"Crazy" To Have Been Made
Silly, simplistic, and all-too-short, GUN CRAZY (VOLUME 1: A WOMAN FROM NOWHERE) goes nowhere.
This brief (just over sixty minutes!) tale isn't so much inspired by the classic spaghetti Westerns -- as the packaging would have you believe -- as it is a blatant thematic rip-off of Sam Raimi's underrated THE QUICK & THE DEAD, the director's own admitted homage to the spaghetti Westerns. Arguably, the only significant different between GUN CRAZY and QUICK & DEAD is the setting: DEAD takes place in the days of the old American Wild West while CRAZY brings the 'Western' into a contemporary setting.
The similarity, however, smacks of outright plagiarism, not homage:
In QUICK & DEAD, Sharon Stone's character -- think cigar-chomping Clint Eastwood in a great skirt -- seeks revenge against the dastardly sheriff (played by Gene Hackman) who, when she was but an urchin, placed the fate of her father (a brief cameo by Gary Sinise) in her hands; she accidentally shot him through the head. In GUN CRAZY, Saki (played by the nimble Ryoko Yonekura) seeks revenge against the dastardly Mr. Tojo (played with minimalist appeal by Shingo Tsurumi), who, when she was but an urchin, placed the fate of her father in her hands; she let her foot slip off the clutch, and dear ole dad was drawn and quartered by a semi truck. The only significant difference, despite the settings, is the fact that Tojo sadistically cripples Saki with ... well, I won't spoil that for you in case you decide to watch it. The scene isn't exactly original, but it's a welcome twist to the story that pays off in one surprise shocker in the climax.
In short, Saki - a pale imitation of the Clint Eastwood's `Man With No Name' - rides into the town - basically, there's a auto shop and a tavern alongside an American military base, so I guess that suffices for a town - corrupted by Tojo, the local crimelord with a ridiculously high price on his head for reasons never explained or explored. Confessing her true self as a bounty hunter, Saki takes on the local gunmen in shootouts whose choreography bares more than a passing similarity to the works of Johnny To and John Woo. Of course, by the end of the film Saki has endured her fair amount of torture at the hands of the bad guys, but she rises to the occasion - on her knees, in a laughable attempt at a surprise ending - and vanquishes all of her enemies with a rocket launcher.
Don't ask where she gets the rocket launcher. Just watch it for yourself. Try not to laugh.
The image quality is average for the DVD release. There is a grainy quality to several sequences, but, all in all, this isn't a bad transfer. The sound quality leaves a bit to the imagination at times, but, again, it isn't a bad transfer.
Rather, it's a bad film. It might suffice as a guilty pleasure, but, beyond that measure, GUN CRAZY goes nowhere fast.
