Sushi Girl (2012)

Director: Kern Saxton

Writer: Kern Saxton & Destin Pfaff

Composer:  Fritz Myers

Starring: Tony Todd, Noah Hathaway, James Duval, Andy Mackenzie, Mark Hamill, Courtney Palm, Sonny Chiba, David Dastmalchian, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Danny Trejo

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Revenge is a dish best served raw.

Plot: Fish has spent the past six and a half years in jail. Six and a half years keeping his mouth shut about the robbery and about the other men involved. The night he is released, the four men he protected with silence celebrate his freedom with a congratulatory dinner. The meal is a lavish array of sushi, served off the naked body of a beautiful young Japanese woman. The sushi girl is trained to ignore everything in the room, even if things become dangerous. Sure enough, the four unwieldy thieves can't help but open old wounds in an attempt to find their missing loot and when the sushi hits the fan?  Oh, boy!

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.

SUSHI GIRL opens with Tarantino/Rodriguez GRINDHOUSE (2007)-style credits lettering letting you know right from the start where this is coming from.  They even go so far as to borrow many actors who have acted in their movies but what a cast, huh?  Don't get used to most of them.  From Chiba on down they barely have any screen time.  But that's not the only reason why you need to see this fun picture.  One word:  Mark FUCKING Hamill!!!

He owns this picture.  He's fantastic and his performance is so much fun that it makes me feel ashamed that I haven't been following his acting career since RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983).  That's about to change.  He's hilarious.  Physically he looks like he's channeling Paul Williams.  Sadly, he looks like a broad I once knew.  That aside, he's the single best thing about the film but that's not all.

Courtney Palm looks amazing and she's got a Brinks truck loaded with patience.  For just about the entire film she's lying perfectly still on the table with food on her body.  Since I watched this on Netflix instant I wasn't able to grab a screenshot, otherwise I would've used a different image than the one above.  The rest of the cast does a fine job and there's a nice score by Fritz Myers.  The film looks really good, too, and that's a huge plus for such a claustrophobic picture as this (it mostly takes place in one room).  The resolution took a teensie bit too long for my tastes but the film works as a whole and if I watch it again, it'll be to see Hamill have a blast.