Director: Isao Yukisada
Writers: Tatsuo Kobayashi, Kyô Nagaura, Isao Yukisada
Stars: Haruka Ayase, Hiroki Hasegawa, Jinsei Hamura
Synopsis: Once upon a time, Yuri was one of Japan’s deadliest assassins, but she’s retired now and spends her days running an underground brothel. A news report about a former colleague who has died under mysterious circumstances doesn’t quite sit right. The dead man’s son is now the target of a military manhunt, and Yuri will do whatever it takes to keep him safe.
2026 already seems to shape itself as a generational year for genre cinema, and we’re off to a pretty decent start with Isao Yukisada’s Revolver Lily, finally hitting North American video-on-demand devices after a release in Japan in 2023. The Isao Yukisada-directed war epic is a frequently enthralling and visually jaw-dropping motion picture, even if its opening scenes could lead viewers to expect a journey to pure cinema that is much wobblier than anticipated.
The story is relatively simple – Yuki Ozone (Haruka Ayase), a former assassin, must protect Shinta Hosomi (Jinsei Hamura), the son of her former boss, after his mysterious death reeks of political corruption. However, Yukisada quickly elevates the material with raw images of tangible, painterly power and a bevy of well-mounted, tightly calibrated action that recalls the heroic bloodshed work of John Woo and Tsui Hark. Of course, this is much less anarchic in its visuals than Hard Boiled or A Better Tomorrow III: Love & Death in Saigon, but the bullets fired by Ozone in each close-knit fight or major shootout all hold meaning.
John Woo was probably the first filmmaker who gave significance to a bullet casing – transforming them into tears being shed by its protagonists in The Killer or Bullet in the Head, which Tsui then cranked up (and deconstructed) in Time and Tide. In Revolver Lily, Yukisada seems to appropriate this revolutionary meaning to the bullets fired by its central protagonist, represented by the anguish Ozone feels as she returns to a life she’s desperately trying to leave behind. The best parts of the film aren’t the action but the internal drama at the heart of Yuki’s plight, expressed through a litany of complex emotions as she feels compelled to protect Shinta without resorting to violence, until it sadly becomes essential for their survival.
You can tell by simply looking at Ayase’s face that Yuki’s journey back to the field of work she wants no business being in is not something she wants to do. But Shinta’s survival currently trumps her personal feelings over killing people, which she is amazingly good at. However, Ayase’s turn is remarkably soulful and profoundly human, a textured performance that gives Revolver Lily its raison d’être and our emotional attachment to a story that sadly feels far too conventional to justify an overlong 139-minute runtime.
But Yukisada has a few tricks up his sleeve to keep us engaged, and they all involve a succession of action sequences that unfold after the main plot is laid out and the characters’ motivations become clearer. Yukisada’s sense of rhythm, expressed by Tsuyoshi Imai’s precise cutting (worthy of Sam Peckinpah and the aforementioned John Woo), keeps us on our toes during high-octane, supremely violent gunfights and surprisingly cathartic one-to-one brawls between Yuki and the numerous powerful antagonists who are all looking for Shinta and the documents he carries related to his father.
Only when the film reaches a rather underwhelming climax, where the action becomes more digitized, and the gritty, realistic textures of the gunfights suddenly transform into Fast & Furious logic, does Revolver Lily lose its grip on us. However, what comes before can’t entirely be dismissed, even if it will largely be unseen by the masses who prefer to not exceed the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles and stay within the confines of Hollywood. That said, if you love incredible, jaw-dropping action and compelling character work, you won’t be disappointed at this must-see modern J-action picture that makes me more than curious to see what Yukisada will do next…
