mbarker | Cutey Honey (the movie!)

I'm not sure if this will make America, but it was on the early Friday evening TV here in Japan. Apparently there is a manga (comic book) called "Cutey Honey" - starring a young woman who pops into alleys and such, then changes clothes in a flash. And when faced with real villians (complete with claws, etc.) she presses the tiny pink heart on her choker and wizz-bam-poof - bursts out of her clothes, and is dressed in her costume from the feet up (along with requisite flashes of skin). The baddies are really bad - ranging from a spider-attack-alike who scuttles across the ceiling on arms and legs that are bending the wrong way through a figure who apparently belches atomic blasts that blow through four or five buildings in downtown Tokyo before stopping to the black and white figure who attacks in a black hurricane spin. Along the way we learn that Cutey was in an accident and her father cured her by introducing nanotechnology into her body. But, oddly enough, that's not what wins the final battle. I won't spoil the film by giving it away.

As long as you don't try to take it seriously and just enjoy the comic book effects (in a live figure movie), it's kind of fun.

Also weird, but what the heck, you knew the movie was odd when you realized what it was based on.

Ah - IMDB does have it. Apparently this one http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409860/ - at least the TV Guide says 2004, too.