Mighty Lady : A superheroine made in Japan!

[slater74]

Here's a review of a few indie-toku DVD (I'm French, so forgive me if my English is not perfect)

In 2002, Big Peach Entertainment decided to try a Mighty Lady's revival (Mighty Lady was a kyodai heroin who made her first appearance in a direct-to-video movie in 1984). While they were at it, they didn't made one but three half-hour movies (Mighty Lady, Leopardio and Virginal), each one meant to be a pilot for a new series. So far, only Mighty Lady has got sequels, but without a real continuity. Now that I have watched the 3 movies, I will make a small review for each of them (WARNING: SPOILERS INSIDE!). First of all, the settings, kaijus and CGI are pretty good, way better that one would except from small budget independent movies like these. Also, the soundtrack is awesome, perfectly matching every scene.

Mighty Lady New Episode : Exchange Student From The Stars

Opening credits: a beautiful CGI spaceship travels space, en route to Earth.

Mighty Lady's spaceship

Upon arrival, the spaceship release its pilot: a beautiful alien girl with green hair and a face that looks like an anime character's one. She soon discovers that Honda, an highschool version of Gyaban's Kojiro, has witnessed her arrival. She tries to talk to him but he's too scared to listen. When ML realise it's her weird appearance that scares him, she quickly assumes a more human form… but forgets the clothes! (sorry guys, the only thing we see between her face and legs is her navel) The poor Honda faints.

Mighty Lady and Honda first met

The day after, a new girl arrives in Honda's class: Mai Murasaki. As you might have guessed, she's none other that Mighty Lady, who has put on a "clever" disguise so Honda won't recognise her:

Mighty Lady's clever disguise

Unfortunately for her, Honda wasn't wearing his eyeglasses when she entered the classroom, so he recognises her at first glance! Later, Honda is bullied by three classmates and Mai turns into Mighty Lady to rescue him (Before she transforms, there's an hilarious scene where she uses squares as shurikens). She then brainwashes the three bullies so they forget what has happened but, despite her friend Eri's orders, she refuses to brainwash to Honda.

Don't mess with Mighty Lady!

Mai becomes Honda's roommate and he then learns her reasons for coming to Earth: she's after Hera, an criminal alien woman with the most not-natural-at-all evil laugh since Sharivan's Dr Polter. Her partner in crime is none other than Mai's older brother, Kairu, who has been brainwashed by Hera. Honda and Mai tracks down Hera and Kairu who feed on young girls life energy. Mai uses the energy stocked in the crystal she's wearing on her navel to heal Hera's victims. That's when we discover that she has developed a sort of symbiotic relation with Honda, since his feelings for her can recharge the crystal.

Mai, Honda, Kairu and Hera

They finally found Hera and Kairu. Honda is quickly knocked out, Kairu changes into a kaiju and Mai turns into Mighty Lady to fight him. She's soon overpowered and tries to flee but is stopped by Hera. Hera and Kairu joins their strengths and Mighty Lady gets the beating of her life. After Hera has drained all the energy in her crystal, Mighty Lady is weak as a newborn kitten and Kairu is about to kill her. All hope seems lost. That's when Honda, still unconscious, has a strange dream: Hera is trying to kill Mai and he comes to her rescue. Without knowing it, Honda's love for Mai has given Mighty Lady the energy she needed to get the upper hand and she throws energy blasts at Kairu and Hera. Kairu resumes his human form and flees. Hera fakes death but tries later to kill Mighty Lady while she's in her human form. Once again, Honda thwarts her and Mighty Lady destroys her once and for all. Finally, Mighty Lady is staying on Earth, searching for her brother, who is now freed from Hera's influence but has lost his memory.

The final fight

Mighty Lady's got a pretty good story. Even if Honda is written as Mighty Lady's "faire-valoir" and often used as a comedy relief, he avoids being too ridiculous and is often useful. Kazumi Nakamura makes a good Mai. As for Mighty Lady's suit-actress, Sachiko Fujikura, she's very beautiful and graceful but lacks fighting skills and the action scenes suffer from that. She also appears unmasked as one of Honda's classmate and her little sister portrays one of Hera's young victims. Killing the main villainess in the pilot seems a strange idea, even if the scriptwriters will find a way to bring Hera back in "Mighty Lady : Savers".

Sachiko and her sister

Coming up next : Leopardio and Virginal's review

[Kevin Roegele]

[slater74]

You're telling me!

[Mr. Credible]

jesus, asain cinema sucks ass.

[slater74]

Keep in mind that Mighty Lady was made by an independant studio with a very small budget. I have yet to seen non-Asian movies achieving this level of quality (I'm expecting sarcastic comments, there) with the same budget.

BTW, if Kairu's actor looks familiar to the toku-fans here, no wonder: it's Jyun Takatsuki aka Kamen Rider Tiger in "Kamen Rider Ryuki".