09-04-2025
‘Ghost Killer': Spirited action and sharp humor make for deadly fun combo
Since 2021, Yugo Sakamoto and Kensuke Sonomura have partnered on the 'Baby Assassins' hit film and TV series of action comedies, with Sakamoto scripting and directing and Sonomura handling the action.
Sonomura is a veteran action director and stunt coordinator with a long list of credits, but his work with Sakamoto stands out for its fast-paced, tightly choreographed blend of hardcore martial arts action and deadly gun play — a rare combination in recent Japanese films.
In making their latest film, 'Ghost Killer,' Sonomura took over the directing role, with Sakamoto scripting in his characteristic talky, screwball-comedy style.
Their lead actor, Akari Takaishi, also stars alongside Saori Izawa in the 'Baby Assassins' series as bickering teenage roommates who belong to an assassins' guild and carry out hits with a brisk lethality. The mobile-featured Takaishi is a gifted comedian who gets most of the laughs, while the laconic Izawa is a trained martial artist who does more of the heavy fighting.
In the similarly action-packed 'Ghost Killer,' Takaishi plays Fumika Matsuoka, a college student who one day picks up an empty cartridge, not knowing that the bullet it once contained killed a middle-aged hitman, Hideo Kudo (Masanori Mimoto).
Now a ghost, Hideo follows Fumika back to her apartment and, when he appears before her looking very much alive, she understandably freaks out.
He has his uses, as she finds out when she comes across her best friend Maho (Ayaka Higashino) being beaten by her punk boyfriend. Possessed by the ghost, she acquires his moves and strength — and quickly knocks out the boyfriend. Once he leaves her body, she reverts to her normal, pacifistic self who devoutly wishes that Hideo would go to whatever hell awaits him.
But he can't until, as he testily explains, Fumika kills the gangster who killed him, thus expiating the grudge he feels toward his killer. And he somehow has to move her from a hard no to a reluctant yes.
Along the way to this denouement, Fumika battles an array of baddies, starting with a pair of internet influencers who try to drug and rape her, and culminating with Hideo's former associates in what she persists in calling an 'anti-social organization' — cop talk for gang.
One is Riku Kagehara (Mario Kuroba), Hideo's hitman rival, a handsome guy with a penetrating gaze. Fumika, however, is immune to his bad-boy charm. She hates gangsters and their violence on principle, especially after she sees her apartment being trashed in one of their dustups.
This scene and others like it are played with a comic undercurrent. Takaishi as Fumika generates most of the laughs, with flawless timing that lands gags solidly. And Mimoto, who has worked extensively as a stunt actor, brings a high-level skill set to the action scenes.
That said, the various plot turns are all-too familiar, if not quite AI-generated dreck. And the premise of a swarthy hitman possessing a college girl's body borders on icky.
But the film does not treat sexual harassment as a joke, and when Riku and Hideo join forces against an evil gang boss and his minions, with Fumika lending herself to the cause, the ensuing action is hard-hitting and nonstop.
'Ghost Killer' is the latest proof that Sakamoto and Sonomura produce superior action entertainment, no matter who is in the director's chair.
