This one would have been so easy to screw up.
Here are the basics: Toshiro (Tak Sakaguchi) is an action movie star who's just too awesome and hardcore for most directors to handle; His last movie was ten years ago, and while critically successful, it was too niche to make any waves.
The reason is that Toshiro's is totally focused on real action - not just making it good for the cameras, but actually being the best fighter he can possibly be and making his fights as real as possible. This leads him to train in 'assassination jutsu' with actual soldiers, and to develop his own fluid take on a zero-range technique he calls 'the wave'. All this is all presented in a breathless, "just how cool is this guy" style of fluff promotional material that would be grating if it wasn't so spot-on.
And we soon find out that his quest for perfection, for... let's call it the essence of true badassness, Toshiro's alienated most of the industry and even his apprentices/members of the stunt team (understandable; We see him manhandling and belittling them in that introductory documentary). The guy is driven to the point that he's a complete asshole, but because this is an action movie, we know all that self-aggrandisement comes from a place of honesty. Thankfully Sakaguchi has the screen presence to pull it off, and the script (by director Yûdai Yamaguchi) undercuts some of the grandstanding with a little humour. It's always clear that there's at least a significant element of parody running through the movie.
Luckily for him, the universe provides. After running into a hot-shot, effeminate Chinese director who epitomizes everything Toshiro hates (an unsuccessful bit of humour and one of the film's more unfortunate takes), the setup finally starts paying off when a bunch of gunmen enter stage left, shooting indiscriminately and chasing after a teen girl (Rumika Fukuda wearing a schoolgirl uniform because... of course she is. Japan!).
The girl is the scion of a huge Yakuza family; Her old man has just died, and dozens upon dozens of thugs led by have descended on the island in search of two freaking tons of cocaine, along with a master assassin (an incredible Togo Ishii), and a psycho teen girl (Kanon Narumi) because, again, Japan.
Toshiro, of course, starts taking down goons almost immediately, earning the moniker of Jackie Chan among the bemused criminals who find the trail of unconscious thugs he leaves behind. (I'm more of a Bruce Lee, Toshiro observes with his characteristic humility).
The film shifts gears completely; Its visual style becomes a lot more cohesive, and the rest of the runtime is devoted to a series of brutal, quick fights, often with inventive gimmicks to liven things up. There's some routine, pointless drama threads in between all the combat, and a late, very half-baked existential twist at least adds some sorely needed nuance to all the braggadocio and swagger of the film, ultimately casting it in a very different light. Maybe. I don't think it's entirely successful, but at least it's interesting.
Aside from that last tonal swerve (which comes in too late to help), the main risk here is that the movie lionizes its star and his worldview a little too much. I don't know that much of Tak Sakaguchi off-screen, but Toshiro does feel like a mythologized version of his on-screen persona, incorporating many elements from past characters. And while the movie's takedown of more wuxia martial arts styles might be funny, it feels a little mean-spirited.
Luckily the movie has an impish, subtle sense of humour running through it, and Toshiro as a character is not nearly as insufferable as he could be - Sakaguchi's charisma helps a lot.
(Unfortunately, it's come out since that the actor has admitted to multiple sexual assaults, which does not.)
The fights are... uneven, and they do drag on a little - The combination between stealth takedowns and more tactical fighting between one overpowered combatant against many low-level mooks in a drab industrial location reminded me a little of a more brawl-focused One Shot, and it's slightly tiresome in a similar vein.
If I have to be honest, I've never really enjoyed Sakaguchi's fighting scenes as much as, well, the more choreographed style this movie likes to poke fun at, and with a couple of exceptions, it holds true here; He's very quick, but I don't think he sells the powers behind his punches, and that makes some of his moves come a little close to looking like a slap fight. It's telling that my favorite scene of the movie doesn't even feature him, pitting his two former students against Togo Ishii instead.
The action director is the prolific Kensuke Sonomura, whose work I tend to love, but there are better showcases for his talents... As there are for Sakaguchi's, by the way - like, say, Bad City.
But I'm being way too harsh - The action is still more than worthwhile, and while the choppy editing sometimes makes it harder than it should be to follow (everything is framed more to make its star look cool than for clarity) there's a lot to like here, including an excellent final fight. Director Yûdai Yamaguchi uses some fun camera moves and is good at keeping things moving, and the soundtrack is surprisingly decent. It's a surprisingly fun film that works both on a surface level and as a meta commentary, even if it's not always clear what it's trying to say.
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