- Title: Yakuza Girl
- IMDb: link
Writer/director Louis DeStefano‘s Yakuza Girl is largely unwatchable. Cheap, poorly made, featuring a collection of stilted acting which would make pornstars blush and a plot that never goes anywhere, it’s an impressive feat to fail so completely and on so many levels simultaneously. Shot with apparently little to no set up in a variety of locations ranging from somebody’s house to a parking lot, the rambling story follows an undercover detective (Masashi Ishizuka) from Japan to Los Angeles after taking down a member of the Yakuza.
In his new position Kenji helps the locals while the girl (Emiko Ishii) of the man he murdered in Japan (or the parking lot we’re expected to accept as Japan) follows him to America in order to exact revenge. We get some flashbacks to the pair together, underlining how deep his betrayal was to her. Having non-native speakers recite English dialogue throughout does them no favors, but the acting from the Americans is no better and even in the few sequences where subtitles are used the acting is still dreadful. I’d say Yakuza Girl is laughably bad except there isn’t a single laugh to be had. The movie is a master class on everything not to do when attempting to create a feature film.
Watch the trailer