Tokyo Gore Police

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Tokyo Gore Police

April 16th 2009 23:48

Set in a future-world vision of Tokyo where the police force has been privatized, public self-mutilation is so casual that certain advertising targets to the "cutter" demographic, and mutant homicidal freaks known as “engineers” are savagely tearing apart society. It’s up to the “hunter” called Ruka (Eihi Shiina), a specially-trained police officer who wields a samurai sword, on a mission to avenge her father’s horrific assassination.

Eihi Shiina as Ruka

The human mutations are a result of a virus created by a mad scientist known as Keyman (Itsuji Itao). Ruka and Keyman share a common bond: the murder of their fathers. Trying to eradicate the human mutations will prove a truly bloody and ghastly job. But someone’s got to get blood on their hands, and their hands, feet, heads, penises, you name it, it’s gotta be cut off and on the floor.

Tôkyô Zankoku Keisatsu (2009), or as it's actually stated on-screen as: Tokyo Gore Police, is unapologetic and utterly, deliriously over-the-top. It’s a Japanese-American co-production (but don’t watch the English dub!) If you can imagine David Cronenberg on acid, infused with the even more perverse sensibility of Takashi Miike, then you might get an idea about the extremities of this absurdly excessive movie.

Itsuji Itao as Keyman

However - and herein lies the movie’s unusually palatable taste – despite the lurid and decidedly kinky nature of the content, the movie is strangely, weirdly chaste, even suggestive. Hell, I’m joking. This movie takes no prisoners. But there is no realism on display, this stuff is straight outta your most outrageous bad dreams, y’know, those deep trash nightmares that leave you writhing in your sleep with a sick smirk on your face and your palms all sweaty.

Director and co-writer Yoshihiro Nishimura is a jack of all trades: he’s been an art director, editor, animation character designer, production designer, gaffer, cinematographer, and even an actor. But mostly he’s been involved in special effects, chiefly SFX make-up. On Tokyo Gore Police he supervised the imaginative prosthetics and gore. He’s fascinated by the fusion of flesh and metal, like The Machine Girl (2008) from the same producers, but the cyberpunk element has taken on a much stronger phantasmogorical edge. There’s a sexual fetish at play here that snaps its beastly carnal jaws and spurts globules of bodily fluid. The arterial sprays of blood from all the limb severing, decapitations and body splitting is more ludicrous than gruesome; frequently the camera is so drenched in blood you can barely see the action!

The movie is modestly budgeted (it all looks frightfully B-movie), but director Nishimura knows how to get serious bang for his buck. The performances are okay, nothing great, I did enjoy the crazy blonde news girl’s interludes, but Eihi Shiina, who was so brilliant in Audition (1999), didn’t quite command as much as I thought she would. Amusingly Nishimura throws in a mutant dwarf in a flashback sequence, perhaps as a wink to David Lynch (who I’m sure would get a kick out of some of the movie’s more outlandish grotesque of grotesque beauty).

If you’re looking for ultra-violence and uber-lurid content Tokyo Gore Police is your one-stop shop: police ninja squads, hari-kuri suicide advertising, limb-stumped gimp pet, cyberpunk fetish club, penis-severing and large phallus-gun, female ejaculation (or was that urination?!) over nightclub crowd, hilariously nasty glassing in the face, extensive chainsaw butchery, acid-milk lactation, and my favourite; black-eyed, croc-jaw-legged mutant girl.

Tokyo Gore Police croc-jaw-legged mutant girl

While the title, Tokyo Gore Police, pretty much sums up the schlock, I’d have preferred a cryptic and more cerebrally-suggestive title such as Engineers or Transmogrify, but hey, I’m nit-picking. Best watched with a Cheezel on each finger, a messy hamburger dripping goo on the carpet in other hand, a frothing can of beer between your thighs, and a fat blunt smoldering in the ashtray, the lights down low, your girlfriend’s tartan skirt up around her waist, or your boyfriend’s jeans around his ankles, and the monitor volume up full bore. This movie screams drive-in!, but hey, the living room will work just fine ... and hey, looks like a sequel is planned! I'm in!

Tokyo Gore Police on-set pic revealing animatronic effect

So bite me mutant babe!

Here's the Japanese trailer (with subs):

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

4 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Cibbuano

April 18th 2009 23:09

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whump... this looks like more insanity from the Japanese. I'm not sure I could sit through it. "Ichi the Killer" was enough...

Comment by Bryn

April 20th 2009 01:36

Horrorphile

Cibby, yes indeedy, more insanity like only the Japanese can. If Ichi the Killer was enough, then steer clear of this one, although this isn't as "mean-spirited" as Ichi.