Intergalactic bounty hunters Iria and Bob return to track down an ancient mystical relic. When a second Zeiram unit shows up and goes berserk, it takes all of Iria's resources to survive a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the fearsome space creature.
Zëiram 2, 伊利亚：杰拉姆2, 제이람 2, ゼイラム 2, Zeiram 2, Zeiramu 2, 伊利亞：傑拉姆 2
Japan 
AustraliaPG Australia Japan 
Zëiram 2 rehashes many of the story beats of the original movie, but gives the entire thing even more of a live-action anime spin. It's a bit all-over-the-place narrative wise, but as far as Japanese practical FX extravaganzas go, it's really excellent.
Yûko Moriyama's Iria is still a badass cutie/cute badass. ♥️
that one scene where zeiram kills like 50 guys is fucking insane
Fun, but it can't help but feel like a shadow of the first one when it's the same old stoic baddie, fights in factories, and bumbling sidekicks.
It should be illegal to introduce 50 new villains and then kill them all in one go.
Somehow even cooler than the first one. It loses half a star for not going as crazy on the zeiram mutations in the climax, but it makes up for it with everyone's fancy new outfits.
Very randomly motivated watch last night, but Keita Amemiya is one of those directors who first drew me to Asian cinema back in the early aughties—I can remember walking past a table at a comic book convention where a vendor was showing "Zëiram" or "Zëiram 2" on a tiny CRTV; I saw footage of the Zëiram cyborg in the conical hat and had to know what I was watching. Not long after, I was able to track down DVDs of "Mechanical Violator Hakaider" and "Moon Over Tao," but for some reason never managed to check "Zëiram 2" off the list, despite seeing the first one.
Although my memory of "Zëiram" is somewhat hazy, I soon realized this was one of…
Oh my god, I saw this so many years ago that I didn’t realize that Iria’s unreliable frenemy Fujikuro is played by SABU! Baby SABU!
Amemiya is kind of the Raimi of Japan? He’s all about wild practical effects and in camera tricks, the kind of director that will never let what makes sense get in the way of what looks cool. And Zeiram and Iria are his greatest creations - an Alien/Predator/Terminator hybrid and the hot bounty hunter in anime armor who hunts him.
Much, much longer and dumber than it needs to be (this would have whipped so much more ass at 70m), but goddamn are the action scenes and practical effects great.
Keita Amemiya ranked here.
If HK cinema is an excuse to string a bunch of fights together, Keita Amemiya's work is an excuse to string a bunch of practical FX together. I remember thinking the original felt sluggish, and there's still stuff here you could afford to cut (basically anything that isn't Yuko Moriyama doing cool shit OR effects), but I had less trouble staying invested in this one. Mostly. Which is a win.
DuBFal-Sci-Fi-Weeks - 2nd Round - Film Nr.6
Die intergalaktische Kopfgeldjägerin Iria, ihr Computerpartner Bob und ein Programmierter Zeiram, sind nach drei Jahren wieder auf der Erde. Bei der Übergabe eines alten Artefaktes, tötet der Zeiram alle Mitglieder einer Verbrechersekte. Iria ist das zu brutal und sie bekämpft den Zeiram.
1994er Fortsetzung die ebenfalls aus Japan stammt. Bekommen tut man hier einen B-SciFi-Action Film wo auch Trashfilm Anteile vorhanden sind.
Im großen und ganzen ist das hier alles wie in Teil 1. Handlung bewegt sich im kleinen Rahmen, die auch hier wieder gut funktioniert. Effekte und Action werden sparsam eingesetzt, aber das sieht überzeugend aus. Auch hier bleibt man bescheiden. Charaktere sind wie beim Vorgänger.
10 Minuten weniger Laufzeit wären für mich ok gewesen. Denn hier sind doch schon ein paar Längen drin, wo bei mir dann langeweile aufgekommen ist.
Hier ist Vorwissen vonnöten. Wer Teil 1 gut fand wird diesen hier auch gut finden.
“𝕬𝖈𝖈𝖔𝖗𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖔 𝖆𝖓𝖆𝖑𝖞𝖘𝖎𝖘, 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖇𝖆𝖇𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞 𝖔𝖋 𝖎𝖙 𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖑 𝖎𝖘 𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖙𝖞 𝖊𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖈𝖊𝖓𝖙. 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖈𝖆𝖚𝖘𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖆 𝖇𝖎𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖑 𝖚𝖓𝖎𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖜𝖆𝖘 𝖎𝖓𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖉. 𝕿𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊’𝖘 𝖓𝖔 𝖜𝖆𝖞 𝖙𝖔 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖑 𝖎𝖙…”
though it may be slightly rougher around the edges than the first entry, zeiram 2 is everything a sequel should be - the insane creature effects are just as cool, the action’s just as intense, there’s more of a focus on iria this time (♡) and the dynamic between teppei and kamiya is surprisingly wholesome!!
it’s hard for me to say more than just ‘if you liked the first, it’s nearly impossible for this to disappoint!’ but also…
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓵𝓲𝓵 𝓰𝓮𝓲𝓼𝓱𝓪-𝓯𝓪𝓬𝓮𝓭 𝔃𝓮𝓲𝓻𝓪𝓶 𝓹𝓾𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓽 𝓱𝓪𝓼 𝓫𝓸𝓸𝓫𝓼 𝓷𝓸𝔀･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
surely that’s all i had to say…?
Zëiram 2 corrects every complaint I had about the first Zëiram. It's leaner, meaner, faster, has better action, has less from the two extremely annoying dudes from the first, and, in my opinion, the berserking Zëiram looks way cooler here than it did in the first (and it already looked great in the first). More importantly, Zëiram 2 feels like the OVA, which I imagine is most people's intro to this world even though it came out after the two films, loaded with fun action and Iria being even more of a badass. There's not really a consistency with the feel of the world. Sometimes it feels like modern day other times it feels more akin to Richard Stanley's Hardware,…
Loved the future punk junk shock of an anime brought to life with rubber suits and battle armor and kool models and dog-eating aliens and SUPREME early '90s CGI that looks like it was made with Video Toaster and a loose understanding of how computers actually work. Zeiram 2 feels a li'l too long and saddled with some turgid dialogue to stretch the cartoon action to feature length. But all the future tech and rad monsters and superpowered space huntresses made me smile 'til the end. 2 fun!
More of the same from the first one, pretty much identical plot but Zeiram has a cool Anubis look this time around.
There's a brief blood bath.
It's a fun time.
