Baby Assassins 2 (2023) Review

“Baby Assassins 2” Poster

AKA: Baby Assassins: 2 Babies
Director: Yugo Sakamoto
Cast: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Joey Iwanaga, Tatsuomi Hamada, Atomu Mizuishi
Running Time: 101 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

I confess I wasn’t the biggest fan of Yugo Sakamoto’s Baby Assassins, concluding that the 2021 production “will likely only appeal to those action fans who are willing to wait (or perhaps skip forward) to see Masanori Mimoto unleash under the choreography of Kensuke Somomura.” However I’m all for giving 2^nd chances, and there was just enough potential in the first instalment to make me curious enough to come back for more.

Sakamoto certainly hasn’t been resting on his laurels in the short timeframe between the original and the sequels release, with his seeming ambition to create an assassin’s universe of movies and shorts continuing to grow. Since the release of Baby Assassins he expanded his short The Legend of the Strongest Hitman: Kunioka into a feature length production, and the end result was an entertainingly meta-take on the genre. The story sees Sakamoto cast a fictional version of himself, one who decides to find inspiration to help finish the script for Baby Assassins by following around a real hitman, and the chaos that ensues. Blurring the lines further, 2022’s Green Bullet focuses on six girls being trained to be assassins by the same Kunioka, essentially creating 2 parallel hitman universes – the one Sakamoto created (Baby Assassins), and the one he’s projected himself into! Expect some multiverse madness if we ever get a Baby Assassins 3!

Baby Assassins 2 sees the return of the 2 teenage slacker assassins played by Akari Takaishi (My Happy Marriage, Single8) and Saori Izawa (A Janitor, Re:Born), who since the original has notched up the notable credit of being the stunt double for Rina Sawayama in John Wick: Chapter 4. Sakamoto is back both on director and script duties, and subverts expectations from the get-go by instead choosing to focus on a pair of male assassins. Played by Joey Iwanaga (Lion Girl, Enter the Fat Dragon) and Ultraman regular Tatsuomi Hamada, the opening scene sees one of their hits go awry when their target, who they were expecting to be alone, turns out to have the company of 4 acquaintances. A frantically scrappy fight breaks out as 2 go up against 5, with the pair getting the job done, but not without incurring a few cuts and bruises.

When it turns out they assassinated the wrong guy, the fact that they’re not members of the Assassins Guild means they basically did the job for free. Tired of being freelancers and knowing that the Guild’s membership is full, after hearing a rumour that openings are created when members bite the dust, the pair hatch a plot to off a pair of assassins who are in the Guild, and it’s Takaishi and Izawa who find themselves as their targets. That’s essentially the plot, however much like in the original, it’s not so much the plot itself that provides the narrative thrust, as it is the more mundane daily struggles of Takaishi and Izawa that are expected to deliver the entertainment value.

There was a self-aware level of intended cool and forced quirkiness in Baby Assassins that I found particularly grating, which combined with the fact Takaishi and Izawa’s defining characteristic seemed to be their laziness, felt like there wasn’t much left of redeeming value outside of the action. Thankfully Sakamoto has struck a much more satisfying balance with the sequel, especially in the pair’s characterisation. Takaishi is still loud, but it no longer feels obnoxious, and Izawa here is much more vocal, and therefore feels more like a real character, a stark comparison to her monosyllabic mumbling in the original (and let’s face it, any change that makes you sound less like a female version of Steven Seagal is a plus).

The pairs predicament is essentially the same as before, having been suspended from active duty by the Guild after preventing a bank robbery (getting involved in non-Guild approved hits is a big no), they once more find themselves needing to resort to part-time jobs to sustain an income. While in the original their job hunt came from having to start paying rent once the Guild’s financial assistance stopped on their 18^th birthdays, which served to hardly make them the most empathetic protagonists, the sequel goes for a much more relatable issue – they’ve forgotten to pay the gym memberships they signed up for 5 years ago and only went to once. Much like the original it’s these detours which make up the crux of the sequel, as Iwanaga and Hamada stalk them in the background, a narrative decision that means the 2 pairs don’t meet each other until almost an hour in.

However this time the blasé approach to narrative structure is much more effective. Iwanaga and Hamada’s hairbrained plan to kill another pair of assassins just to get into the Guild is portrayed like any other workplace scenario where employees hope for a promotion. The only difference is in their line of work it involves killing, a fact which is more amusing when it becomes clear they’re not actually all that good at it either. Played off against Takaishi and Izawa attempting to hold down a job dressed up as animal mascots, the idea that Iwanaga and Hamada would rather be in their position becomes increasingly ludicrous.

As expected Sakamoto has once more brought onboard Japan’s busiest action director to choreograph the fights in the form of Kensuke Sonomura, clocking in his first gig in a year which would go on to see him also choreograph Tak Sakaguchi in One Percenter. While the fight action is far from constant, what’s there is all top shelf. The opening scrap that sees Iwanaga and Hamada tussle against 5 attackers in the confines of a cramped unit feels like it’s straight out of a Korean gangster movie in its frenzied desperation. Special mention should go to one of the comedic highlights, which sees tensions boil over between Takaishi and Izawa while in their mascot suits, the result of which sees a tiger versus panda throwdown in the middle of the street. The scene may actually trump Jean Claude Van Damme fighting a penguin in Sudden Death as the greatest mascot fight committed to film (although is there any other competition out there!?).

As in the original for the finale the heavy lifting is placed on the shoulders of Izawa, who this time swaps out Masanori Mimoto as an opponent for Iwanaga, an actor who has a legitimate action pedigree shown off in the likes of Rurouni Kenshin: Final Chapter Part 1 – The Final and Dancing Karate Kid. The one on one delivers the typical Sonomura flair and is satisfyingly lengthy, only really let down by an odd creative choice that interrupts the flow and doesn’t quite work the way it was probably intended. However it’s a minor gripe, and both Izawa and Iwanaga give it everything they’ve got with more feigns that you can shake a stick at, leading to a conclusion that I enjoyed didn’t fall into any typical Hollywood trappings, staying true to the premise of the characters.

Not everything is smooth sailing in the sequel, with any time a gun fight breaks out the inability for anyone to shoot each other, even when apparently shooting at point blank range, inevitably feels slightly off. It may have been forgivable if they were playing any other role, but considering we’re supposed to be watching assassins it makes the issue all the more glaring. There’s also a contender for the most pointless post-credit scene ever, consisting of a conversation that harks back to the kind of self-aware quirky banter that plagued so much of the original, and adds precisely nothing to the experience. Thankfully though there’s always the option to walk away before the scene plays.

All in all though Baby Assassins 2 improves on its predecessor in every way, with the addition of the male assassins being a welcome one, especially Iwanaga who conveys a natural charisma and screen presence that’s often missing from these mid-budget productions. In my review for Baby Assassins I’d debated of what the chances would be of seeing Izawa show off her talents again in the near future, so to only have to wait 2 years again to see her in action is a welcome surprise. Breezy and occasionally bloody, the result is a sequel that’s well worth checking out.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10