Sushi Girl is an unusual American crime thriller with a star cast including Tony Todd, Mark Hamill, Michael Biehn, Danny Trejo, and Noah Hathaway.
Fish has spent six years in jail. Six years alone. Six years keeping his mouth shut about the robbery, about the other men involved. The night he is released, the four men he protected with his 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 woman. The sushi girl seems catatonic, 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…
Reviews
“Sushi Girl may not be everyone’s cup of sake; however, it’s a fanboy’s wet dream, full of inspired cameos, performances and benevolent tributes to Quentin Tarantino at his best.” Dread Central
“Sushi Girl may not qualify as great cinema, but I would definitely recommend it to 70s exploitation fans looking for something new to scratch that itch. It has all the trappings of a movie that will attain cult status and, while I have no idea whether it will find its audience, those who see it will get a kick out of it.” DVD Verdict
“The power of great performances; Sushi Girl had me hooked from beginning to end, and I can’t wait to see it again.” filmthreat.com
“A gory yarn of reckoning set in a restaurant where a nude femme accompanies the main dish, “Sushi Girl” makes a strong impression with a lurid, finely twisted plot..Writer-helmer Kern Saxton’s genre ambitions are as naked as the titular Sushi Girl, as he rolls together heist thriller, torture porn and orientalist eroticism..” Variety
“I saw Sushi Girl under almost perfect conditions: at the Fantasia Film Festival surrounded by more than 700 enthusiastic grindhouse film fans in the presence of the producer, director, writer and virtually the entire cast including Andy MacKenzie (Shoot ‘Em Up), James Duval (Donnie Darko), Noah Hathaway (Atreyu from The NeverEnding Story!), Michael Biehn (!!), Tony Todd (!!!), and Mark Hamill (Not! Enough! Exclamation! Marks! In! The! World!)…What we saw was a film that is completely unapologetic about its influences and its existence as a artifact of almost pure fan service beginning with its insane cast. In addition to those who were there to present the film, the cast ALSO includes Jeff Fahey, Sonny Chiba and Danny Trejo – whose machete becomes a key point plot… In plot structure, it is almost exactly the same as Reservoir Dogs only with the violence amped to 11. This is very deliberate and smart, any stylish crime thriller will invariably be compared to Quentin Tarantino, so why not own the comparison and use it for your own purposes? The biggest difference between Reservoir Dogs and Sushi Girl is the centerpiece for Fish’s “celebration” meal, the eponymous naked girl (Cortney Palm) being used to present the sushi. As the Sushi Chef (Sonny Chiba!) tells her at the start of the film, “Remember you are a tray. You must not move. You must not make eye contact. You must not react. No matter what you see… or hear.” …The Sushi Girl’s presence adds a voyeuristic frisson to the proceedings. She is both the voyeur and the object being watched. The part required Cortney Palm being naked on set for two and a half weeks. Sushi Girl was not the kind of film (or part) that could afford a body double and she seems to be in virtually every shot, reacting to everything going around her by NOT reacting to everything going on around her. For all the violence and casual, omnipresent nudity, it is the emotionally violent moments that truly resonate like Fish calling home after being released only to have his child not recognize his voice and his (ex?) wife hang up on him. Or Francis in the abandoned restaurant’s washroom girding himself to do the right thing, by doing the worst thing possible: sniffing cocaine off the washroom counter, using a rolled up photo of his son as a tube – a photo that has been pre-folded, meaning that it has been used for that purpose before. In a sense, Sushi Girl is an emotional zombie film. Everyone in the abandoned restaurant is still moving and breathing even though their souls died years before. Strongest possible recommendation.” Sound on Sight