FANTASIA 2023: ‘Baby Assassins 2’ Is Even More Baby

Baby Assassins was one of the highlights of action in 2022, and of the 26th Fantasia International Film Festival. Excitingly, the girls are back for Fantasia 2023 with Baby Assassins 2, and they’ve brought absurdity, action, and a great score. Written and directed by Yugo Sakamoto, this sequel capitalizes on everything that made the first a stellar trip, and that’s mainly the chemistry between and physical ability of Saori Izawa and Akari Takaishi as Mahiro and Chisato.

With more guns, more action, and more gags, Mahiro and Chisato, two of Tokyo’s murderous underworld, are taking out targets, but it’s not always intended. Not the best with money, the duo has to find jobs that aren’t contracted hits, all because someone forgot to pay for the gym that they don’t even really use. After heading to the bank in an attempt to solve their payment issue, this slightly chaotic team stop a robbery and landed in hot water with their agency. Suspended indefinitely, their money problems just get worse.

That said, in Baby Assassins 2, Mahiro and Chisato aren’t the only assassin team, they’re just the friendliest. Makoto (Tatsuomi Hamada) and Yuri (Joey Iwanaga) are a slightly unhinged and all-around goofy pair that offers a match to Mahiro and Chisato. These brothers open the film with a kinetic fight scene, but despite their skills, they’re still small-time. When they attempt to join the agency, the situation is clear, in order to join up, there have to be two free spots. This puts our girls immediately in the brothers’ crosshairs, and it’s where they meet that the film really hits its stride.

While the girls carry a competent balance between their quirks and their skills, it’s the dynamic reaction between them and the brothers that really pushes the film forward. Ultimately, it’s the fact they both fight as one body despite being two that showcases an eye for not just fight choreography but also Sakamoto’s eye for understanding how to use an environment.

One of the things that made the first film a stand out in terms of action was that each sequence embraced comedy and violence in equal measure and did so by utilizing the environments that the fights were set in. Baby Assassins 2 features fights with office supplies, mascot fights, and a lot more. Always dynamic, the unpredictability of how the fight will go because of Mahiro and Chisato’s chaotic approach to combat — which is their resourcefulness. Each fight sequence moves quickly, always letting the actresses move at speed for the choreography instead of slowing it down.

Baby Assassins 2 doesn’t take itself too seriously but in knowing exactly what it is, the film is able to max out the humor, violence, and charisma of its leads. This sequel film is able to reach the same height as the first, and with a new duo, Sakamoto showcases his skill in crafting relationships that translate to combat. Not only that, but in this film, we get an expanded look at the agency, all the pieces that make things work, and just how absolutely bureaucratic contract killers are. The High Table? Nope, the agency is what I want more of.

Stellar, hilarious, and filled to the brim with action, Baby Assassins 2 is an absurdist must-watch for every single action-comedy lover there is. Yugo Sakamoto has an understanding of how to use violence to the extreme in order to do more than just show bloodshed, but to embrace physical comedy too.

Baby Assassins 2 screened as a part of Fantasia Film Festival 2023’s programming and will be distributed in the US by WellGoUSA.