Tag: Kensuke Sonomura

IT’S HERE (again)

October 26, 2025

Donovan, my Baby Assassins partner-in-crime (the Miyauchi to my Tasaka, if you will, though maybe there’s a better duo to be), informed me a few days ago that the TV show, Baby Assassins: Everyday!, was eminently streamable on Hulu and HBO Max, and has been since October 16th. I was late. How could I not have known sooner? Where was the YouTube trailer? Where are the outlets meant to warn me? So, I’m here now to pass it along, realizing that perhaps I am one of those outlets. Not really, but seriously, what the hell happened? … More IT’S HERE (again)

The Dream | Baby Assassins: Nice Days (2024) Review

August 28, 2025

For two movies, Baby Assassins has been a source of unusual joys. They’re charming even in their deficiencies, with scenes lingering on nothingness for so long that it becomes funny and the lack of plot making for unpredictable sketch comedy. With this third outing, the winning non-formula is finally given structure, which might sound unduly disciplinarian for our anarchic duo, but this was the only ingredient missing. I think that sometimes, filmmakers, film critics, and film students can romanticize the subversion of convention, when so much of the artistry and effect of movies is in the exercise of character arcs and stories which resonate with subtextual meaning. And yet, even with a Baby Assassins set to provide usual joys instead, I couldn’t have anticipated such virtual perfection as Nice Days. I was already a fan, guys. You didn’t have to do all this! A proper coming of age, it’s an optimization of every formerly experimental element; a bloodsoaked spectacle with a cathartic, heartfelt finish. … More The Dream | Baby Assassins: Nice Days (2024) Review

Chisato Gaiden | Ghost Killer (2024) Review

July 22, 2025

Action maestro Kensuke Sonomura finally nails it as director on his third attempt – with a little help from his friends. After a baffling debut, Hydra, and its unremarkable follow-up Bad City, I’d have to be a real sucker to stick around for whatever came next. Well, “Akari Takaishi” is always a compelling argument, the ex-idol actress with a fairly standard career – TV dramas, manga adaptations, animation voiceovers – but for the occasional Baby Assassins title, which intervene on her filmography like a running joke. In fact, it’s Ghost Killer that comfortably proves her participation in Baby Assassins wasn’t a one-off (or a four-off, to be fair). Equally crucial is a script by Yugo Sakamoto, the creative braintrust behind, well, Baby Assassins. As a screenwriter, he may be rough and tumble, but his work here is surprisingly disciplined. Ghost Killer may be the most technically sound accomplishment between either filmmaker. … More Chisato Gaiden | Ghost Killer (2024) Review

Remember, No Guns | Bad City (2022) Review

February 2, 2025

The year is 2022, and we’ve had decades of action movie innovation. The bare minimum has to be: “What hasn’t been done yet?” which must be how you get “megaphone as melee weapon.” In Bad City, a white-haired badass squares off against a group of thugs disguised as a baseball team, and after shouting at them through the megaphone at point-blank range, beats them with it to the peculiar rhythms of director Kensuke Sonomura’s light-speed fight choreography. After clobbering several bad guys, he tries to use the megaphone again as intended and finds it’s broken. Already, this is a marked improvement on Sonomura’s previous film, the bewildering Hydra. Inexplicably presented, that movie would’ve benefited from a simpler script guided by cliché, and so it was, initially, a relief that Bad City acquits itself with a police investigation, corrupt politicians, and evidence stored on a USB stick. … More Remember, No Guns | Bad City (2022) Review

Homemade Gyoza Party | Baby Assassins: 2 Babies (2023) Review

January 23, 2025

I’m so excited that Baby Assassins ballooned into a media franchise, encompassing a trilogy of films, a TV series, a making-of documentary, and a making-of mockumentary, most of which came together in the last two years. Mahiro actress Saori Izawa has been working for a long time, as her action reels on YouTube plainly demonstrate – up to and including slicing a delivery pizza in half with a katana – mostly behind the scenes, even doubling Rina Sawayama in John Wick: Chapter 4. Our dear new franchise, then, is basically her proverbial (if not literal) John Wick moment, and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her featured more prominently in another American movie soon. It’s weird that American action cinema is currently in a renaissance, but for Japan, movies like Baby Assassins are the exception – kind of. … More Homemade Gyoza Party | Baby Assassins: 2 Babies (2023) Review

A Killing at the Maid Café | Baby Assassins (2021) Review

January 22, 2025

In action movies, there’s always that moment in the final battle when the bloody-faced hero looks up at their opponent, and the line is something like, “I’m not giving up” or “Is that all you got?” In Baby Assassins, it’s more like, “She didn’t tell me about this strong guy.” That’s it. Just another snippet of an internal monologue that’s sometimes spoken aloud. At the start of the movie, this character Mahiro is introduced as a socially awkward teen doing something painfully relatable: bombing a job interview. Only, she cuts it short by shooting the hiring manager in the head (ideally, that’s less relatable). What follows is a frenetic fight scene choreographed by the modern master Kensuke Sonomura, where assailants lifting Mahiro into the air doesn’t stop her from repeatedly stabbing their shoulders and arms. Spoiler alert: this is most of the movie’s action until the final battle. … More A Killing at the Maid Café | Baby Assassins (2021) Review

Action Master Takes a Break | Hydra (2019) Review

June 5, 2022

It would be a cliché if it were true, that action movies always start off with a bang. In the opening scene of Hydra, a peeing man is attacked and dragged into a stall – piss spraying everywhere – to be stabbed repeatedly. It’s fast and brutal and that not-insignificant urinatological detail recalls Japanese shockers like Ichi the Killer. It also sets the wrong tone, quickly giving way to a moody, synth-infused credits sequence tracking a long drive home and deflating the excitement. It’s unfortunate, and this review is the worst kind to write. Hydra should be a success story on the order of The Raid or John Wick, and it follows that formula: the talent showcase. This is the directorial debut of Kensuke Sonomura, whose work you may have seen floating around the Internet accompanied by “holy shit, what,” in the form of a high-speed fistfight with, say, Chris Redfield or maybe Raiden and a U.S. senator. Without knowing it, I’ve been enjoying Sonomura’s work as an action director for decades, since Godzilla: Final Wars and through Hard Revenge Milly to Gantz: 0. I’d always assumed this frenetic, anti-gravity action choreography was a broader cultural product – “so Japanese” – when in fact, it’s the brainchild of one twisted genius. … More Action Master Takes a Break | Hydra (2019) Review