Our Gravure Heroine G.I.O. Master “Olia” features a super-hot lead heroine played by Japanese model Kanami Okamoto. She wears a ridiculously sexy outfit and gives a great performance. The film features all of the typical elements you can expect from every Zen Pictures film — lots of fighting sexy outfits, and torture scenes — so if you’re a fan of the Japanese masters of the genre, you should enjoy this film.

The video begins with our lead heroine running around and toying with some anonymous henchmen who are trying to capture her.  Olia easily dispatches them all with a series of quick punches and kicks.  Meanwhile, a female detective is trying to rescue a middle aged guy from the clutches of the villains.  Her attempts are interrupted by our heroine, who appears and then shoots the villain with a ridiculously huge arm-canon.

This angers the film’s main henchman, a giant cyborg who appears indestructible.  The heroine engages him in battle, but not before changing into an even sexier outfit, which is very revealing.  The two fight, with the heroine (as usual) dominating at this early stage of the film.  Each time the cyborg attempts to land a punch, the heroine quickly dodges and retaliates with a move of her own.  She easily defeats him and then goes home for a shower, bringing her new female friend along.  (This doesn’t really go anywhere; it’s not that kind of movie).

In the meantime, the bad guys work on upgrading the cyborg, who lays on an operating table as an evil lab assistant works on him.  The cyborg is implanted with a blue egg-shaped device, which, I assume, gives him increased powers to use against our heroine in their next battle.

The bad guys capture the female detective to use as bait to attract Olia to their lair.  When she arrives, she’s met by a couple of henchman and the main villain (a generic-looking Japanese guy).  The heroine attempts to capture the villain, but when she runs towards him, the cyborg activates some kind of device that electrocutes both Olia and her detective friend.  I have no idea how such a device might work, but is disables our heroine and allows the bad guys to apprehend her.

Which leads to the first extended torture scene.  Olia awakens to find herself tied AOH.  This is a very hot scene as Okamoto has a perfect body and wears a very sexy outfit.  The bad guys interrogate her, and the cyborg gets to have his revenge by delivering stomach punches and electric shocks.  He also kicks the heroine’s leg repeatedly.  Okamoto’s reactions to the punches are very good, and I wish the producers had spent more time on this method of torture.

Next, Olia is tied again, this time with her arms spread apart.  Unfortunately, she has a giant bowl (?) around her neck.  The bad guys torture her by pouring some kind of steaming purple goo into the bowl.  I don’t understand how this torture works.  But I especially don’t understand why Zen Pictures finds the perfect heroine with the perfect body in the perfect outfit only to waste all of it with silly torture scenes.  (If it’s not purple goo, it’s light bulbs or Twinkies ).  So this sequence is a real disappointment, unless you’re interested in this really weird torture method.

Eventually (after a lot of screaming and weird special effects) the heroine defeats the bad guys and everything works out for the best.  She kicks and punches the cyborg to death.  The movie ends with a weird dream sequence in which the detective imagines the heroine coming to her rescue.

Our Gravure Heroine G.I.O. Master “Olia” has one really good, but very brief, torture scene and features one of the sexiest heroines, in my opinion, in all of the Zen Pictures catalog.  Unfortunately, the movie isn’t really able to fully capitalize on this since the heroine spends the majority of the film with a giant glass bowl around her neck.  Why the producers would prefer that to a whipping scene or some other torture method is a mystery to me.  In any event, I like the movie for its sexy heroine and awesome outfit, and very short torture scene.  I give it a B+.

Download Our Gravure G.I.O. Master “Olia” at www.akiba-heroine.com

Here’s a review of the new Zen Pictures release (with the longest title ever), Ninja Special Agent Justy Wind vs. Evil American Comic Books Characters Vol.2.  A faithful reader who goes by the name of Jerkstore was kind enough to submit this review: 

Ninja Special Agent Justy Wind vs. Evil American Comic Books Characters Vol.2 basically consists of four good looking girls dressed as Power Rangers fighting four female Japanese versions of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Spider Man, and (I think) Catwoman.

There are a ton of fight scenes and a fair amount of peril/torture. The beginning rehashes the first episode where it looks like the Power Ranger girls got the better of the Wonder Woman, Spider Man, and Catwoman villains. I think the Supergirl villain was staying behind the scenes for most of the first volume.

The Japanese Supergirl makes an appearance early on and kicks the crap out of the Dark Blue Ranger. Dark Blue Ranger is kidnapped, tortured, put in a bubble (you have to see to understand) and the remaining three rangers try to rescue her. Most of the middle is a series of one on one fights with a ranger vs one of the evil characters.

The last act is the three rangers trying to take down the Supergirl character. The woman who plays Supergirl is actually my favorite character of the movie. She’s probably the least attractive of all the women in the film and I have no clue what she is saying but she really plays her air of superiority well. She knows she’s more powerful than everyone else so she just kind of stands there in some scenes and laughs as the Power Rangers hack on her ineffectively with swords.

The end is all about teamwork, unity, and working together. One really doesn’t need subtitles to figure that out. All in all it was really enjoyable.

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Thanks for that review!  Sounds like another good heroine film from Zen Pictures.  I’d like to add that this film features the lovely Kanami Okamoto from Zen’s Our Gravure Heroine G.I.O. Master “Olia.” She’s probably one of my favorite actresses in the genre.  Other than that, looks like an interesting film.

Purchase this video at Zen Pictures

HM here…  Zen Pictures has just updated its web site with a brand new design, which is doubly convenient because Sidekick has written an in-depth site review in which he examines everything from the costumes to shooting locations to peril to “bang for your Yen.”  Check out Sidekick’s site review (and my additional comments) and then head over to Zen Pictures to check out the new redesign.

Sidekick: For the uninitiated, Zen Pictures is a Japanese production company that puts out a few dozen films every year. The films they produce are high end, big budget (comparatively) action/peril films whose production values surpass even the best efforts of the top British and American producers in the same genre.  Let’s take a deeper look at the Zen Pictures / Akiba Heroine web site.

1. The Girls – When watching Zen Pictures, one begins to wonder whether there any unattractive women in Japan. They just run out one beautiful actress after another. A few girls of note that I like and that have been cast in different roles are Sayoko Ohashi, Haruka Nagase, and Arisa Taki. All are exceptionally gorgeous. All are incredibly talented.

2. The Wardrobes – Top notch in every way possible.  I can’t imagine a costume fetish that hasn’t been serviced at some point over the years.  If you have never been to the site’s main page, I encourage you to visit Zen Pictures.   They have virtual DVD covers with images from their latest releases.  As I write this, the images on the main page feature a mix of the following costumes: spandex, leather, form fitting cat suits, bikinis, Power Ranger type uniforms, Sailor Moon type outfits, mini skirts, and a well put together version of a Supergirl costume. That’s all from just nine images.

3. Peril – My Zen library consists of about a dozen titles, and every single one is filled with peril.  A lot of peril.  A ridiculous amount of peril.  Like the costumes, if there is a specific heroine in peril situation that you particularly enjoy, it’s a good bet Zen Pictures has done some form of it at one point or another.

4. Fight choreography – It’s almost always very good.  Often, it’s the best the industry has to offer.  With the exception of a recent release entitled Battle of Dead, I haven’t seen what I would consider below average fight choreography in any of the films I have purchased.

5. Locations – They do a fantastic job. They have well-designed interior locations and for a nice change of pace, they do a great deal of shooting outdoors.

6. Writing/Acting – Tough one to rate for two reasons:  One, I don’t speak Japanese, and I’m guessing most of HM’s readers don’t either.  Two, when they subtitle a film the translations are sometimes a bit nonsensical or a bunch of run on sentences. Here are some sample translations from a movie I recently downloaded.

“What’s wrong? Are you Japanese ninja chicken”?

“Attack me like a maniac. Or it’s out of the question.”

“I thought Japanese would be good losers.”

You get the picture. On the bright side, the vast majority of the actresses sell the peril well, which is obviously important to many viewers.

7. Storylines – Once again, the language barrier causes problems with properly evaluating this category.  However, it seems clear that almost every Zen film follows the same four-act structure.  First, the heroine shows up and dominates the bad guys. Second, a particularly powerful bad guy beats down the heroine.  Third, the heroine is tortured/placed in a great amount of peril.  Fourth, the heroine overcomes incredible odds and wins the day.

8. Bang for your Yen – Zen Pictures probably offers one of the best values in the genre.  Every Zen film is generally 50 minutes to over an hour in length. You also get to download a behind-the-scenes video on top of the film.  American buyers are subject to the current exchange rates and can generally expect a final bill of anywhere from $25 to $30 dollars for a newer release.  That’s only slightly more than many producers charge for films that are half as long.  One more note: when I buy a Zen film, my credit card charges me a foreign transaction fee.  It’s usually a little under a dollar.

9. Rating – Most of the films are generally PG-13 in content.  Some films are rated “OVER 15,” which is the Zen Pictures version of Rated R.

10. Sister site – For those looking for something a little more over-th- top, you may want to check out Giga Freeks. I have never purchased any of their films, but from what I understand they are basically Zen Pictures with hardcore sexual peril added. Please note that the films on this site sometimes run for almost two hours and can cost as much as $75.00.

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HM again.  First, I want to thank Sidekick for that review.  Second, I’d like to add a couple of remarks since Zen Pictures is absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite production company in this genre.  I agree wholeheartedly with Sidekick that just about every aspect of Zen Pictures product is just top-notch.  Zen has the best costumes, the most attractive actresses (in my opinion), the best editing, the best lighting, the best set design, the best acting, etc.  Just about everything about their videos is top-of-the-line, and they produce high quality videos with remarkable consistency.

The most frequent complaint I hear about Zen Pictures is that the language barrier makes it difficult to understand what the hell is going on and therefore makes it impossible to get full enjoyment out of their films.  This is, of course, completely a matter of opinion and preference, so if the Japanese dialogue is too much to overcome, that’s perfectly understandable.  However, I couldn’t disagree more with this issue, and I’ll try to explain why.

For one thing, I can understand the dialogue perfectly in about 99% of American-produced videos, and I have to say that much of the time, I wish I couldn’t understand it.  (Okay, that’s a joke… sort of.)  I don’t feel that dialogue is all that important in these videos and feel that the story should almost always be told visually and without a reliance on expository dialogue, which can be really boring after a couple of minutes.  This is something Zen Pictures does really well.

While it’s certainly true that scenes sometimes consist of two or more characters speaking in Japanese to one another for several minutes at a time, there is usually a fairly easily identifiable visual goal the heroine is trying to accomplish.  In some cases, the bad guys have a hostage the heroine needs to rescue.  Other times, the bad guys are just really mean to innocent people, and the heroine tries to destroy them. Even if I don’t understand the details, I can follow along well enough to get the gist of it: the bad guys are bad, the heroine is good, they fight, she loses, they torture her, she comes back and wins in the end.  It doesn’t really matter to me whether her goal is to rescue the daughter of Japan’s Prime Minister, recover the “Lost Relic of Apollo,” obtain the “Staff of Ra,” or anything else.  I personally find that the absence of a clearly-defined goal explained through dialogue and made so specific and understandable actually makes the videos more enjoyable to me.  However, that’s only my opinion, and I can understand why others would disagree.

Another aspect I enjoy in Zen Pictures videos is the tone.  The stories are, for the most part, meant to be taken seriously and are usually not “campy.”  There’s really no “winking at the camera” here and pretending it’s all a joke.  As ridiculous and absurd as the subject matter is (and it really, truly is among the most absurd stuff you’ll ever see), it’s almost always treated as serious fantasy, and to me, this helps to place the viewer into the story world.  This is not an easy task, especially when you’re watching, say, a giant robot placing a trash can over a scantily clad heroine’s head and whacking it repeatedly with a giant mallet.  (This really happened.)

Aside from that, I find the models and actresses to be among the hottest in the genre, and sometimes capable of giving the best performances.  Actresses like Saki Yamaguchi, Sayoko Ohashi, Ayumi Onodera, Kanami Okamoto and others offer a mix of attractiveness and acting ability that is tough to match.  This probably has a lot to do with Zen’s obviously huge budgets (compared to most U.S. and U.K. productions).  They can simply offer more money and can go after really top notch models and actresses who have often times received training in acting and/or martial arts.  (I say this with all due respect to American and British performers who do a really great job as well.)

I could go on and on—about Zen’s awesome set design, filmmaking skills, production values, etc.—but I think Sidekick has covered several important aspects of Zen Pictures, and I hope this explains the appeal from the perspective of a self-identified hard-core fan.  I’d love to know what you think of Zen Pictures, so as always, feel free to leave comments below.

*Giga-Freeks site review posted here!

Visit Zen Pictures for more information