Revolver Lily Film Review

This Japanese film is set in interesting times and I suspect it was done so by the director Isao Yukisada for a reason. The year is 1924 and Japan is turning from a nascent democracy with an Emperor towards a nationalistic militaristic government with expansionist aspirations. After their defeat in World War II, Japan embedded into their Constitution laws against re-arming and militarizing. And has stuck to that for over 70 years. With the rise of China, the nuclearization of North Korea and the increasing isolation of the United States, they are rethinking that and segments of the populace want them to build up their military. Just in case. This is an anti-war film - with a whole lot of violence in it. Knowing what takes place after 1924, it feels a bit empty but perhaps this is a warning to Japan not to re-arm again. That doing so will inevitably lead to war.

Nicely shot with a few fine action scenes, but it feels emotionally barren - the characters are all cyphers, and it is hard to warm up to the main protagonist. The plot is a bit of a muck trying to figure out what is going on and who is who. But that doesn't stop you from enjoying the many killing scenes with large body counts - yes, Wickism has reached Japan. The film begins with text on the screen informing us that a spy named Yuri Kosone who trained in Taiwan had assassinated 57 people but since has dropped out of sight for a decade. Remember that Taiwan had been a colony of Japan since 1895. The film then shifts to Lily, a woman in her thirties who is very fashionable with a modern almost bob cut. She works at a small intimate bar with her friend Naka and has a few admirers that she keeps company while they drink. Lily is played by the popular Haruka Ayase (Ichi, Our Little Sister) and Naka by Kavka Shishido, a musician.

When Lily reads in the paper that an old friend was killed after he murdered a family. This doesn't sound right to her and so she goes to investigate. On a train she sees a group of similarly dressed men accost a young boy and demand to know who he is with a gun pointed at his head. He is in fact the son of the family killed and witnessed their murders by these same people. They want him for that but even something more important. We get our first hint that Lily is not just a polite hostess when she disarms the men with a few chops and jumps off the train with the boy. She is Kosone and is back in action. Over much of the remainder of the film she protects the boy by killing or wounding dozens of men. They are the army and the boy has the secret to a stash of money that they want to go to war with. A few nice though unbelievable shoot-outs leaving a landscape of writhing bodies on the ground. The film overstays its welcome though at 140-minutes and has an ending that refuses to end.