“Score” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Atsushi Muroga
Cast: Shu Ehara, Hiroshi Miyasaka, Ryushi Mizukami, Hitoshi Ozawa, Kazuyoshi Ozawa, Miyuki Takano, Takashi Ukaji, Masahiro Yamashita, Ryuji Minakami 
Running Time: 88 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

While Japanese cinema in the 1990’s was already a far cry from its golden age, one of the best genres to come out of this era was that which would become known as V-Cinema. Kicked off by Toei’s 1989 feature Crime Hunter, this DTV brand of filmmaking catered to the fact that the vast majority of VHS rental store memberships were male. Even then Japan’s mainstream cinema was becoming more housewife orientated (still the largest demographic of Japanese cinema goers today), so the studios saw the DTV arena as the perfect platform to give guys what they wanted. This was of course – action movies, gangster flicks, and raunchy erotica. Made on small budgets and with lesser known stars than their big screen counterparts, you could say in some ways that V-Cinema was the Japanese equivalent of Cannon Films when they were in their prime.

Before long the other studios got in on the act with their own labels – Nikkatsu came up with the V-Feature line, while Japan Home Video branded their output the V-Movie range – but none stuck quite the way V-Cinema did, and over time Toei’s label came to encompass the entire DTV genre. Much like Philip Ko spent most of the 90’s directing action cheapies in the Philippines, so did many of the V-Cinema directors. No doubt discovering how much stuff could be blown up, cars crashed, and stuntmen thrown through windows for a fraction of the price in Japan, Manila soon found itself standing in (usually unconvincingly) for a number of locales.

Score is one such production, a 1995 entry into the V-Cinema cannon that hilariously wants us to believe that the streets of Manila are Las Vegas. It would be more convincing to pass off New York as the surface of the moon, but attention to detail is not what V-Cinema was about – as long as there’s gun fights, explosions, and manly posturing, those are the elements that count. Directed by V-Cinema specialist Atsushi Muroga, this is the guy that directed such entertaining slices of no frills action as the Okinawa set zombie flick Junk, and the Gun Crazy series cranked out in the early 00’s.

Let’s be clear, Score is completely derivative of almost every gangster and action movie which was popular at the time, but it barrels along with such a devil may care sense of energy, that it’s impossible not to enjoy. Framing itself as a kind of Reservoir Dogs if John Woo was at the helm, the plot focuses on a career thief serving a prison term in Nevada, who’s bailed out by his former employees in order to pull off one final heist. Backed into a corner, he agrees to do it along with three cohorts (all decked out in black suits and white shirts, naturally), after which they head to an abandoned factory to wait for the pickup and their payout. Matters get complicated though when a pair of loved up hitchhikers, who’ve been funding their adventures by murdering whoever gives them a ride (Natural Born Killers reference – check), show up to steal the loot for themselves.

The plot is pretty much rendered superfluous though, when it becomes clear the real goal here is an exercise in how many blood squibs can be used in 85 minutes. Muroga would use an identical setup for Junk (the only other of his movies I’ve seen) 5 years later, when after the initial heist of a jewellery store is completed, the rest plays out in the abandoned factory, which here serves as the backdrop for various double crosses and bloody shootouts. I mean our thieves white shirts remain that way for just a few minutes, quickly becoming soaked in blood that’s either their own, or someone they’ve pumped full of lead. The blood squibs in use here seem to impressively pack a few gallons of the stuff in, with guns shots sending buckets of the red stuff trailing through the air in slow motion. Muroga certainly likes his heroic bloodshed.

The John Woo influence isn’t only present in the gratuitous bullet riddled bodily harm though. Proceedings open with the protagonist of the piece, played by a stone faced Hitoshi Ozawa (Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive and Agitator), being chased through the streets by a crossbow wielding assassin. Cue Hard Target inspired side-on shots of steel arrow heads gliding through the air, oh, and his character’s name is Chance, an obvious nod to Jean Claude Van Damme’s Chance Boudreaux (he even sports a matching mullet). Throw in one of Ozawa’s cohorts being called Tequila and the frequent freeze frames of characters in action, you’re left with a better homage to the John Woo aesthetic than many directors were attempting around the same time (Antoine Fuqua I’m looking at you).

Interestingly, the initial scenes with the serial killer hitchhikers, played by Kazuyoshi Ozawa (another Takashi Miike regular, with small roles in both Gozu and the more recent Shield of Straw) and Miyuki Takano (whose only film credit is Score), were actually filmed on location in Nevada. Outside of shooting a few shots on the road though, it appears that everything else (any by that I mean, anything resembling an action scene) was filmed in the Philippines. Ozawa’s character is an entertaining one, as he has an obsession with old westerns, referring to himself as Doc Holliday and Takano as his Clementine. He goes so far to even amusingly refer to the stolen jewellery as the Clantons.

While limiting so much of the runtime to the abandoned factory may sound dull, Muroga paces the tension with a skilled hand, with the ticking clock of (Hitoshi) Ozawa’s employer’s imminent arrival serving as a countdown to eliminate the threat of the loved up outlaws. As the lead, Ozawa feels like an equally important factor in Score’s success as Muroga. Not only is he the producer, but also the fight choreographer, and would himself step into the director’s chair for Score 2: The Big Fight, which would come 4 years later with many returning cast members (albeit in different roles). He may not be Japan’s answer to Chow Yun Fat, but the guy has a strong screen presence, and energetically throws himself around when it comes to the action. The final freeze frame, of Ozawa leaping into action with a handgun, pretty much feels like it sums up Score in a single frame.

Special mention also has to go to the bad guys of the piece, played by Takashi Ukaji (Zatoichi: The Last) and Hiroshi Miyasaka (Shall We Dance? – the original, not the Hollywood remake). Ukaji looks like an Anthony Wong clone of the same era (particularly the Full Contact look), and spends most of the time either laughing manically, or swatting away blonde floozies as if they’re an irritating fly. Miyasaka’s character is called Cobra, and when you see him you’ll immediately know why – he’s decked out like a Japanese version of Sylvester Stallone’s character in the 1986 movie of the same name (ok, minus the green nail varnish part). They make a formidable pair, and when Miyasaka turns up in the finale with a grenade launcher, you know good times are going to be had.

While V-Cinema would increasingly become a shadow of its former self as the years progressed towards the new millennium, with the tantalizing sleeves promising sex and violence rarely being a reflection of the movies contained within, when it was good, it was really good. These movies were never intended to be masterpieces, and while they were also arguably never intended to be as derivative as Score is, it can’t be denied that it’s a movie which ticks all the boxes of what V-Cinema was supposed to be. Bullets, explosions, and lines like “A bitch like you looks better with bullets in”, all combine to make a slice of entertaining B-movie goodness, that which only has the aspiration to keep you entertained for its duration. To that end, Score may not be your date night movie, but if you’re looking for a slice of Japanese machismo from a bygone era, you’re in the right place.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8/10