Final Rating 2.5/5
At last year’s Fantasia Festival we covered a Japanese action comedy called Baby Assassins, about two girls fresh out of high school who work as hired assassins. This year we get treated to its sequel Baby Assassins 2 Babies at the same festival. The movie picks up not long after the first one has ended. The two titular baby assassins, Mahiro (Saori Izawa) and Chisato (Akari Takaishi) get a final notice bill from a debt collector which claims they owe almost four million Yen ($36,000 CAD) for unpaid gym membership payments going back five years and two years of insurance premiums to be paid as well. This gets them a wake up call from their handlers. If they don’t pay by Friday at 3:00 PM, the debt collectors will charge them 50% interest.
After a cold open, the movie recaps the first film by showing a montage of everything that transpired over the opening credits. When the girls get to the bank to pay their bills, two masked men come to rob the place. Despite knowing they can’t kill people unless they are contracted to do so, they incapacitate the robbers, but can’t get away in time before the police arrive putting them on administrative leave with their assassin guild. Meanwhile they aren’t the only young assassins in the world.
Two young males, Yuri (Joey Iwanaga) and Makoto (Tatsuomi Hamada) are subcontractor assassins. They don’t belong to the guild like Mahiro and Chisato do and are stuck working tougher and less glamorous jobs. When their handler screws up a target and they kill the wrong person and don’t get paid, they vow to move on up to the big leagues. Their handler tells them that if they kill approved members of the assassins guild, they will take their spot. He shows Yuri and Makoto photos of Mahiro and Chisato, and the guys set out to kill the girls for their benefit.
While the girls are on their leaves, they don’t receive any income and are told to get part time jobs. Unlike in the first film where the girls must work in order to blend in as fellow young people and to explain how they have money, now they must work to survive. This eventually leads them to working as mascots to help sell people on street lottery games. Used to a certain kind of lifestyle, Chisato starts gambling, something she is not good at and loses a lot of money on.
This eventually leads to infighting between the two girls and a highlight of the film when they fight each other while in their mascot outfits with great hand to hand combat. Seeing a panda and a tiger fight, while they struggle to keep their heads of their costumes on is a delight. The fight choreography in the Baby Assassins movies are top notch, allowing the camera to breath and fully capture the moves the trained professionals are performing.
The movie struggles with character development as both Mahiro and Chisato are basically interchangeable this time around, and both suffer from being quite obnoxious while refusing to take any sort of adult responsibilities. The main character development instead goes to the new guys. Makoto has a crush on a server at his favourite restaurant but is too shy to ask her out, so Yuri spends the runtime trying to boost his confidence and help his friend figure out how to ask the young woman out.
The film also features less action scenes than the first film, which is the highlight of the franchise. That said, when the fighting begins, Saori Izawaah’s Mahiro absolutely steals the show. Her fast reflexes and tight punches are a sight to behold. She has a final showdown against Yuri and the two put on a clinic.
For fans of the first film, the John Wick style assassin world building is still present and a lot of fun, but with the fights few and far between, it makes the run time drag a bit. The highs are very high, while the lows are just that. If you watched the first film and enjoyed it, Baby Assassins 2 is definitely worth a watch, but don’t go straight to this one.
Baby Assassins 2 Babies was seen at Fantasia Festival. Thank you to Well Go USA for the screener.
