Sevket Erhat
I was not aware of this low budget Japanese actioner up until now but it is always better late than never. As it was stated in many reviews about this movie it copies from films like Hard Target, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction etc shamelessly but they have been put to great use. I must say that this movie is ridiculous in every way. The script, characters, acting, music, everything. For example who would wear a crocodile/salamander mask when you go to rob a bank ? Exactly. Chance is the ultimate hero of this with out of this world mullet and same name from John Woo's 1993 movie Hard Target. I like Hard Target so that posed no problems for me. As for the crazy hitchhikers I really hated them. They were so terrible I was left wondering if they were serious or not. One other thing that bothered me is that I could not figure out where this movie was taking place. The lady on the radio was speaking in English so I assumed it was America but all the cops at the finale look like they were from Thailand or Philippines. This got me confused.Put this all aside if you are looking for a crazy Japanese actioner with pretty good gun fights don't miss this movie. To quote Chance "There are two kinds of men. One who likes movies like this and one who should burn in hell for not liking this gem"
squelcho
A cheap and cheerless heist movie with poor characterisation, lots of underbite style stoic emoting (think Chow Yun Fat in A Better Tomorrow) and some cheesy clichés thrown into an abandoned factory ready for a few poorly executed flying judo rolls a la John Woo. Even the squibs look awful. At no point in the proceedings does it look remotely like America. Three wonky old cars do not a country make.The Mustang even has a wobbly right front wheel. The plot, such as it is, is so derivative and predictable that the ending is like a mercy killing. It couldn't come soon enough. Even the jewellery from the robbery looks like the cheapest junk costume jewellery available. The awful dialogue and hopeless overacting by everyone who gets shot top off a real waste of space and time. Worth watching if you want to know how not to make a cliché-ridden low budget movie.
himboy32
Score tells the story of former Yakuza gangster "Chance" who is hiding in the U.S. until he is tracked down by his former colleagues and forced to do small bank jobs for them. Soon he comes to one last job, a jewel heist and if all goes well he'll be able to sever all ties with the Yakuza and leave for Paris, but Chance has his own plans.When I watched this movie I was very surprised as how bloody this film actually was but of course being a huge fan of John Woo's gangster epics I just sat back and watched the blood and bullets fly.The main story and a couple of other plot elements are lifted directly out of a couple of American movies such as Reservoir Dogs and Natural Born Killers, which made a change to Hollywood ripping off Asian cinema.The action was very well done, clearly influenced by the works of John Woo as I mentioned before.The cast do very well in this picture, each one brings different personalities to each of their respective characters they play.If you choose to view this movie don't expect a hard hitting gangster thriller such as the works of 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, this is purely action all the way.
Brian Camp
SCORE (1995) is a derivative Japanese crime film, borrowing liberally from, among others, HARD-BOILED, HARD TARGET, RESERVOIR DOGS, TRESPASS, NATURAL BORN KILLERS and THE GETAWAY. It's a fast-paced, violent, old-fashioned (in a good way) caper thriller that makes up for an extremely low budget by fast-cutting, imaginative staging of action, judicious casting, and lots of shootouts, fights, chases, greed, betrayal and frenzied, bloody agony.SCORE is set in the U.S., but was largely shot in the Philippines (the police cars have `Manila's Finest' printed on them). The main character, Chance, looks like a Japanese Quentin Tarantino with his square face and bulldog features, and heads a team of jewel robbers waiting for their payoff in a massive abandoned factory. There is a psychotic highway robber and his crazy female accomplice (straight out of NATURAL BORN KILLERS) who dog the jewel robbers. The male psycho has a fixation on Doc Holliday and the O.K. Corral and insists on referring to the jewel thieves as the Clantons.Despite its budget limitations and blatant rip-offs of so many better films, SCORE boasts the kind of speed, grit, color, and imaginative violent outbursts that used to grace so many of the grade-B crime films that Hollywood (and Hong Kong) used to produce on a regular basis.
AD
