Destined for (and deserving of) major cult status, this insanely energetic, barely definable follow-up to MACHINE GIRL for uber-inventive make-up effects genius Yoshihiro Nishimura (here taking directorial reins for the first time) displays more deranged imagination and furious bloodshed in its first 10 minutes than most contemporary Western splatter films put together. Punctuated by hilarious faux recruitment videos (a la STARSHIP TROOPERS) and off-color futuristic advertisements (a la ROBOCOP) promoting handy, cute “wrist cutters” for kids, TOKYO GORE POLICE literally piles up the severed limbs and revels in outrageous visuals with the glee of early Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson.
In a near-future Tokyo, the police force is privatised and sexy, self-mutilating officer Eiihi Shiina (unforgettable as the date from Hell in AUDITION) – striking iconic poses in a fetishised outfit just like the title character in MACHINE GIRL – is assigned to track down the city’s greatest threat, the “engineers”. Infected by a fresh virus that appears in the shape of key-shaped tumors, “engineers” are constantly regenerating and mutating, with the ability to craft elaborate weapons from their flesh wounds.
Wildly surreal and exhilaratingly gruesome, this frenetically paced walk on the gory side is loaded with jaw-dropping Cronenberg-on-acid-type visuals. Its approach is perhaps best typified by the moment in which a woman with a machete for a hand showers people with acid squirted from her mutated tits. You need more incentive to track the film down? How about a guy using his grotesquely deformed, over-sized cock as a cannon? Disembodied fists flying through the air like giant bullets? A girl with a literally snappin’ pussy? Popped eyeballs grotesquely frozen in mid-air like some old Tex Avery cartoon gone wrong? Faces bisected through the mouth with chainsaws? A girl with a penis for a nose?!
Kudos to Nishimura for sustaining the demented energy levels from start to finish, and for filling the movie with rousing gore and bodily fluids. Heads explode with 80’s style enthusiasm, limbs are severed from bodies to the accompaniment of a Takashi Miike-style shower of bright red arterial spray, and the tremendously exciting music score, with its dynamic, driving main theme, only adds to the spirit of excitement.
Representing an outstanding achievement in make up effects on a limited budget (Nishimura supervised the extensive FX, which run the gamut from cartoonishly gross to jolting gruesome to just plain nuts), this movie is a blast. The end credits promise “more gore coming soon”…
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
