Yo-yo: Girl Cop. It’s as stupid as it sounds. Out now. (****4/10)
When I saw the DVD cover of Yo-Yo: Girl Cop, I thought it was going to be one of those really bad martial arts movies where they were trying to capitalize on hip-hop culture. You know, yo-yo and all of that. When I read the back of the box and saw the words “lesbian suicide bombers”, I had to rent this. At worst, it would be a hilariously awful movie that was good for a laugh. At best, it might be a terrific send-up of several genres. Unfortunately, it turned out to be just plain bad. It starts out as a sort of sped-up version of La Femme Nikita, when a teenage girl is arrested, and has a choice. Go undercover to break up a ring of high-school suicide bombers, or we’ll deport you and kill your mom. Or something. And the yo-yo has nothing to do with fake urban hipness, it actually has to do with a yo-yo. This, you see, is the girl cop’s weapon of choice. A yo-yo. Which means the title of the movie really should have been Yo-yo Girl: Cop, and not Yo-yo: Girl Cop. Yet another movie title lost in translation.
There are subtitles on the DVD, but the only audio option is English. Which means you have to watch it with the bad dubbing and all. However, the bad dubbing adds yet another level of idiocy to this already idiotic pile of nonsense. Which is kind of funny. You see, this girl, who seems to have no name, is a teenager. And only a teenager can understand another teenager in today’s Japan. So only a teenager can crack the ring of internet-related teen lesbian suicide bombings. So she is given the name “Asaki” and sent to a high school to infiltrate this organization. She quickly runs afoul of the Most Popular Girl In School. Japanese high schools are apparently the same as those in American movies. The cool kids, the hot girsl, the bullies, the cliques. Quickly, our young high school hottie discovers that the suicide bombers are somehow connected to the chemistry club. High school anarchist lesbian suicide bombers! And we haven’t even got to the lesbian part yet…in fact, the movie never really does get to that part. It gets mentioned, almost in passing, that lesbianism was the catalyst for the website which then became the catalyst for the suicide bombings. The evil guy who runs the website and convinces teens to blow themselves up keeps showing up around Asaki and doing weird things. Like cramming an iPod in her ear. And making light come out of his fingers - is he magic? IT turns out he isn’t…which means that light-from-the-fingers thing made absolutely NO sense.
Asaki makes a best friend at the school, a girl who is an outsider, bullied by the Mean Girls. Then she discovers that the head Mean Girl is the agent sent before her to do the same thing. But she has turned and switched sides or something. Now she’s part of the…I don’t know. Asaki’s name switches from “Asaki” to “Maggie” depending on who’s talking to her. The acting is laughable at best, and incredibly awful at worst. I am trying to understand if I don’t understand this because the translation is awful, or whether it’s because the movie sucks. Or maybe it’s just all about the schoolgirl uniforms? Who knows. When the movie ended, I still don’t understand why everyone was a suicide bomber, I had no idea what was going on.
The ending, however, is priceless. For some reason, the two hot girls show up - no longer in schoolgirl outfits, but now in leather-and-studs S&M outfits, and have - a yo-yo fight! This is one of the most implausible, mental, crazy, irritating final scenes ever. The leather apparently is impervious to bullets. All of a sudden, the heroine is…in love with the cult leader? Why? Where did this come from? And the climactic battle royale is not even filmed well. There is absolutely nothing to recommend this movie. Not even the lesbian thing, which barely exists and doesn’t involve any kissing. Even with a highly-developed sense of irony, this movie still stretches the patience of even those who would like to laugh at something like this. Oh wait - here’s a reason to watch. If you are one of those people who have always been desperate to watch a movie that involves a climactic yo-yo fight.