All Rise...

Judge David Johnson flunked out of Female Combatants Battle School. It was a low point in his academic career.

The Charge

Superheroes get all the glory…but supervillains have more fun.

The Case

Weirdness abounds in this double feature of subversive takes on the superhero genre that aren't nearly as clever as the word "subversive" makes them sound.

Female Combatants Battle School

Well, there are female combatants and they do attend battle school, so you can't fault them for false advertising. What do these female combatants learn in their battle school? The moves to take out a masked female superhero who's been dispatching some serious beatings to her antagonists as of late.

A secret agent attempts to infiltrate the Dark Mist organization, which is the primary hive of villainy, outfitting its evildoers (all female) in leather and sending them out to get kicked in the face repeatedly. She finds out it's a hard life being a flunkie.

Can a movie with a synopsis like that and the title Female Combatants Battle School be anything less than awesome? Oh yes, it can. The possibilities for henchmen amusement are there—just watch a random episode of The Venture Bros.—but the sad sacks behind Combatants poop out a bizarre and, worse, boring effort. The big fight scenes? Awful, featuring jumpsuit-wearing extras shrieking out the most annoying sound you've ever heard and engaging in terrible hand-to-hand combat. And the "plot" that holds it together is even more forgettable, witless and flat.

Demonic Heroine in Peril

Said demonic heroine is actually an assassin, charged with a formidable assignment: killing the "Trionger," a trio of aging Power Rangers-types who can barely fight a dispensable goon without throwing out their backs. She's not going to have much trouble smiting them—but then she befriends their sidekick, a freaking young boy with a plastic face and a mouth that doesn't move (seriously). Now fighting on the side of the good and the decrepit, she will use her considerable fisticuff acumen to take on the bad guys.

Heroince is far better than the Combatants, but it still falls short of being something interesting and worth checking out. It's definitely more bizarre, in that fun and slightly off-putting way that the Japanese have mastered. The villains don red afro wigs and plastic faces of their own and have pudgy male thugs dressed in uncomfortably skintight one-pieces. Plus, the torture scenes go on for some time.

While it's nice to get all manner of eccentricity from the Land of the Rising Sun, this double feature fails to measure up. Female Combatants is a complete waste of time. Demonic Heroine in Peril is redeemed only because of its ludicrousness.

The disc: Combatants gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer and Heroine a full-frame. Sound comes from a 2.0 stereo mix (Japanese, with English subtitles). No extras.

The Verdict

Guilty. Too bad.

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