GIRLS REBEL FORCE OF COMPETITIVE SWIMMERS Review

Poor Aki’s having the worst first day ever at her new school. As if it’s not bad enough that she gets pushed into the swimming pool as a prank, there’s a new virus circulating among the student body and the doctor who comes to inoculate them against it is a raving madman. A raving madman who likes to experiment with viruses, no less, and one who pumps the entire school full of a virus of his own design that transforms them into bloodthirsty maniacs. Things would be looking grim indeed if not for the fact that pool water neutralizes the virus and Aki was actually kidnapped years earlier and trained as a secret assassin by the same mad doctor. It’s time for Aki to kick some ass but not before stripping down for some lesbian loving with her new found best friend.

In the world of trash film there is fun trash and trashy trash. Japan’s GP Museum Soft dominantly makes the first kind. Their films are typically very low budget, shot on the quick and spare no opportunity to flash a bit of skin or a gratuitous panty shot. With very few exceptions GP films very rarely travel outside Japan and there’s good reason for that. And so I had to raise an eyebrow when I saw that The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers - a truly fantastic title for a film – had received a low cost, region free DVD release in Hong Kong.

No doubt about it, Rebel Force is very much a trash film and very much in keeping with GP’s regular mode of operations. It is shot on the cheap with a no name cast and low grade effects and features both nudity and panty shots within the first ten minutes of the running time. High brow this aint. That said, it’s also not hard to see why this horror pinku has built some notoriety for more than just the skin. The budget may be low and the fight sequences are laughably poor but the set pieces are often wildly inventive and the whole thing is charged with a lunatic sense of energy.

Never seen a juggling, fire breathing zombie out for blood while reciting math problems? This movie has that. A girl nursing the heroine back to health by feeding her soup via lesbian kisses? It’s got that, too. A villain that plays pied piper to fulfill his sexual desires? That’s in there. Throw in one of the most surprising – and effective – secret weapons I’ve come across in a while and you’ve got something truly memorable. Not a good film by any measure and sure to offend many The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers lands squarely on the fun end of the trash spectrum