Baby Assassins
It’s hard not to appreciate how laid-back and funny this film is. It starts off with this idea of these young girls whom you would never expect to be assassins, and makes you wonder if they can even be friends. Their credentials on the assassin front are established quite effectively right away. Whether they can co-exist on a personal level? That’s another question entirely.
When you live with someone you’re close to, but who isn’t family, it can reveal cracks in your relationship that you didn’t necessarily realize. Hell, even living with family is not easy for that very reason. Chisato (Akari Takaishi) and Mahilo (Saori Izawa) are two girls who are getting ready to graduate from high school. Life outside of the structure of school is not easy; it’s really tricky when you’re also skilled assassins. The organization they work for, however, also wants them to live together. Can they put aside their personal differences, and still do their job? They better, or the yakuza that have them in their sights might make their post-high school life a short one.
Writer-director Yugo Sakamoto knows this shouldn’t be a complicated narrative, and God bless him for that. The focus is on the right things when it comes to their lives, and I love that we get these two girls, who want nothing more than to be girls and young and slack around, also understand the responsibilities of their jobs. This isn’t a case of these two growing up too quickly and the struggle for balance of wanting a normal life and their adult responsibilities like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” however; outside of work, they do not have much else they want in life. There’s no real discussion of romance, it’s just struggling to make ends meat, and wanting to continue to chill. I love the personalities of these characters; it’s a big part of why the violence- when it happens- works. The way the action works here is such an extension of who these girls are, it’s almost insane to consider how much worse this could be in the wrong hands. “Baby Assassins” is a gem, though, and it’s worth seeking out if you like action, kick ass women, and darkly funny entertainment.
