Gothic & Lolita Psycho (2010)
aka:
Psycho Gothic Lolita
Japanese Title: ゴスロリ処刑人
Translation: Goth Loli Executioner
Starring: Rina Akiyama, Misaki Momose, Minami Tsukui,
Masahito Okamoto, Satoshi Hakuzen, Fumie Nakajima, Ruito Aoyagi, Yurei Yanagi
Director: Gô
Ohara
Action Director:
Gô Ohara, Fumihito Minamitsuji
The Lolita subculture in Japan is an interesting one, stemming from the rise of the “Kawaii” culture at the end of the 1970s and 1980s (the same culture that gave us Sanrio and Hello Kitty). There is an emphasis on the cute, although in the case of the Lolitas, they find it in Victorian Era dresses, bonnets, petticoats, and knee-length skirts. There was no initial sexual aspects to the subculture, it was simply something “fun.” To some, it represented a break from the shackles of traditional Japanese culture, especially one that still places a certain degree of emphasis on gender roles today. Obviously, since every subculture, religious and ethnic fashion, and Lord-knows-what-else will eventually be sexualized, there is a Erololita subset within the Lolita subculture, although I can’t help but wonder how much that has to do with identity and more to do with something that ohtaku ask their girlfriends wear on special occasions.
Gothic Lolita is one of the original subsets of the Lolita fashion culture, setting itself apart by ditching the whites and pastels (mainly pink) for black, accompanied with lots of black eyeliner and (presumably) black nail polish and the like. Gothic Lolita fashion became popular in the 1990s, when the Japanese economic boom ended and was followed by a general depression. I’m pretty sure the economic problems create all sorts of pessimism about the future, which ultimately find their way (consciously or not) into youth subcultures as well.
That said, the “Ohataku fan-wank” film Gothic & Lolita Psycho is not very concerned with the societal and economic ills that might have led to its creation, or whatever (unwritten) rules may exist within the subculture. It is mainly about a girl who dresses as a Loligoth for no reason other than to “look cool” as she mercilessly slaughters those responsible for her mother’s crucifixion.
Yuki (Rina Akiyama, of a bunch of Kamen Rider series) is the daughter of a Christian reverend (Kamen Rider Kiva’s Yurei Yanagi) and his wife. The latter is crucified buy a gang of weirdos in stereotypical cultist robes for reasons that are never really clear. I guess the leader of the gang, Masato (Ruito Aoyagi), is a demon hunter of sorts and he for some reason thought her mother was a demon…or knows that Yuki is a demon and needs to kill her mother to help bring out the devil in her. Whatever, mom is dead and dad is now a paraplegic.
As I said before, Yuki now walks around in Gothic Lolita attire and hunts down those responsible for her mother’s murder. The first on the list is a Yakuza babe named Sakie (Minami Tsukui, a stuntwoman and Kamen Rider veteran). Sakie runs a Yakuza bar filled with drinking, torture, gambling and girls in kimonos dancing suggestively. Yuki shows up and kills all of Sakie’s flunkies before the two face off. Their duel ends in Sakie being minus one head.
The next guy on the list is Gerao Yuro, a high school science teacher that also has psychic powers (which he mainly employs to lift his female students’ skirts, the lecher). Yuko and Gerao have a crazy fight in the school’s gymnasium as he levitates around the place, using a mop to fend off Yuki’s attacks with her spear-tipped Victoria-era umbrella. He eventually loses, too.
Target #3—a cowardly salaryman—is a pushover for Yuki. However, Target #4 presents her with a real challenge. Imagine a girlie-voiced kogal wearing an eyepatch and armed with two-fisted, double-barreled machine pistols with unlimited ammo. A spear-umbrella is not going to be enough for this tough cookie. Yuki is going to have whip out her sniper rifle-umbrella to defeat this girl…but if Lady Elle (as she is named, and played by Misaki Momose, of Girls in Trouble: Space Squad Episode 0) is too much for our heroine, then how will she be able to defeat the evil Viscuous Gentleman (I swear that’s what the credits call the main villain)?
Gothic & Lolita Psycho isn’t so much a movie as it is a series of action sequences between a cute girl in a black dress and wearing too much eye liner and a bunch of quirky villains who have no real reason to have worked together in the first place. There is a bit of Kill Bill here, which also suggested that a team of professional assassins could go in very different directions after they disbanded, but there is no reason for any of it here. I would expect less elementary filmmaking and just analyze the film based on its action merits instead.
Fight choreographer-director Go Ohara has worked pretty extensively in these no-budget ohtaku movies, with most people agreeing that his best work is in Geisha Assassin. He actually does a pretty good job with the action, although the goofy sound effects used in some of the gore scenes that close the fights cheapen the effect. I’d rather he played it all completely straight and thus made the movie funny in that way, as opposed to letting us in on the joke. Assisting Ohara is Fumihito Minamitsuji, a stuntman whose résumé includes Kamen Rider: The First and Onechanbara: The Movie.
One thing that these men do particularly well here is shake up the action. No two fights resemble each other. The first big fight has our Loligoth protagonist taking on a room full of katana-wielding yakuza in the sort of balletic fight scene you’d see in a 90s era Ching Siu-Tung film. The camerawork is dynamic without compromising visibility, which is a big plus. She then faces off with Sakie, who wields a long shirasaya sword. As a veteran stuntwoman, actress Minami Tsukui sells her moves better than a lot of women in these lower-budgeted schlock films.
The fight between Yuki and the levitating pervert teacher does have some decent bo staff techniques from the latter. Actor Masahito Okamoto had bit roles in films like Samurai Fiction and Onechanbara the Movie. The fight best shows that Gô Ohara can do basic wirework in a fight if need be. The following fight is a headscratcher. When Yuki happens upon the aforementioned salarymen, he’s getting bullied by a multi-ethnic gang called the Kamikaze. Her fight with them is this bizarre mixture of dance moves, flips, somersaults, and butterfly twists. In fact, it almost feels like a parody of tokusatsu fights, as the camera often cuts to gang members doing somersaults, but without any reference as to where they started or where they landed in reference to their opponent’s position. It’s just a bunch of random acrobatics. That is very Super Sentai in its presentation.
The longest fight pits Yuki against Lady Elle, in which Gô Ohara and Fumihito Minamitsu go for a bit of bullet ballet. The two girls fire endless rounds of ammunition as they jump, dive and crouch all over Yuki’s apartment. There is a neat beat where the two are fighting in close quarters combat, with Yuki doing all sorts of complex handwork to parry Elle’s weapons, which are not only fully-automatic, but have daggers attached them to boot(!). The fight ends in such an over-the-top gore manner that it’s impossible to be offended. But then again, the fact that one of the pistols that Elle wields has a flip phone attached to it probably guaranteed that nothing in that sequence would be taken seriously.
As a Highlight Reel for director Gô Ohara as an action director, Gothic & Lolita Psycho is a perfect way to waste an hour and twenty-something minutes. Sadly, it doesn’t feel like it has completely benefitted the man’s career, as judging from the IMDB. But as an actual movie, with a plot and characters, it barely registers. But if you just want some fight, cute girls, and some gore, I suppose you could do worse than this.
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