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St. Kusunoki High School is a peaceful place, that is until Naruhito
Mizuki (Kenjiro Ishimaru) promises the school much-needed financial
funding, and in return he wants to gain control of the (all-girl) swimming
team. Now that alone would hardly be alarming (well, a bit), but fact is
that Mizuki is actually an agent of Mangriffon.
Soon, the swimming team is flown off to a training camp on a deserted
island, where the girls are rigorously trained by Mizuki and his
tortureloving coach Ian Soap (Taichi Yamada), which is especially bad news
for Mayumi (Aki Hoshino), who can't swim, and for that she is soon
tortured by Mizuki and Soap ... enter Kekko Kamen (Misaki), the female
avenger for mistreated schoolgirls everywhere and prime enemy of
Mangriffon, who does all her avengeing completely nude safe for boots, a
mask and a scarf, and who ever so often distracts her adversaries by
giving them a good look at her crotch. And she soon teaches Mizuki and
Soap a lesson.
What nobody (but the audience) knows of course is that Kekko Kamen is
really Miss Kaori, the sympathetic swimming instructor, who helps Mayumi
to achieve her goal (to swim 25 meters) where the more rigurous methods of
Mizuki and Soap have failed. Mayumi gets extra encouragement from the
ghost of Hironi, once the best friend of Ms Kaori who has died when
training too hard to get into the swimming team (you see, she couldn't
swim 25 meters either).
At the final day of the camp, with all the students demonstrating their
skills, Mizuki shows his true colours, that he is an agent of Mangriffon
and wants to enslave all the girls on the team ... and soon enough he has
put all of them in chains. Exit Ms Kaori, enter Kekko Kamen ! But wait,
Mizuki holds a knife next to the throat of one of the girls, and the
chains the girls are in are set to cruch their bones in three minutes. The
key to the chains he throws into the pool - but he gives the girls one
chance ... if Mayumi manages to swim her 25 meters and dive for the key
within the 3 minutes, she, and only she, can save them. Of course, Mayumi
just makes it, and then Kekko Kamen beats up Mizuki and assistants, and
restores order at the swimming camp - before doing her disappearing act
and reappearing as Ms Kaori.
Of course, Kekko Kamen Returns, the third in the Kekko
Kamen series, is more of the same, a cheaply made direct-to-video
comedy built around the torture of schoolgirls (not too graphic and rather
absurd than violent) and opportunities for the titular character to bare
it all. What makes this movie - much like the other two - worthwhile
though is its conscious, over-the-top campiness, its very straight and
honest approach to its subject matter and the fact that its apparent
cheapness doesn't stand in the way of some out-of-bounds ideas. Not art,
maybe not even a good film, but fun to watch.
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