Hard Revenge, Milly

“Hard Revenge, Milly” (original title: "Hâdo ribenji, Mirî") is a stylish low budget short film directed by Takanori Tsujimoto and starring Miki Mizuno as the titular character. It also spawned a sequel “Hard Revenge, Milly: Bloody Battle” which I’ve seen and reviewed back-to-back with this one.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it tells the story of Milly whose family had been brutally murdered by the Jack Brothers. She was literally butchered and later salvaged with machine implants. The new and improved Milly is out looking for payback.

The official English release for the two films is January 26th, 2010. I couldn’t wait until then so I’ve seen it without subtitles. Running at only 45 mins it’s impossible for the story to develop into any real lengths so what we have is a basic revenge flick that stays true to its title, and it’s perfectly watchable even without understanding the dialogues. It’s divided into two parts: the preparations & the battle. Milly is half human, half machine – like a more lethal version of Inspector Gadget. This of course adds some new possibilities to aid the gore factor which is not overly excessive, to my surprise. The fights are nicely choreographed making use of both traditional hand-to-hand combat as well as adding an extra spice courtesy of Milly’s “additions”. Also, the post-apocalyptic world thing doesn’t really play a part in all of this because the film completely takes place in interiors. It could’ve as easily been set in a regular world.

The main brother Jack is played by the totally slick and fancy Mitsuki Koga.

The only drawback is the somewhat bleak soundtrack. Other than that, “Milly Hard Revenge” is totally cool.

Rating: 7/10

- review by Ventilation Shaft