Well we’re about half way through TOASTY OVERDRIVE but the most scorching made films are yet to come starting with Pyrokinesis (or Crossfire as it’s called in Japan). Some of you are may be familiar with the film studio Toho, yes the same Toho that gave us the ultimate big ass motherfucker Godzilla. I bring this up because around 2004 it came to my attention that Godzilla wasn’t the only made from Toho and Pyrokinesis is one of MANY films.
We start off with a flashback of a little girl all alone until a little boy comes up to her ready to hit her with a hammer. But the little girl immediately sets the little boy ablaze; OK you know it’s coming…TOASTY! The flashback continues with the little girl and mother; she explains that the fire inside her is from the anger she accumulates and must release the fire before it consumes her. We cut to the present with the little girl now grown up Junko Aoki (played by Akiko Yada); later that night she wakes up in heat and quickly leaves the house. She heads to a closed swimming pool and unleashes her fire so intense that it evaporated the pool. We’re introduced to detectives Chikako Ishizu (played by Kaori Momoi) and Yasuaki Makihara (played by Ryûji Harada) who found a young girl who appeared to tortured and murdered. The following day Junko bumps into Tada Kazuki (played by Hideaki Itô); he invites her to a college party which she accepted. There we’re introduced to Tada’s sister Yukie (uncredited) and her and Junko immediately become friends and for Tada to asked Junko out on a date. We cut to Junko and Yukie leaving out of a train station but unaware to them they’re being watched by unknown stalkers. As them Junko and Yukie separated as they head home, the unknown stalkers nabbed Yukie and taken her to a nearby van. Here it’s revealed that the leader of this gang is Masaki Kogure (played by Hidenori Tokuyama). The following morning Tada receives the unfortunate news that his sister has been murdered and rushes to the morgue. Makihara approaches to Ishizu with a lead to a suspect Kogure and immediately brings him in for questioning. But the police in this film seem to run on stupid that they released Kogure from lock up. Of course this doesn’t sit well with Tada and attempts to kill Kogure with a kitchen knife. But Junko stops him by burning the knife out of his hand. At a restaurant Tada still devastated of Yukie’s untimely death deeply angered by the police releasing Kogure. With deep sympathy Junko tells him that she’ll use her power to exact revenge on Yukie’s death. At first Tada doesn’t believe her so Junko displays her power on a car until Tada is completely convinced. In a short scene we’re introduced to Kaori Kurata (played by Masami Nagasawa) a young girl with autism who possess similar pyrokinesis as Junko, can read minds by touching, and can witness past events by touching objects or people that were there. Junko and Tada spots Kogure at a park; Tada gets hesitate until Junko explains that she interviewed Kogure blindly admitting that he murdered Yukie. Not to mention other young girls he murdered for his snuff films. With that Junko attempts to burn Kogure but Tada is still hesitate and stops Junko. However, Junko can’t seem to contain her power and asked Tada to take her somewhere that has water. They stop by a garage where Junko gets dowsed with water bringing her power under control. Deeply disgusted of what they attempted to do, Junko goes into hiding and Tada forgets the whole thing and goes back to work.
Tada is approached by Ishizu and Makihara asking where Junko is; they suspected that she may be involved with Kogure’s accident. At a small apartment Junko gets a mysterious phone call asking her to come to a park and she does. She meets up with Kouichi Kido (played by Hisashi Yoshizawa) who has the ability to control peoples’ minds by touching them. Kouichi explains that he’s part of a group that utilizes Espers to take out criminals and asked her to join him. Junko immediately declines but Kouichi gives her a video tape of a snuff film which upon watching it back at her place show Yukie being tortured and killed. Ishizu and Makihara continue to search for Junko as Makihara is convinced that Junko has the power of pyrokinesis but Ishizu remains skeptic about that. With an address given by Kouichi, Junko arrives at an abandon factory where Kogure and his gang are torturing a woman. One of Kogure’s men attempts to run her down with a motorcycle but Junko launches a fireball at him immediately killing him. Another guy jumps on Junko but she begins to set him on fire at a very graphic level. A third guy grabs a gun and shoots her in the arm but she immediately burns him. Junko is distracted when Kouichi arrives which leads Kogure and the last of his friends to escape. They track them down at a plaza bar unfortunately finding the tortured woman shot in the head, Junko becomes heavily exhausted and passes out. The next day after Ishizu and Makihara investigate the factory; Ishizu questions Makihara why he believes that Junko is the one behind these mysterious burnings. He tells her that years ago his step-brother who was a bit of loony was burn to death by a little girl who turns out to be Junko. However, she and her mother already skipped town before he report her to the police. We cut to Kouichi’s place where Junko wakes up fully recuperated and proceeds to find Kogure. She later approached by Kaori who was apparently looking for Junko; they shared a moment until Kaori touched a digital camera from the tortured woman and gets a psychic reading. It’s revealed that someone else shot the woman in the head. At the police station Junko approaches Ishizu with the camera that now has Kaori’s “psychic photos” just…go with it. It’s revealed that the shooter is Ishizu’s police Chief Yoshihiro Hasagawa (played by Toshiyuki Nagashima). Makihara approaches Junko with his gun drawn to her ready to shoot but Ishizu manages to calm him down. Despite the evidence Ishizu attempts to arrest Junko but she gets upset and starts burning items and then escapes. Ishizu and Makihara decided to take this evidence and covertly investigate Chief Hasagawa. Speaking of Chief Hasagawa we cut to undisclosed location where it’s revealed that he is in charge of a secret law enforcement called “Guardians”. But he got corrupted and giving Kogure protection by putting the blame on Junko so he could make snuff films for him.
Junko heads back to Kouichi’s place as he and Kaori not there. She gets a call from Kouichi apparently having Kaori under his control, he tells Junko to meet up at amusement park and she does. The police are notified by Hasagawa of Junko’s whereabouts and head out. But Ishizu realizes that it’s all a set up by Hasagawa and tries to get to the amusement before the cops. At the amusement park Junko confronts Kouichi about Hasagawa not even aware of him making the snuff films or protecting Kogure. Despite that Kouichi still proceeds to kill her with Kaori’s pyrokinesis, Junko tries to push off her attack but Kaori overpowers her. Sending Junko flying in a fireball into a Merry-Go-Round and then explodes killing some of the people in it. Kouichi lets Kaori go from his control before he’s shot dead by Hasagawa’s sniper. Junko emerges from the fire untouched and attends to Kaori. Tada catches up with Ishizu in the hope to save Junko and they both reached the amusement park. Hasagawa arrives with armed police force as Junko with Kaori in tow makes it to the front entrance. Hasagawa orders the police force to shoot her but hesitate to do so since Kaori is in the crossfire. So Hasagawa attempts to shoot Junko but Tada arrives in time to stop him but Hasagawa knocks him out. Junko starts setting off fires to fend off the police force, they return fire but Junko sets up a heat barrier to stop the bullets. Fire fighters use their water hose but upon hitting the heat barrier causes the water to turn into hot steam. In the middle of the confusion Tada is taken away by Kogure while Ishizu gets Kaori out of harm’s way. Ishizu has Junko in custody in order to get her out safely but Kogure interferes as holds Tada hostage with a crossbow and has him doused in gasoline. Junko uses her power to create moisture in the air surprisingly causing rain. This gives Tada the chance to run for it as Junko makes Kogure go KABOOM. Hasagawa shoots at Junko but Tada pulls her out of the way hitting a fuel truck instead causing it to explode. Junko gets in front of the explosion to contain it but gets shot by Hasagawa getting consumed by the explosion and dies. The film ends with Hasagawa labeling Junko as a terrorist however; Hasagawa begins to catch on fire and burns to a crisp.
My Final Verdict: This film has some really nice fire effects when seeing people set on fire. I mean you see people being burn in stages. I honestly got nothing to say of how good this film is…except that this film is pretty good to watch.
We’re only two films left in the TOASTY OVERDRIVE special so prepare yourselves next time as I review Reign of Fire.
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