In 1996, Aoyama Shinji released three films: his official debut feature Helpless, the tale of male friendship Two Punks, and his second V-Cinema production A Weapon in My Heart. Following his first V-Cinema work It's Not in the Textbook! the year before, Aoyama took the prolific path like many young Japanese directors of the late 1990s. While Helpless explored the hollow interiority of youth under the guise of a yakuza action film, A Weapon in My Heart leans closer to a traditional entertainment film built around a chase narrative. At its center are Alice, a woman fleeing after stealing drugs from yakuza, and Goro, a detective attempting to protect her while closing his narcotic investigation. However, the chase is far from simple: a gang of yakuza hunts Alice, a sniper hired to eliminate them, and an underworld gambling broker further complicates the situation. Of course, the plot largely follows the conventions of the genre. Like many other V-Cinema productions, it is not particularly concerned with depth. However, the film occasionally reveals glimpses of Aoyama’s cinematic ambition: notable sequences such as the cross-cutting of Detective Yoshioka being shot, and the long-take where Goro reminisces about their encounter. Midway through, the film even features a rope sequence evocative of the Westerns that Aoyama admired throughout his life. (MOON Seok)