Bikinis, katanas and the walking dead. Okay, I could probably end the review right now and it should be enough to convince you. C’mon, what else does a dude need? But for those of you who require, you know, “more,” here we go.

“Onechanbara” is based on a violent series of Japanese videogames, so if you’re looking for substance over style, think again! I have no problem with style OR substance, so I’m good either way. The games have been available in Japan for some time and have recently been coming to America. I have one for the 360. Was the game poorly reviewed? Yeah. Shoddily programmed? A little. But it’s still a lot of fun! I’m the kind of person who doesn’t feel all that guilty about my guilty pleasures.

“Onechanbara” tells the story of Aya, a sexy zombie killer wandering the earth seeking the man responsible for destroying her family. “What? Zombies?” you ask. Yes, a corporation sought to bring life back to the dead. However, their experiments were a little too successful and now the walking dead plague the earth, which causes society to crumble and the world to plunge into anarchy. Which kind of sucks and blows at the same time. Way to go, science!

Directed by Yohei Fukuda with action direction by Go Ohara, this film is a mixed bag. The movie starts off kinda iffy at the beginning but ramps up nicely through its brisk 86-minute runtime and gets downright cool at the end. The characters, cold and distant at first, warm up slowly, and there were some very nice emotional touches at the end. As the movie began I felt somewhat uninvolved, but nearer the end I found myself getting into it more, and after it was over I wanted to see more.

I found plenty to like in this movie, but just as often I found things that bugged me. The zombie make-up is pretty cool, some of the effects are quite well done but sometimes you’ll see effects shots that are a bit underwhelming. 86 minutes for a film is not a whole lot of time to develop a relationship with the characters, so when their dramatic scenes come around, it’s hard to be emotionally invested. On the flip side, though, there are some very dramatic scenes that are just beautifully shot and executed. The “mama” scene in the hospital comes to mind, which was very nicely done.

In terms of action, we’re offered a nice mix of CG-enhanced screen fighting with some wire-fu and gun-fu thrown in. Virtual blood droplets will splatter your screen during the slaughter. The “Aya vs. 100 zombies” scene toward the end is really, really cool, as is the film’s final duel. The best thing for me, though, was seeing a zombie version of Gogo Yubari fighting Aya with her meteor hammer. I completely geeked out over that one!

“Re-Animator” + “Resident Evil” + “Barbarella” would be a good way to break this down mathematically. I like two out of three of those films, so yeah, I like this movie, too. “Onechanbara” is a pretty fun little film in the tradition of “Death Trance” and “Versus.” I’m digging these gory Japanese movies, and I want more…more gore.