We like making movies about assassins because it combines what we all have to do(a job) with the fantasy that we have when we see a zombie movie(to take care of your problems through killing). We use that to tell stories about the human condition. John Wick trying to escape his life of murder only for it to cling and drag him back. The same thing with the Professional. Kill Bill. Okay, so maybe there’s only one real assassination plot. Someone wants to live but their hands are stained with blood and they can’t get away from the things they did.

Well, what if that didn’t happen. What if the two assassins didn’t care and were just kind of happy living their lives as killers? What if they were just lazy slackers when they weren’t killing? And that’s what Baby Assassins is in a nutshell.

Chisato and Mahiro, a pair of assassins, are told by their handler that they need to get part time jobs to make sure that the taxman doesn’t come looking for them. Unfortunately, beyond killing they’re not good at much else. We see Chisato working at a waffle place, she can’t quite get the whipped cream on the waffle as well as she’s supposed to. She puts in it in front of the customer and he states that he doesn’t like whipped cream and gives it to his date. Seeing her hard work cast aside, she screams at him “What the fuck is your problem?!” and slaps him with her tray. The owner comes over and using her bare hands, Chisato breaks her neck. Always with a bright smile on her face after she’s committed the violence.

This becomes the tone for the entire film. There is a subplot where Mahiro doesn’t think that she can fit in with anyone in society so she doesn’t see the point of trying. Chisato manages to succeed at a maid cafe until the subplot pops in. The subplot being a yakuza trying to modernize his operation by welcoming women into the fold. A male and female yakuza member are trying to find out who killed one of their members and guess what it’s the girls. The girls barely acknowledge what’s going on with the yakuza until the end of the movie.

The movie knows what it’s about. It knows that the true heart of the film is the two assassins and sticks with them throughout all of it. Their relationship is actually generally sweet and reminded me a lot of Buddy Daddies minus the child(I would not trust Chisato and Mahiro with a kid). It has good action, it’s interesting and a breath of fresh air where most action stars are giant hulking dudes who are good at everything, you have these two gremlins who are barely functional.

If you’re looking for a chill time, watch it on Tubi or Youtube. I highly recommend it.

Plus the director does a rad thing where he made another film that’s in the same universe called A Janitor and the two women appear as antagonists. But unlike the movie, Ballerina, which did that so that John Wick could show up and tell the protagonist what a good job she’s doing, they just appear to be road blocks for the main character.