Lady Battle Cop, or Onna batoru koppu in its native Japanese, is, in a word, incredible. I’m not talking about Oscar-bait high-drama incredible. I mean, the same type of incredible one would refer to Invasion U.S.A. or any movie starring Steven Seagal. It’s a Japanese superhero tokusatsu film that is one part RoboCop, one part Michael Mann, and about a thousand parts early 1990s trash. I love it. I watched it twice. Its ridiculousness is what makes it so highly watchable.
Kaoru Okoshiba (Azusa Nakamura), a professional tennis player, is engaged to Naoya Koizumi (Yuki Kitazume), a scientist for the Neo-Tokyo National Laboratory. Their city government is being secretly ruled by the mysterious Cartel, who plan to corrupt the whole country, eventually. On the same day that Kaoru and Naoya are to get married, the couple stops by his job when an attack from Phantom, a dangerous subset of the Cartel, descends on the facility, nearly killing both Kaoru and Naoya, and actually killing several people, in the process.
“…one day, Kaoru is back…except she’s not Kaoru the tennis champ anymore…”
Half a year later, Karou and Naoya’s friend, a police detective named Masaru Saijo (Kisuke Yamashita), is still looking for Phantom and the Cartel, which is clandestinely lead by Henry Oba (Shirô Sano), a well-known philanthropist and businessman. Saijo has his suspicions as to what happened at the National Laboratory but has nothing concrete. As far as he knows, both of his friends died in the blast. Until one day, Kaoru is back… except she’s not Kaoru the tennis champ anymore, she’s Lady Battle Cop. She’s here for revenge, and she’s (nearly) invincible. Naturally, the evil organization has its own superhuman champion in the way of Amadeus (Masaru Matsuda), who is kind of like a mash-up of Magneto and Johnny Cage. He can move things with his mind, including Lady Battle Cop.
So, the whole rest of Lady Battle Cop is pretty predictable from there, but that doesn’t even matter. This movie is perfect for those who love B-movies and Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s incredibly over the top. The villains are hilarious horrible caricatures of evil. Masashi Ishibashi is fantastic as the Phantom Team Captain. He often goes in and out of speaking Japanese and English. He shares some pretty choice English words with Lady Battle Cop in one scene that you’ll know exactly what I’m referring to it when you see it. I can’t tell you what happens because of spoilers, but it’s hilarious. Annu Mari and Derrick Holmes are equally campy in their roles as the Phantom Team Elites. Derrick Holmes is possibly too over the top, but that’s always debatable when talking about movies like this.
"…perfect for those who love B-movies..."
