08/12/2023
We are starting up our new Anime and Japanese cinema page Made In Japan. We are doing a test run of the new format with some classic reviews from the TA days. Swing by and enjoy.
Tokyo Gore Police.
Japanese low budget cinema can be a very mixed bag. Some movies are fun like “82nd MPD”. Some are completely bonkers like “Versus”, and some are a total snooze fest like “Party 7”. In the case of “Tokyo Gore Police” it is balls to the wall insane. Like a giant, gr***de launching p***s, this movie lobs scene after scene of insanity, gore, and violence every 5 minutes.
To sum up, this movie is fu***ng nuts!
That’s it, end of review.
What, that wasn’t good enough for you? You really need me to go into detail for you?
Fine.
In the near future, the Tokyo police has become privatized, self-mutilation is now trendy, and bio-organic monsters called “Engineers” terrorize the citizens. Ruka is a member of the Tokyo Police Corporation, and a first class “Engineer Hunter”. While investigating the murders of prostitutes, Ruka encounters “Key Man” the mad scientist who created the “Engineers”. This encounter sets her on a path to find out the truth not only about the “Engineers”, but the murder of her father. Tokyo is about to explode in a shower of gore.
This movie is beyond demented, it’s positively psychotic. I never thought anyone could surpass the insanity of Miike or Tsukamoto, but director Yoshihiro Nishimura has done it in spades. This movie is a kinetic tour de force of savagery and general yuckiness that will have the most jaded horror/sci-fi/SFX fan go “Damn that’s nasty!”. The entire film has a “Robocop” vibe, with its constant propaganda and bad-taste commercials. The violence makes “Robocop 2” look quaint. Credit to Nishimura for firing his literal “hand cannon” at my eyes. It was amazing on a visual level.
Normally, this is where my review would turn to me bitching about the lack of characterization and the barely there plot. In this case, it doesn’t matter. Even if this had been “Hamlet”, the in-your-face brutality and outrageous body transformations would relegate any “plot” to the background. The point of this movie isn’t to enrich your mind with complex thoughts or ideas. The point is to get “freaky with your mental” and show you a bloody good time.
Acting wise, this movie was way OTT which is par for the course. Eihi Shiina was fine as s*xy badass Ruka, but the subtlety she demonstrated in “Audition” is lost here. Shun Sugata as the Commissioner General chewed scenery as much as Alligator Girl chewed on Yukihide Benny. Even stunt coordinator and “Versus” star Tak Sakaguchi was all over the place. Like the plot, don’t expect Oscar-winning performances, and that’s just fine with me.
The special effects combined with the camera work is truly what makes “Tokyo Gore Police” memorable. The SFX is simply amazing. The practical effects combined with the limited CG made the visceral experience even more enjoyable. Even with the woman with the blades (later machine guns) who was mostly CG still had some wicked practical effects. Sure, some of the body parts looked fake, but the pacing and creative camera work made it easy to overlook.
As I said before, “Tokyo Gore Police” is fu***ng nuts. There is nothing else that needs to be said.
Anderson-SAN
Made In Japan
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