Baby Assassins: Nice Days – Fantasia Film Festival 2024 

The Baby Assassins are back in their third and most confident outing with Baby Assassins: Nice Days.  Playing at Fantasia Film Festival 2024.

It’s become a time-honored tradition (at least over the last few years) to have the Baby Assassins as a presence at the Fantasia Film Festival.  Baby Assassins: Nice Days continues the heady brew of action, comedy, and coming-of-age pathos continues to be a rich treasure trove for writer/director Yugo Sakamoto to mine from. 

Picking up after the events of Baby Assassins 2, Mahiro (Saori Izawas) and Chiasto (Akari Takaishi) are on a much-needed vacation in the quaint vacation town of Miyazaki, Japan.  Their trip of food, relaxation, and a possible birthday celebration is cut short as they must take out their most deadly opponent yet; Fuyumura (Sôsuke Ikematsu) a rival assassin 1 hit away from his 150^th.  The assassin so deadly that Mahiro and Chiasto are paired with another duo Nanase (Mondo Otani) and Minami (Atsuko Maeda).  They all get more than they bargained for as Fuyumura is truly the deadliest assassin alive leaving piles of bodies in his wake. 

Writer/director Sakamoto continues to prove he is quietly one of the best action directors working in the world with the Baby Assassin series.  Much like John Wick, on a more modest scale.  The Baby Assassins series continues to grow the world and more importantly the friendship between our young central characters.  So confident in the characters we stay with Mahiro and Chiasto for twenty minutes before the credits and our first action scene begins.  It’s that kind of bravado in an action film that separates Baby Assassins: Nice Days from everything that’s being released (other than again Mr. Wick’s films).  

As in the previous two entries, Sakamoto allows for time and interplay between the two friends and other characters.  Izawas and Takaishi continue to grow as strong performers through this series.  There’s an easy chemistry and interplay between the young women that’s the heart and comedic gold of the film.  Simple throughlines in Sakamoto’s script give both of the actors more to work off of than the standard “how do we kill this guy” dialog that comes up in the assassin genre.  Adding Otani and Maeda as older assassins gives us the right kind of comedic tension for Izawas and Takaishi to play off, that’s very new to the series.  

Sakamoto’s eye for action continues to sharpen giving us intricately dazzling action set piece after action set piece.  There’s a sustained level of stunt work that happens throughout that is rousingly great.  One can’t help but have a metatextual reaction, both as an audience member invested in the story and also as a cineaste watching the daring of the stunt work unfold.  The collaboration between Sakamoto and action director Kensuke Sonomura that began with the first film has become like Mahiro and Chiasto’s friendship so vital to this series.  Sonomura’s action along with Sakamoto’s eye for composition is a match made in action Valhalla.  The work here doubles down on everything they’ve done in the first two – giving a stage for the nimble stunt team and actors to showcase the very best fight and gun-fu.  The results are staggeringly visceral and funny in a way that only the Baby Assassins series is.

Baby Assassins: Nice Days continues to grow as a charming and heartwarming series about two friends ever dying devotion to one another, food, and killing.  If one thinks this is the end or they will have to wait long for another entry… fear not humble reader.  Sakamoto has already completed filming a TV Series Baby Assassins Everyday! with the original cast and crew.  

Baby Assassins: Nice Days played at Fantasia Film Festival 2024 on July 30^th