, she actually looks for a part-time job in between assignments. I love how she looks through the wanted ads and says, right in front of a civilian, “There has to be something for someone with experience as a killer.” So, we get to see her in other roles like a waitress and a plant delivery person. The running joke here is that she uses a different alias in each place and often forgets the name when her boss calls her. So, as they call it, you see this blank look on her face and no reaction, which is just priceless. In the end, though, her job as a hit woman seems to force her to leave the more enjoyable regular jobs behind. She’s just looking for a meaningful life; a real life and she seems to find it while delivering a plant to an executive.
Rei and this executive share a smooth dialogue and seem to have an attraction to one another, but when she discovers that Kayama, the man she must lie to and possibly execute, and the man she likes are one in the same, Rei is conflicted on what she should do. On one hand, Kayama sells weapons to murderers and can be a cold-blooded killer, himself, but on the other hand, he is actually not a horrible person. He treats Rei with respect, even offering her a job working alongside him, doing some dirty work (that means kills people) together. They even share tender moments on a date together at a batting cage. Through both the dangerous and intimate moments, Kayama is there for Rei and truly loves her.
In the end, though, a decision has to be made. We discover just who Kayama really is, why Rei’s boss has a hard-on about taking him down and what will become of the two lovebirds and their forbidden relationship. It all comes together in a powerful ending, making this a great movie from beginning to end. This is definitely an enjoyable installment where the action, violence and sex are matched by the acting, dialogue and story. A complete, well rounded movie worth watching more than once. This Zero Woman is a perfect 10.
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