The Plot: Aki is the new girl in school, where the womens swim team is one of the most prized establishments. Aki is having a rough go of things, and her mysterious past confuses most everyone around her. However, Sayaka finds the girls intriguing and sets out to get her to join the swim team so that she can compete with them in the competition that is just a few short days away. However, things take a turn for the dreadful after everyone in school is given a vaccination shot that just so happens to turn them into zombies! The only ones not affected are members of the swim team and those who have recently been in the pool. Now it’s up to Aki and the swim team to find the person responsible for this zombie invasion and save the entire school!

The Review: Japan has been a burgeoning wealth for the underground splatter scene for quite some time, but has really been making headlines recently with many titles that have been grabbing gorehounds by the ear. The Machine Girl, Meatball Machine and many other sleazier titles. The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers (from now on, referred to as: Rebel Force) is just another in that long line of films putting cheap gore back in the spotlight. Unlike the previously mentioned films however, Rebel Force is a V-Cinema (films made purely for the Japanese video market, usually pure exploitation and often not all that good) pure bred. No outside producers stepping in, no artistic pretensions: this is a cartoonish gore flick about schoolgirls who get naked a lot and battle evil demons. There’s definitely a level of style to the film, no doubt about that, but the intentions are completely in the forefront from the very beginning and no matter how you scratch it; Rebel Force is only here to deliver a lot of what you want and then make off like a bandit in the night. There are a lot of body parts flying around, arterial spray gushing like fountains, high school girls who are naked more often than clothed and a plot that makes less and less sense as the movie carries along. Let’s just say, at this point you know what you’re getting into. I guess the only fair way to judge this film is to say: did it exceed genre limitations? Was it bloody enough? Yes, and then some. Were the chicks hot enough? Ahhh, yes and no in some cases. Was it entertaining? Yes, it was but there’s a certain amount of intelligence you have to leave at the door to get full satisfaction out of it.

The acting within Rebel Force is simply awful. You know, it’s not all that often you can notice these sort of things when you’re watching a movie with subtitles – but you know the performances have to be on a completely new level of bad whenever people who don’t even speak the language can see how bad you’re doing. It’s either that Asian operatic style of comedy you often see (mostly in Hong Kong comedies, where crossing your eyes or a man dressed as an ugly woman with a mole is considered top tier humor), but taken to a new degree of over the top drama – or these guys are familiar with Lloyd Kauffman’s work. Either which way, no one really equits themselves looking like great thespians here. That’s not enough to merit the quality of the film though is it? After all, those of you reading this probably don’t speak the language anyway so you’re only tortured by facial expressions. If you want to judge this like it’s a real movie (which I’m not too sure of what exactly to classify a flick like Rebel Force as) then the scripting has to be the largest bankruptcy of the film. Such lazy writing really shouldn’t be tolerated, but with zany non-narratives such as this you can’t help but smile. I believe there are around three Deus Ex Machina’s in the finale to Girls Rebel Force, and not a-one of them has any kind of set-up throughout the entire hour that came before them. I don’t know for sure, but I would like to think that maybe this insane wild ride is based upon a Manga – but I can’t say with certainty. It would be the best excuse for having so many twists and turns from out of nowhere, but honestly, that’s not much of an excuse. Rebel Force is simply less about making sense and more about delivering an energetic gore filled T&A show with an impossibly awesome title. Although fitting all of that on a marquee would probably prove to be more difficult than it’s worth, so I guess it’s a good thing we’re talking straight to video fluff here.

In the end, if you’ve been around the block even one time and you’ve experienced enough of the Japanese cheapies you’ll know what to expect from this film – however, I enjoy the fact that it reaches farther and tries to place itself so far and out of range of any normalcy that it becomes a true spectacle. In a world with films like Machine Girl, Meatball Machine, Fudoh and various other ‘out-there’ Japanese exploitation flicks, it does solidify itself in that “real life manga” style that the other films also seem to have – but it doesn’t excel past that. The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers will ultimately be a film that entertains a lot, but you’re not going to walk away with anything all too new. I may kick myself in the morning, but I am giving it a four out of five. Pretty crazy, considering how shallow it may be – but for the select demographic who aren’t looking for a whole lot more than boobs, gore and plenty of craziness this will certainly fill that hole in your heart. If you can get it, it’s certainly worth it for that “party” flavor or if you’re just looking for a good time with a b-movie.