Tokyo Gore Police (2008): Reviewed by BRYAN SCHUESSLER
Tokyo Gore Police a.k.a. Tokyo zankoku keisatsu (2008) held back no punches and went for the jugular…err.. and balls…and female organ located in the lower abdominal area…and every other single anatomical organ you can think of! Director Yoshihiro Nishimura directed an action-packed gore-fest that was at times gruesome, and at other times, outright hilarious! It even managed to surpass the humor, effects, and gore he orchestrated in Kataude mashin gâru a.k.a. Machine Girl (2008). (I shall be eagerly awaiting his sequel to Machine Girl entitled The Hajirai Machine Girl (2009)(V)!)
Written by Kengo Kaji, Sayako Nakoshi, Yoshihiro Nishimura with a pretty solid storyline for what type of movie this, I was not scholarly blown away, but the plot was fairly creative with some twists in it.
The setting is Tokyo, Japan in the near future and the police have become privatized. The police are in the middle of a gory, blood-drenched war with the “engineers“, a group of genetically modified super-criminals that can take their open wounds and fuse them with weapons to fight, kill, rob, and cause mayhem throughout the streets of Tokyo, and mayhem they do cause.
Eihi Shiina, of Audition a.k.a. Odishon(1999) fame stars in this gore-romp as Reka, the daughter of a slain police officer raised by the Chief of Police and their top engineer slayer. She pulls no punches and tears apart, limb by limb, every criminal she comes in contact with. With geysers of blood spraying all over the screen throughout the film, it reminded me of Peter Jackson’s level of gore and blood in Brain Dead a.k.a. Dead Alive (1992) crossbred with Riki-oh: The Story of Ricky a.k.a. Lik Wong (1991) (one of my favorite films!!!). I believe what sets this movie apart from countless other gore epics is the creativity that was administered in the design and ingenuity of the costumes for the engineers throughout the film. It was a spectacular freak-show of sorts on screen. We all have Yoshihiro Nishimura, also the director of the film to thank for the Special Make-up Effects and for the Special Effects/mold-making throughout the film, which explains why it is so gore-driven and awesome! Nishimura sure wore quite a few hats during the production of this film.
Nishimura took great care in delivering over-the-top scenes of blood, guts, gore, dismemberment, decapitations, and eons and eons of blood spraying in geysers all across the screen. Not since the days of Shogun Assassin(1980) (Lone Wolf and Cub films) had I noticed so many geysers and spurts of blood being pumped incessantly in front of and straight at the camera. Many of the creatures portrayed in this film were showcased during a scene that took place in a “fetish club” that one of the officers ventured in to.
You guessed it: the reinterpretation of many sexual organs brought one’s thinking to a whole new level while viewing Tokyo Gore Police.
For me, that is what sets this film apart from other splatter/gore fests from Japan. There is an appearance by Tak Sakaguchi who you may remember from countless Japanese action/horror flicks, such as Samurai Zombie (2008), Yo-Yo Girl Cop (2006), Battlefield Baseball (2003), Azumi (2003), and Versus (2000). This film may have already achieved cult-status just for his part in it!
The film was definitely not filmed on a massive budget and it shows in some areas. But add into the mix that throughout the film the viewer was bombarded with hysterical advertisements that trivialized “cutters” and self-mutilation on the t.v.’s. Noboru Iguchi and Yûdai Yamaguchi were directors of the fake commercials throughout the film.
I applaud my public library for purchasing this film upon my recommendation, not knowing what they were exactly getting for their eclectic and poor cinema buffs that venture over to the foreign film section.
For those viewers that hate reading subtitles, screw off! You will miss-out on most of the humor through-out this film that is filled with 10 films worth of gore and guts. GORE-HOUNDS REJOICE!!! The film ends with a possibility for a sequel and I hope they can top the amount of arterial blood-sprays possessed in the original.
This was one of the movies someone mentioned to me for the Women of Horror as a possibility. I hadn't seen or heard of it until just a couple of days ago, but it sure looks like it could fit the bill!
…and does the photo above just scream video game?!?
I'm not really sure what people are seeing in this film. I am a horror fan and a Japanese film buff of all genres and this film fell pretty flat. The plot was disjointed and got lost very easily, characters appear and disappear with little to no notice. The FX, while supposedly the saving grace of TGP are silly at best and stupid at worst. Never during the movie was I "shocked". Every bit of prostetics was obviously so. When will the Tokyo Shock folks get it through their heads that blood is not totally clear? That bugs me even more than the firehose (or flight worthy) pressure the blood sprays out of people, at least I can write that off to camp. TGP is a perfect example of great potential pared down to please the masses, who, if Transformers 2 proves anything, no longer know what a good movie is anymore.