DVD Review: Death Ride to Osaka
Death Ride to Osaka is a really cool title. It sounds like a slasher flick, maybe set on a bullet train. Unfortunately, the actual movie doesn’t nearly live up to its name, despite its lurid concept.
Carol (a very young Jennifer Jason Leigh) is an aspiring singer/songwriter living in L.A. She works as a waitress while she pursues her big break. Sadly, the big break is not forthcoming, probably because her songs are inane and her singing voice is mediocre at best. But we’re supposed to root for her because she’s incredibly earnest and sweet. When she sees an ad for singers and dancers to work on a two-month tour in Asia, she jumps at it. Before long she leaves her on-again, off-again boyfriend behind and hops a plane to Tokyo. There she meets her charming agent, Shiro (who has one of the worst haircuts known to man), the ice-queen owner of the club where she’s going to work, and the owner’s brutal husband (Mako, who doesn’t use his gravelly voice nearly enough in this movie). Carol soon discovers that the contract she signed (which was in Japanese) doesn’t match up with what she was told to expect. Besides singing, she also has to perform hostess club duties, and when she finds she’s making less money than she was promised, she’s ‘encouraged’ to supplement her income by prostituting herself to the club’s clients. Even the other girls- all gai-jin- try to persuade her to cooperate, especially Marilyn (Ann Jillian), a dancer who’s become resigned to her fate.
In case you hadn’t figured it out already, the club is actually the front for a white prostitution ring run by the Yakuza. Because of the mafia connection, neither the American embassy or the Japanese police are willing to help Carol. Marilyn stands up for her, only to be ‘transferred to a club in Osaka’. Meanwhile, after much waffling, Shiro decides to help Carol escape, and at the same time her boyfriend shows up in Tokyo, determined to win her back. But are they any match for the awesome power of Japanese organized crime?
The first thing you’ll notice about Death Ride to Osaka is that it looks incredibly dated. It’s definitely a film from the 1980’s; big hair and off-the-shoulder dresses with patent-leather belts abound. The music is mostly synthesized, and Carol’s first musical number is “Heatwave”.
The movie is obviously low-budget. Stock footage of Tokyo streets sets the location, but most of the story unfolds in cramped spaces: hotel rooms, dressing rooms, police stations that could be anywhere. Except for the nudity, Death Ride to Osaka could be a T.V. movie, or an Afterschool Special.
One of the most puzzling things about this movie is the language. The film is in English and Japanese. Some of the Japanese is subtitled, but a lot isn’t- even in scenes where nothing but Japanese is spoken. Even stranger, the Japanese just doesn’t sound right. I want to make it clear that I neither speak nor understand Japanese, but I’ve heard it enough that I can usually pick out familiar words or phrases here and there. The rhythms of Death Ride’s Japanese sound correct, but I couldn’t pick out a single familiar word; the actors themselves sound like they’re imitating Japanese. Most of the actors are Asian-American, and perhaps didn’t actually know Japanese. Keep in the mind the possibility that I am also wrong.
The performances border on decent. Leigh is appealing and annoying as naïve-then-determined Carol, and Jillian does a fine job as Marilyn. The men don’t have as much to do; the actor playing Shiro is tepid; his conflict between his loyalty to the Yakuza and his affection for Carol barely registers. Mako mostly just scowls and slaps women around (he really should have stuck to playing wizards…).
Salaciously unlikely as the movie’s plot is, the ending is even more farfetched. Spoilers ahead, in case for some reason you still actually want to watch this movie. After escaping the Yakuza (despite her strong-woman attitude, Carol still has to be rescued by her boyfriend and Shiro), Carol and Boyfriend flee to a weirdly depopulated Narita airport, where they will presumably board a plane back to the States despite the fact that the Yakuza have stolen Carol’s passport.
The DVD comes in a cardboard cover. Originally I thought I’d gotten hold of a screener, but a little research told me that this is in fact the official release: a cardboard cover printed with a picture of a much older Leigh. So it seems even the release company didn’t care to expend much effort on this one.
To summarize: Death Ride to Osaka, despite its promising title, sucks. It’s a boring, dated girl-in-peril movie with a dumb ending. Don’t bother.
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So… you’re saying that it’s like Big Trouble in Little China, but without the funny?