Fans of Asian action cinema will see Beautiful Beast as more of a plain Jane than a femme fatale.

Although it has the trappings of a potentially workable story, it just doesn't seem to work. It hits the usual points, such as the main character, Ran, having the usual resume for an assassin (she shoots for a Hong Kong triad, hung out in Afghanistan and, of course, no one knows what she looks like); motivation (her sister was killed by a crime lord in Japan and she's come to find him and kill him) and has the fairly cool street name of Black Orchid (for streets of Tokyo, anyway). Though there's a few twists that make the ride interesting, for the most part it's a ride that fans of this genre have been on, and dubbed lines like "Black Orchid I've got you now," being exchanged between the characters doesn't help matters.

However, a brief bout of bondage and suspension with some sadism mixed in for good measure towards the end is done very well. But it's not enough to salvage the effort, and the film's final shoot-out comes off as more like a shooting gallery than an adrenaline rush.