{"id":3320,"date":"2009-07-06T19:08:22","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T08:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/?p=3320"},"modified":"2009-07-06T19:08:22","modified_gmt":"2009-07-06T08:08:22","slug":"review-tokyo-gore-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/07\/06\/review-tokyo-gore-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Tokyo Gore Police"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tokyo-gor-police-cover-art\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tokyo Gore Police<\/strong> [orig. T\u00f4ky\u00f4 zankoku keisatsu] (Japan-2008; dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura)<\/p>\n

In future Tokyo, the law-enforcement agencies have been privatised and a zero-tolerance approach to violent crime sees the police executing serial killers live, on the streets, as part of a program of self-promotional TV advertising (offered as stylised inserts reminiscent of those featured in Verhoeven’s ultra-violent classic Robocop<\/em>). Meanwhile some sort of alien-like infestation (involving a key-like tumor that \u201cunlocks\u201d the body\u2019s transformational potential) is turning people into \u201cEngineers\u201d — violent mutants with super-strength and the ability to grow weapons integrated with their flesh-and-bone when they sustain injury.<\/p>\n

\"tokyo-gore-police01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Chop off an arm, for example, and the stump is likely to sprout a big, fleshy machine-gun, or a chain-saw (on a chain), in a fashion undeniably inspired by David Cronenberg\u2019s \u201cNew Flesh\u201d (from films such as Videodrome<\/em> and eXistenZ<\/em>). Luckily, this is Japan and the cops — decked-out in futuristic pseudo-Samurai armour — wield katana as often as guns, thus allowing for an extravagant visual symphony of decapitation, dismemberment, head-splitting and squirting blood. The title of the film doesn\u2019t lie. Whatever the words “Tokyo Gore Police” evoke in your twisted imagination the film offers up — and more.<\/p>\n

But the style of the film is cartoonish and extreme, like a live-action manga. It\u2019s hard to take seriously. It\u2019s more disgusting than it is scary. The gore and bloodiness is of the post-Evil Dead<\/em> kind — all old-school make-up FX and prosthetics — with blood fountaining out of cut and mangled flesh in an impossibly unending stream. The best way to categorise the imagery of Tokyo Gore Police<\/em> is \u201cextreme grotesquerie\u201d, with director\/SFX supervisor Yoshihiro Nishimura providing as many weird variations on the theme as can possibly be fit into the film\u2019s 105-minute running time.<\/p>\n

\"tokyo-gore-police02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Is there a plot? Well, yes, of a kind. Special officer Ruka is the now-classic Japanese stereotype of the grim swordswoman who uses her unlikely talents for katana-wielding violence in the cause of rough justice, but who is haunted by some past trauma — in this case, the bloody assassination of her esteemed father. Naturally the current wave of Engineered bloodshed will eventually connect with the traumas of the past.<\/p>\n

Really though, the plot is little more than an excuse. None of the characters rise much above the gaudy and in-your-face stereotypes on which they are based and it\u2019s hard to accept their emotional dilemmas as more than fashion accessories. The film is not about emotions or themes; it\u2019s more like an exercise in outrageous and bloody imagery. Yet despite gaining inspiration from the West via the likes of Robocop<\/em>, Cronenberg, Peter Jackson\u2019s Brain Dead<\/em> or any number of 1980s splatter flicks, Tokyo Gore Police<\/em> remains a uniquely Japanese visual experience. Its design, and more importantly its attitude, are in a tradition of Japanese gore that stretches from the 1980s with Evil Dead Trap<\/em>, through the infamous Guinea Pig<\/em> series of the 1990s, to martial-art splatter such as The Story of Ricki<\/em>, through bloodier examples of the swordplay genre, or chanbara<\/em>, to the powerful Battle Royale<\/em> and such contemporary new-wave efforts as The Machine Girl<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Arguably, even for the niche that Tokyo Gore Police<\/em> occupies, the gushing blood gushes so freely that it gets a little repetitive, and too often the effort to be wacky and outrageous shows the strain and becomes self-conscious. But if you\u2019re willing to embrace its excesses and revel in some imaginatively grotesque gore, there\u2019s no need to look further than this gluttonous visual feast of mutant scifi insanity.<\/p>\n