Nice Days’ Delivers a Highpoint for an Already Great Franchise

The 2024 version of the New York Asian Festival runs July twelfth to July twenty eighth. Comply with together with our protection here. And the twenty eighth version of the Fantasia International Film Festival runs July 18th to August 4th in stunning Montreal, Quebec. Comply with together with our protection here.

Motion followers have been consuming fairly properly these previous few years, and people open to subtitled thrills have been feasting even higher. Over half of our best action movies of 2023 aren’t in English, and the identical goes for our best action picks for 2022. The primary two Child Assassins movies secured spots on their respective lists, and now it appears just like the third movie within the franchise, Child Assassins: Good Days, goes to do the identical. The entire group is again collectively, each in entrance of and behind the digital camera, and the result’s arguably the collection highpoint delivering stellar fights, actual emotional beats, goofy humor, and an unexpectedly darker tone.

Mahiro (Saori Izawa) and Chisato (Akari Takaishi) are used to slacking off between jobs, whether or not the minimal wage gigs or their homicide assignments, however for the primary time ever, the pair have discovered themselves on a correct trip. Murderer contracts await no man or lady, although, so when a close-by alternative arises they begrudgingly head into the small seaside metropolis of Miyazaki to kill a dude. They arrive simply in time to search out their goal dealing with an impending dying by the hands of a contract killer named Kaede (Sosuke Ikematsu) who’s counting his method in the direction of 100 and fifty assassinations. Right here’s hoping Mahiro and Chisato don’t find yourself amongst them.

Coming only one 12 months after 2023’s Child Assassins: Two Infants, this third movie within the franchise — quickly to get a TV collection too! — would possibly simply be its highpoint. Author/director Yugo Sakamoto as soon as once more blends a enjoyable story of friendship with some extremely entertaining and superbly crafted motion beats. Child Assassins: Good Days is a extra severe movie, from the extra violently inclined antagonist to the themes of impending maturity and “maturity,” however that darker tone permits our heroes to see their very own mortality in some affecting methods — and to then shoot it in its dumb face.

In a transfer that would both upset collection followers or discover some new ones, Sakamoto noticeably tones down the slacker comedy that was an enormous a part of the primary two motion pictures. Talking solely for myself and as a kind of slacker comedy followers, this shift works exactly as a result of we’ve been watching Mahiro and Chisato develop all through the movies. They discovered energy in one another, they discovered pursuits that fueled them, and now they’re realizing that there’s a price related to investing a lot of your self into your work. Kaede is a brutal pressure to be reckoned with, however he’s additionally a cautionary story for the younger girls.

In fact, none of that’s to recommend that Child Assassins: Good Days isn’t a enjoyable time with its personal share of guffaws. Mahiro and Chisato are nonetheless goofballs, and Izawa and Takaishi are nonetheless having a blast bringing these two to life. Their chemistry stays off the charts, and so they’re simply as snug buying and selling banter and informal asides as they’re shifting in excellent sync whereas on the job. The cleanup crew from the final movie returns too, this time with no actual on their mild romance, however Tomo Nakai and Atom Mizuishi nonetheless convey the grins. We additionally get a pair of older assassins alongside for the experience in Iruka (Atsuko Maeda) and Riku (Mondo Otani), who stability a extra skilled professionalism with some humorous verbal disagreements as to how they go about issues.

After our two “infants,” although, it’s Ikematsu who steals your consideration. The character is a fierce however uncomfortably charismatic foe, and whereas we perhaps get a bit extra time on his background than is required, all of it works to tell his single-minded obsession and debatable lack of empathy. It’s additionally what makes his face-offs with Mahiro so robust — he’s an unstoppable pressure, however she would possibly simply be the immovable object.

To that time — and actually, the motion is in the end the purpose of all of this — Sakamoto and legendary combat choreographer Kensuke Sonomura up their already spectacular recreation from the primary two movies to make Child Assassins: Good Days actually stand out from the pack. The place the earlier entries primarily saved the fights as bookends for slacker comedy antics, right here the motion is extra frequent and in the end extra severe. Mahiro and Kaede face off greater than as soon as, and each are compelled to appreciate they might have met their match.

All the motion right here shines, and even Takaishi’s Chisato will get to style extra of the kinetic thrills this time, nevertheless it’s Izawa and Ikematsu whose brawls elevate the bar time and again. The pair really feel completely matched and effortlessly in sync as they commerce hits, and it makes their fights each entertaining and suspenseful. Sonomura choreographs motion like nice artists paint, sing, and so forth., and that’s as a result of Sonomura is a superb artist. Take a look at any of the movies he’s served as motion director for, and you’ll want to search out his two directorial efforts two (Hydra, 2019; Dangerous Metropolis, 2022), each straight up bangers that present him as one in every of at the moment’s most enjoyable voices in motion cinema. Right here he crafts fights, chase scenes, and shootouts with an eye fixed for readability, fashion, and thrills, and whereas he’s open to a level of playfulness in regard to the physics of all of it, an actual consciousness of mortality hangs heavy over the fighters. It’s stunning stuff.

Child Assassins: Good Days would possibly lose some followers on account of its tempering of slacker comedy and playful downtime, however actually, it’d achieve some for the exact same motive. The vital factor is that it’s one other implausible instance of true artisans working hand in hand to maintain these characters and this world going with enjoyable, love, and thrilling motion beats. Now when can I watch the rattling TV collection?!

The 2024 version of the New York Asian Festival runs July twelfth to July twenty eighth. Comply with together with our protection here. And the twenty eighth version of the Fantasia International Film Festival runs July 18th to August 4th in stunning Montreal, Quebec. Comply with together with our protection here.

Associated Subjects: Action, Fantasia Film Festival, NYAFF

Rob Hunter has been writing for Movie College Rejects since earlier than you had been born, which is bizarre seeing as he is so rattling younger. He is our Chief Movie Critic and Affiliate Editor and lists ‘Broadcast Information’ as his favourite movie of all time. Be at liberty to say hello in case you see him on Twitter @FakeRobHunter.