Assault Girls (2009)

Assault Girls is a live-action film directed by Mamoru Oshii. It’s a spiritual successor to his 2000 film Avalon and the subsequent short films Assault Girl: Kentucky no Hinako (from the omnibus film Eat and Run: 6 Beautiful Grifters) and Assault Girl 2 (from the omnibus film Kill). It was released by Tokyo Theatres Co., Inc. on December 19, 2009.

Movie info

Original title: アサルトガールズ
Release date: December 19, 2009

Region 1 NTSC DVD (English subtitles)
Label: Well Go USA
Out: Oct 19, 2010
Buy: , , , YesAsia US, YesAsia Global
Region A Blu-ray (English subtitles)
Label: Well Go USA
Out: Oct 19, 2010
Buy: , , , YesAsia US, YesAsia Global

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Plot

The film is set in a barren wasteland called “The Desert”, a high level zone of a virtual reality video game. The area hosts an ongoing battle between players and “sunakujira” (sand whales). The current inhabitants of the level are a sniper named Gray (Meisa Kuroki), an eccentric “magic” user named Lucifer (Rinko Kikuchi), an assault specialist named Colonel (Hinako Saeki), and a heavily-geared lone wolf named Jäger (Yoshikatsu Fujiki).

They each traverse the barren landscape equipped with powerful weapons and vehicles bought with the experience points they rack up while searching for the desert’s end boss, a giant sunakujira called “Madara”. The disembodied voice of the game master repeatedly warns them that it’s impossible to beat the desert level alone, but each of them has gotten quite used to soloing.