This is without a doubt one of the worst Asian Sci-fi I have ever seen and I am including the original "Final Fantasy VII" film. The first 8 minutes of this 70 minutes film is a monologue explaining the state of the world and people seek enjoyment in virtual video games. Then we see a snail, appropriately enough, then another 6 minutes of a guy walking in a barren wasteland. Four fighters team up to fight the end boss, because they can't fight him alone. I am sure there was some cultural aspect I was missing. What was Lucifer and the derby and dance thing? Might be good for people who like to watch gamers.Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.

I study long form film to see how it works. Some times what I end up seeing doesn't work. That is the case here; only the costumes matter, and one episode has resonance. Does that one episode qualify this as long form? Maybe. Long form has less to do with length than whether things evolve and the film has some chance of helping the viewer evolve. The outer wrapper of this is a dreary ten minute initial narration that gives us completely irrelevant history. An inner wrapper that constitutes most of the hour has three young women (hardly girls) and a scruffy guy "playing" a virtual reality game. This is as much a waste. We never exit the game but we sometimes 'pause play.'But smack in the middle is an odd sequence. Twice earlier we have a well photographed closeup of a snail. One of our 'girls' puts it on the head of a small weathered statue of a wizened it young traveler. It is a very Katachi action. She and us study, admire and move on. In turn, each of the other three encounter it and we are supposed to get key aspects of their person from this. We don't, so that is a waste too. But that initial encounter evokes a deep inner narrative I have about some facet of Japanese spirituality and form, sex and striving in general and within my private shell what urgent peace is all about. All the hard work was done by me, based on what boils down to one moving image. Would I call this long form? It had the effect of long form, but there was essentially no dialog between me and the artists. In the midst of all the provocative narratives I had spinning within me (whether to fight, whether to seek grace), was one about other filmmakers and who I wish was my companion here. Fruit Chan. His Public Toilet goes on and on, using lives I could not care about, folded casually. But at the end, oh what resurrection of everything that went before. That one scene connected with all else, in the film and without. Mastery. Now that's long form.

I'm a fan of Oshii's Avalon. The haunting music, the subdued colors, the quiet, restricted lifestyle of the main characters, Oshii's quirky little games of putting things like dogs and statues through the film, making you wonder why they're there. Not to mention the scene where Stunner chows down on eggs and sausage, and we watch the whole meal.It's all there in Assault Girls! This seems to be a direct sequel to Avalon. Same haunting music, subdued colors, quiet characters... yep, there's a dog, a statue, and now, a snail (poor snail goes through a lot!) Of course, there's a scene where someone's chowing down on eggs and sausage.Yes, the pace is slow. But beautifully colored skies, people meandering around the landscape, solemn music, really gets you into a contemplative state. If that's all there was to the movie, I'd agree, it's a boring way to spend 70 minutes. But there's a point to this.**SPOILER ALERT** The bulk of the movie has the 4 main characters pondering having to work as a group to get to the next level of the game they're playing. They can't do it individually. So, near the end of the movie, they get together.They kill the monster.Here's the best, and I swear, most unexpected ending. It all happens in the last couple minutes of the flick All the players are racing to get out of the game, first one out gets all the spoils of war. But the main player with the big gun, doesn't have a way out of the game. Everyone's laughing at him. You think to yourself, what a way to step on someone that helped you out. He agreed to split the reward, but looks like he's getting nothing for his efforts.Then he blows a fuse, and shoots down all the other players, yelling that he's going to become a player-killer! So in the end, everyone gets screwed, and it's an all out war between the players.A quiet, slow-paced film with a hell of a twist in the end that made me laugh so hard my sides hurt! The guy's 'I've had it with this game!' face as he unleashed his ammo on everyone was just so funny, I kept rewinding and laughing.EDIT: If you haven't watched Avalon (you don't have to) you might have a harder time tolerating the utterly strange elements in the film. Why use Japanese actors and force them to speak English? What's with the semi-cheesy cgi? Here's a little trivia. Director Oshii has a long-standing peeve about Japan's insistence that movies from their country should be in Japanese language. Why he's over the top about this, I don't know. But he purposely made the film Avalon with Polish actors speaking Polish, and now this follow-up with Japenese actors speaking English. I think it's great.My one complaint about this film, along with Avalon, is that they're both poorly marketed and advertised. Very misleading. Both films should be packaged together, along with a short documentary or interview with the director, explaining the mysteries of the films.Avalon and Assault Girls, my 2 favorite movies of all time. Can't wait for Oshii's next meditative sci-fi adventure!

The story tells the tale of four mercenaries, killing monsters in a virtual realm called Avalon. It is set to the backdrop of a dystopian future where communist ideas have crumpled creativity to a halt, and where people spend their time on video games instead. There is very little dialogue, and most of it is in very poor engrish. (Although there is a handful of Japanese lines at the end.) Let's get one thing straight - visually, this movie is amongst the most beautiful that I have ever rested my eyes upon - not only is the 3D/effects well above average, but the clothes and gun models are stunning. If SyFy produced effects of this caliber in their movies, I'm sure their subscriber base would increase tenfold.The soundtrack is also stunning with great soundscapes and production value, lots of epic tracks and "trailer music" to be found here.All and all, a cool way to spend 70 minutes, but don't expect anything other than light entertainment and a beautiful scenery.