Review: Cutie Honey

Posted by Kevin Ouellette on August 18, 2006 6:10am EDT (6 years ago)

I don’t pretend to be a fan of manga or anime, nor do I know much about it in general. However, what little I do know about the history of the Cutie Honey franchise led me to believe that a live-action adaptation would probably consist of about 90% frenetic action sequences and 10% random excuses for partial nudity. Due to a fairly low budget the former was toned down drastically. The latter is there to such a degree that feminists probably wouldn’t be too pleased with it, but not so much that it reaches any sort of threshold of overt sexuality. The Cutie Honey character conforms to that time-tested and oft-duplicated mold of the female character that is utterly audacious and unashamed of her body while simultaneously completely asexual and unaware that she’s driving all the guys around her crazy, thus freeing her from any sort of odious skank stigma. Some may call that a tease; I call it money in the bank.

The film begins with Honey Kisaragi taking a nice bubble bath when she gets a call from her Uncle Utsugi, a professor. She hears him being abducted by some unknown assailant and quickly leaps into action. Honey, alter-ego of Cutie Honey is played by Eriko Sato, who happened to be more well-known as gravure idol than as an actress at the time of filming (she’s since established herself as a respectable actress in her own right). In a scene written for no other reason than to exploit this fact she finds she doesn’t have enough energy to transform so she’s forced to get dressed in a clear garbage bag and run to the store for some snacks. I hate when that happens. With that catastrophe averted she’s finally able to transform into Cutie Honey by pressing the heart-shaped button on her choker and yelling “Honey flash!” with unbridled enthusiasm.

At this point Uncle Usugi’s captors have already been completely boxed in by police at the Tokyo Bay Aqualine. Most notably among them is Squad Chief Natsuko Aki, played by Mikako Ichikawa who is also a model but they threw some glasses on her and pulled back her hair to make her seem sufficiently uptight and overbearing. The Chief finds herself in over her head when the kidnapper turns out to be Gold Claw, a member of the evil organization Panther Claw. A police woman that looks remarkably like Cutie Honey saves her just in the nick of time and drags her kicking and screaming out of harm’s way, much to her chagrin. Cutie Honey takes over from there and eventually defeats Gold Claw single-handedly, rescuing her uncle (for now). Natsuko is anything but impressed, however, and tries to take her into custody. A mysterious reporter named Hayami Seiji (Jun Murakami) interjects that she’s committing false arrest and he’s handcuffed for his troubles too. Honey can’t really go through the hassle of an arrest though, she’s late for work. After a quick escape she’s back to being plain old Honey Kisaragi, the low-status office worker with no friends who can’t seem to do anything right.

Meanwhile Natsuki is having problems of her own. Her superiors reprimand her for the damage done at the Aqualine and her inability to capture the criminals responsible. If things weren’t bad enough Professor Utsugi has been kidnapped by Panther Claw once again right from under her nose. This eventually brings Natsuki, Cutie Honey, and Hayami back together as they all have their own reasons for wanting to get to the bottom of exactly what Panther Claw might be up to.

The evolution of the relationship between the three characters takes center stage for the bulk of the movie and actually becomes kind of endearing. The lack of budget probably worked out for the best here because instead of just jamming every scene with action sequences things take more of a comedic tone as some of Honey and Natsuki’s personal issues are delved into a little further. Don’t get me wrong though; there are still plenty of Panther Claw members left to take out before things are through but it’s definitely not a non-stop action flick for the sake of being an action flick.

The performances of the main characters were surprisingly effective. Eriko Sato’s take on Honey is completely perfect in that all that’s really needed is the willingness to look completely goofy and the ability to spout off cheesy lines with utter conviction. She has those qualities in spades along with a healthy dose of cuteness and likeability. Ichikawa was also particularly good at conveying the insecurities of Natsuki in a way that made her likeable as well. The effects are blatantly low-tech by today’s standards, but they show enough ingenuity that they come off cute instead of just plain old lame. I really enjoyed this more than I could have ever expected. The thing that sticks out more than anything after watching this film is that it would have been so easy to take things in a more exploitative direction but instead the makers of this film actually went the opposite way as it progressed. It really shows in the final product and what we’re left with is a completely cheesy movie that also happens to be legitimately funny and charming.

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