Baby Assassins

Chisato (Akari Takaishi) remembers Mahiro’s (Saori Izawa) birthday while she is on a vacation in Miyazaki. But then, they receive another hit assignment which creates a hurdle for any celebratory plans to be made. Baby Assassins is a quirky and action-packed Japanese film that blends sharp humor with thrilling fight sequences. With its unique premise of two teenage assassins balancing their deadly profession with everyday struggles, it delivers both fun and unexpected depth. To their surprise, the target was also booked to another assassin named Fuyumura (Sosuke Ikematsu), a freelancer from Miyazaki. After crossing bullets and fists with each other Chisato and Fuyumura are unable to kill their target.

In “Nice Days, ” we see the stark increase in the visibility of the Assassin Guild over the character of Minami, played by Atsuko Maeda. There we see Chisato and Mahiro as they engage themselves by putting out a hit order on the duo for stealing Fuyumura. She takes notice of their plans meticulously.

There are fewer loud crowds in this movie which moves the premise away from several gang-won fights that happened in the other two movies. In ‘nice days’ Sakamoto seems more conservative in how she is filming the movie deciding to focus on the angle of the combat being simply put in the movie instead of the entire purpose of the showcase.

That said there is a charm in it for most battles are fought by professional assassins they move quickly and as if deliberately, which suggests the short fights with Fuyumura were longer by nature since he attempts to utilize Mahiro as an ideal opponent. Fuyumura and Mahiro’s stock exchanges resemble boxing too wherein the entire essence of Baby Assassins movies is featured: small, defenceless Mahiro whipping her enemies.

What makes Nice Days stand out is the fact that Chihato engages with Mahiro during fights adding a twist to the movie

It’s common for a single cinematic assassin to take down a gang or engage in any moronic physical confrontation with the gang’s boss; however, a two-against-one scenario is rare, particularly if the protagonists outnumber their enemy. But the peculiarity of this twosome makes it feasible. There is in this choreography of the fighting sequences by Sakamoto together with action director Kensuke Sonomura for the Baby Assassins movies that physical laws do not always cooperate with skill, even the best of us are awkward in the real world. As the director explains, this “Weekly Shonen Jump” approach allows for the two against one to still be a struggle, and so beautiful to witness when it happens.

Sakamoto’s narratively focused stance in “Baby Assassins: Nice Days” reveals the egotistical self-proclamation of Mr. Sakamoto – we all remember how in REVENGE a self-proclaimed Hollywood critic starts cursing in Japanese. There’s also a clear influence of Quentin Tarantino’s classic on the critics’ reviews of the first two films of the series Pulp Fiction. As it turns out, Masahiro’s 1999 effort with his gangster-themed dark comedy film “Kaizokuban Bootleg Film” isn’t that much of an outlier as he tries to enter a similar space of culture.

In the end, all that one could say Watanabe films of Kobayashi are just mere films of Tarantino. What Sakamoto manages to achieve with the “Baby Assassins” series, and arguably, the entirety of his works post the year 2021 is an advancement of new popular cinematic forms of the global popular story structure seen in Shonen.

Regarding “Nice Days”, Saori Izawa and Akari Takaishi reprise their roles as Mahiro and Chisato respectively, just as they did in the first two Baby Assassins films, making the odd combo of their assassin work with chibi designs. Also of note is their chemistry with the stern Minami who is played by former AKB48 center Atsuko Maeda, interprets Minami is excellent as she is the contrary to the two. Together with Fuyumura’s gloomy psychopath, the trio’s cute, sardonic, and baffling performance makes up more than half of the film.

This unusual combination of Japanese pop culture to enhance a complex narrative while also maintaining a genre-film correlation was not new either. Sion Sono tried this several times, but concerning himself with the footage of violence, for example with another AKB48 idol in 2015’s “Tag”, his fetish for eroticism interrupts the experimentation, freezing any form of growth of his formal attributes there. Sakamoto is aware of the role of moe in manga and idol culture as more than just something to be turned on by. Such comprehension makes more of his camera work and editing less about rapid cuts and more about visual expressiveness, mixing up close-ups with wide-angle shots, and long takes with quick cuts.

“Baby Assassin: Nice Days” is a Callback to the final two films, providing the audience with further reasoning to appreciate this series. It is the maturity on Sakamoto’s part where not only the plot and the dialogues are peering towards the shonen vision, but the fight scenes prove to be more intricate and elevated. It is good to watch this film celebrating itself for this achievement.

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