Don’t watch this movie expecting it to make much sense, unless you’re a Jungian psychologist or something… in terms of plot it is both quite linear and quite confusing at the same time. And enjoyable, especially if you like fast action with scantily clad babes with Samurai swords and guns. Despite that, who is it aimed at? Lusty males? Maybe. But also perhaps, exploited females, because the women in this story are universally the victims of men, and some at least are seeking their freedom from this. I interpret this not so much literally, which may apply in many cases, but more generally as how the women viewers can stop acting sexy or cute for the men in their lives and forgetting to be themselves. I’m not sure what answer the movie actually gives to this perennial problem, though.

Now… the plot. Yes. Well… OK, there is one, of sorts. And there is also a humungous twist at the end, which is very important to my interpretation of what’s going on in this film, but I’m going to write this review in such a way as to disguise it… I hope. Anyway, the film is set roughly in 1960′s Vermont or somewhere like that, and our heroine and her sister are at the mercy of their evil stepfather who, the film hints broadly, has been abusing them, and is anyway determined to now that their mother has died and left everything to her daughters rather than to him.

In the process of trying to save her sister from their stepfather, our heroine accidentally shoots her sister dead. The stepfather takes advantage of this to have her committed to a mental hospital. She is taken into a room called the “theatre” where she sees the (female) Doctor Gorski trying music and imagination therapy with one of the other women patients. Her stepfather also pays a corrupt orderly to arrange a frontal lobotomy (brain mashing operation) to turn her into a vegetable basically, so she won’t be any use as a witness against him. This is due to happen in five days’ time.

The instant before the surgeon’s probe enters her eye socket to begin mashing up her brain, reality switches. Suddenly, instead of being in a Harry Potter/Sweeney Todd blue-grey tinted “real world,” we are in a world of full colour. In this world, she is “Baby Doll,” a reluctant dancer in a brothel, one of many such women. The corrupt orderly is instead the sleazeball who runs the brothel. Doctor Gorski uses her music to teach the women to dance for their customers. The women patients are the women in the brothel. Doctor Gorski tries to get Baby Doll to dance, and after some pressure from the sleazeball, Baby Doll begins, but escapes into her imagination as she does so…

…And reality switches again, this time to a computer-game-style world. It is snowing. She is outside some Chinese temple or emperor’s palace. She goes in and meets a wise old man, who tells her that to find freedom she must find five items: a map, fire, a knife, a key, and one more which is a mystery. He tells her to begin her journey and it will set her free – although I would question the truth of this statement if I were following the plot literally, actually. In fact it doesn’t matter, because in my view the characters are all symbolic anyway.

So, he gives her some weapons, and immediately she has to defend herself against some giant samurai stone golems or some such. Why? I have no idea. And since this is supposed to be her imagination, what would some 1960′s Vermont girl be doing imagining such stuff anyway? The film gives no hint of this. Indeed we know next to nothing about her (or any of the other “characters” (for want of a better word). So anyway, she beats the golems and wakes up at the finish of her dance, with the brothel girls applauding her. Apparently, she dances really well (but we never see what happens in this reality level when she’s off adventuring).

Back in the brothel she tells her new friends and one somewhat hostile older sister, Sweet Pea, of her friend Rocket, that she plans to escape, and she tells them of the four items she knows about… Eventually, even Sweet Pea agrees to help: she is a good character at heart and always ends up doing what is required, even though she puts up a hostile front to cover her fear of what might happen. Sweet Pea’s basic good character and courage to follow through, to me, explains the twist at the end… but I’ll leave you to figure that out! Anyway, each time they need to get another item, she dances to distract the men, and the girls steal whatever it is they need… and we have a rip-roaring adventure in some cyber-reality against robots, zombie-steampunk soldiers, or whatever. In themselves, I don’t think the adventures mean anything much, but they are fun and liven up the movie a lot. They are also linear in nature: that is, they are simple. Get the bad guys, get the item, get out. I suppose with so many items to get and the film’s length being strictly limited by real-world constraints, it would be hard to give them complex structures, so I can forgive that.

The number of items, and the number of girls, are significant in terms of symbolism. Four is traditionally a symbol of completeness, and in psychological terms represents a fully integrated personality: getting your act together: being at one with yourself and having all your power as a person within your conscious grasp. It is about becoming a powerful adult, without going off the deep end in any direction: being balanced and strong, or free, mentally. They have four items to find (plus the mystery item) and there is the main protagonist and her four friends. She is also blonde, a symbol of consciousness. Two of her friends have black hair, symbolising her shadow sides (I suggest): the sides of herself she would respect less – her weaker side in particular. A number of characters get killed, and this represents the integration of them into the consciousness of the main character. The film doesn’t really show how she manages to use this extra power or integration, or I didn’t notice it, but time is short in a movie. The idea is there, at least. Well, it is if you’re me watching it! In the end, the girls in the gang all end up either dead or destroyed in the “real” world except the main protagonist, who it is clearly stated is the only one with the strength to get by in the real world…

So… overall, what’s the score? Enjoyable, but with weak characterisation and plot… Hmm. Well, 7/10 I suppose. 3/5 on a 5 point scale. Worth watching. Maybe even more than once.