Wanna-Be's (1986) Anime OVA Review

Wanna-Be 's is a 1986 action sports sci-fi wrestling anime OVA directed by Yasuo Hasegawa and written by Toshimichi Suzuki. It features character design work done by manga artist Ken'ichi Sonoda and Yoshiharu Shimizu served as animation director. The voice cast features Eriko Hara, Miki Takahashi, Shūichi Ikeda, Akio Nojima, Eiko Yamada and Urara Takano. It also had metal music by Japanese band Seikima-II and an ending theme by Saori Saitō. Produced by Anime International Company, Wanna Be 's became a cult direct to video release among otakus, particularly because it took advantage of the Japanese wrestling craze of the time.

Miri and Eri are two female wrestlers known as the Wanna-Be's, who fight furiously in the ring against their local foes the Foxy Ladies. However, things get shady when the mysterious Kidou Corporation offers them a chance to better their capabilities. The girls begin to feel some strange and awkward changes in their bodies and uncover the company's nefarious hidden plans.

Considering that this was just a year after Dirty Pair, it's not strange to see a leading pair heavily inspired by them and with similar designs and personalities. The redhead with the short hair embodies a tomboyish attitude and her fiery nature, while the long haired girl with a less arresting color has elements that signal her calm demeanor and more "feminine" personality. The two have some chemistry and enjoy modernity through the futuristic lenses the show sets up, sharing a strong bond and a love for combat. The only difference is that the Wanna Be's don't cause a giant mess everywhere they go.

This OVA is quite awesome from the start, it goes right to the point and gives you the money shots you expect, it really grabs you from the start and never lets go, putting you on a short but very enjoyable roller coaster of wild wrestling action up to the science fiction brawl from the climax with all of it making perfect sense and never feeling out of place. I honestly wasn't expecting the turn it took around the half way mark but it was a very welcome surprise. The versatile genre elements it shuffles really do come together seamlessly.

As you might expect, we also witness some potent wrestling anime action, you can tell the animators and directors took their time and studied the different moves and maneuvers that were common at the time in the sport, having the girls perform them and be victims of them, arriving at some striking poses. The actual direction is also solid as the shots are dynamic, intense, well timed, edited smoothly and with the angles emphasizing the ferocity of the encounters. It's a shame we weren't gifted with even more matches or perhaps more characters in the ring. We have a good variety of bodies and colors in there, but it would have been cool to get more lady matches in there as a way to expand the world because the few that we see kind of make the world seem a bit narrow.

This is a radically deranged and out there anime OVA that mixes both sports fanservice with the imaginative thrills of a sci-fi monster anime of its time quite expertly.

Girlfight (2000) Movie Review

Girlfight is a sports drama film directed/written by Karyn Kusama starring Michelle Rodriguez, Jaime Tirelli, Paul Calderón and Ray Santiago. Made with a very low budget of 1 million dollars, the film was an independent production that was born out of the director's interest in a boxing story with a female lead, propelled by her own experiences learning boxing. Part of the struggle was to get this possibly offensive and daring movie even done in the first place, so she had to accept the very small amount of money and had other filmmakers contribute.

The film follows aggressive and explosive teenager from Brooklyn Diana Guzman (Michelle Rodriguez) as she begins to become captivated by boxing when she visits a gym to pick up her brother, Tiny. Diana lives with her previously abusive father, who pushed her mother to suicide, and his already mentioned brother who becomes a hope for his father as he wants the boy to be a professional boxer, even if the kid doesnt want to. Diana is told she can train but cannot fight by a local hispanic trainer, Hector. However, after spending some time with the girl the man begins to realize her potential. Taboos and baseless preconceptions are broken and Diana begins to fight professionally with both men and women, accomplishing her goals in a strict and sexist system.

While female sports movies have been more common in recent times, back then they were very rare or relegated to small projects or brief mentions, but this movie was quite a breakthrough for challenging and shattering some ideological fallacies and inspecting the life of its characters in a more raw and down to earth manner. Even outside of the sports and athletic aspects of the film, which are prominent, the film is, at its core, a very well directed and contained family drama that extrapolates the hidden rage and anger of such a troublesome environment into the protagonists desire for fighting, at first in school and then in the ring, and unleashing her previously repressed feelings. This is a very well handled coming of age story.

I was surprised by the great job the director did at stripping down the film to its bare essentials, emphasizing the performances, particularly the one by a great Michelle Rodriguez in her debut, and perfectly shooting and choreographing both the actors and the sportsmen in the fight sequences. The direction and camera work is so slick that it really becomes transparent and the drama gains power and prominence, ending up becoming deeply immersive. The many technical pitfalls of very low budget films are overcomed by a strong and pulsating vision that tries to be clear and simple every time.

There are flaws, like some strange ideological misconceptions and even some tropes that feel a bit too tiresome, like lovers having to fight or some cheap lines of dialogue that were a bit too on-the-nose. However, I will say that these are far more tolerable here than in mediocre movies of this kind, the actors and the naturalistic writing make those dialogues and scenes play out quite nicely.

A pivotal film in the subgenre, it kickstarted the career of action girl star Michelle Rodriguez into the mainstream and the career of feminist filmmaker Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux, Jennifer's Body) as well.

Recommended for sports movie fans and those who like some urban dramas with an edge and that are well executed.

Dark Match (2024) Movie Review

Dark Match is a wrestling satanic horror action film written and directed by Lowell Dean, and starring Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg, Sara Canning, and wrestling star Chris Jericho. The film generated mixed reviews and some scepticism among people who dislike movies that feature WWE stars but eventually it was released to some notoriety in the streaming service Shudder.

In the late eighties, Nicky (Ayisha Issa), known as Miss Behave in the ring and a female wrestler working for a small promotion company named SAW, travels to a weird little village for a private event where dangerous cult members, lead by a former wrestler known as The Prophet, are to attend. Things escalate and the cult members become bloodsthirsty, sacrifices are made hoping to bring the devil to our world and now Nicky, along with a manager who she had a troubled relationship with (Steven Ogg), and other companions, must escape and defeat the devil worshippers.

The film's biggest dealbreaker to me is the fact that it's never really committed to its craziness and potentially delirious storyline and tone, it's all hampered by the fact that everything feels halfway done. I don't know if it's a budget problem but the fight sequences never reach any overblown crescendo or kooky intensity one would expect from the director of films like Wolf Cop, it's all muffled and flavorless.

To add to its imperfections, Miss behave is sidelined for most of runtime since she steps back to let Steven Ogg drive the story for a fair amount of the duration. This is hardly a major flaw as Ogg is very enjoyable to watch but it's all at the expense of the heroine's agency and predominance in the narrative throughline. I really wish it wasn't as timid with its violence and its characters. Someone needed to up the ante and add a deranged energy that could help it.

The retro grindhouse grainy and dirty style with colorful lighting and unclean visuals add a ton of atmosphere and convey the exploitation-like throwback attitude the film wants to portray and be faithful to but it doesn't properly elevate the insanity that a satanic wrestling movie should most likely contain to deliver the goods. No amount of color can save the plain and empty scenarios and sets. Barely any real gore, no sleazy nudity and it hardly rejoices in its filthiness enough to make it stand out in the sea of faux grindhouse flicks out there.

The wrestling ladies and their manic matches are fun and it has a funny ending (that also cops out) but otherwise Dark Match is a highly unremarkable horror/slasher movie that it's probably just a rental or a casual watch if you can stream it for free.