Readers, as my power and influence grows worldwide, I hope you're learning I wouldn't waste your time telling you about a movie I don't love. You can trust Ole Scratch, at least as far as finding you a cheap, pre-weekend entertainment option.
Every week, my research across four paid streaming subscriptions and YouTube yields something worth watching. If I can't always guarantee you'll shit your shorts, any discerning viewer can agree the movie I pick has its moments.
But the movie I'm about to tell you about holds a special place in my flinty heart. It may or may not be the weirdest movie I've reviewed to date, but it's definitely the bloodiest.
This week's Thursday Thriller is Tokyo Gore Police.
What I love about this 2008 extreme action flick by Japanese director Yoshihiro Nishimura, with all its mutilations, amputations and resultant Wham-O Water Wiggle-like fountains of blood, is that it's cartoonishly outlandish.
I hate to disappoint those who click over here every week for some topical jabs, but this movie is too strange to relate to anything you might have seen on the news lately. There's a maniac trying to crush society under his heel, a highly militarized police force takes to killing people indiscriminately so as to wipe out an undesirable segment of the population, and toward the end, a man blames a woman for her own rape. At the heart of it all is a conspiracy to protect corporate interests. Everything about this movie is far-fetched and blown way out of proportion.
Tokyo Gore Police seems to get misclassified as horror. Yes, there are chainsaw fights, but the story itself has more in common with the original Robocop than any Texas massacre I've ever seen. It even features little breaks from the action in the form of commercial parodies, my favorite being the one for Wrist Cutter G, the cute razor for the stylish teen who just wants to feel something. Or did I laugh harder at the PSA urging people to "stop the harakiri"?
The story is about a police officer named Ruka (Eihi Shiina) who is assigned to hunting down engineers, deranged killers who are genetically altered to grow weapons wherever on the body they suffer a wound. For example, when an engineer's arm gets lopped off in the opening fight sequence, he sprouts a chainsaw in its place. If you were curious, yes, this deadly regeneration can also occur in the genitalia.
In the course of Ruka's duties, she discovers clues that lead to the identity of her father's murderer. I don't want to give away any more of the mystery than that. Tokyo Gore Police streams on Hulu and Shudder.
An amazing work of art. You should check out Machine Girl, if you haven't already.
ReplyDeleteI could just as easily have reviewed The Machine Girl, but decided last minute this one was a hair crazier. I could be wrong.
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