DVD OF THE WEEK: Tokyo Gore Police

Tokyo Gore Police (Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu)
Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura
2008, 110 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles

"She is the only actress in the world who can look so beautiful just standing in the midst of a gushing spray of blood."
- Yoshihiro Nishimura, discussing Eihi Shiina

Yes, Criterion put out a slew of new Rossellini DVDs this week, but having survived a banal '80s suburban upbringing thanks to crusty, dusty VHS tapes of Evil Dead 2, Videodrome, Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Robocop (years before I saw my first Rossellini), it would be on my conscience if I didn't back this midnight mayhem with shameless, grinning aplomb. Mining the aforementioned cult classics for their biological degeneracy, sick wit and over-the-top social satire, Yoshihiro Nishimura's gonzo action-horror mutant is the cinematic equivalent of a Gwar concert, a vicious black comedy dressed in latex and spurting rivers of fake blood. It's about as inventive and savvy as low culture gets; whether you interpret that as a compliment or a backhanded thwack should pretty much dictate if your curiosity will be piqued.

An effects guru-turned-filmmaker, Nishimura (whose production design and F/X work can be seen in Suicide Club, Machine Girl and Strange Circus) could be described as Japan's answer to Tom Savini: what he lacks as a director of limited abilities, he makes up for in envelope-pushing visual flamboyance. The stage is near-future Tokyo, where the police force has been privatized, and therefore free to interpret and enforce the law with ultraviolent retribution, even engaging in public executions when seen fit. (Throughout the film, ubiquitous commercials promote how mowing down murderers with machine guns in broad daylight "will lead to more plentiful lives for us," at least when the TV isn't advertising suicide pills and wristcutters "with a cute design" for teen girls.) Mentally perturbed officer Ruka (former Benetton model-turned-actress Eihi Shiina, the quiet psycho from Audition, with little to do beyond posing manga-pretty), who joined the force after seeing her father's head literally explode, wears a skimpy schoolgirl uniform and carries a samurai sword to fight crime. She's a hunter of "engineers," a mad scientist-led string of criminals with key-shaped tumors in their bodies, all of whom share a genetic defect that grows icky, organic weapons wherever they become wounded.

If inebriated enough, you won't notice that the film is perfunctorily directed to showcase the effects and production design, with too many dutch angles, slo-mo tableau shots and a projectile-cam directly ripped off from Sam Raimi, all bathed in neon pastels. Regardless, Nishimura maintains a propulsive momentum that doesn't give your jaw enough time to raise before it's dropping again with oh-my-god-I-thought-I-had-seen-it-all befuddlement: acid lactations, skin that flays open like double doors when a key is inserted, a gatling gun that fires human fists for bullets, S&M paraplegics who walk on swords for limbs, a prostitute with crocodile chompers for legs -- and in the most grotesque display of reimagined, objectified, Cronenbergian new flesh yet committed to film -- a living, breathing, urinating, IV-fed chair made from a woman's torso, the center of attraction at the most depraved fetish club ever conceived. Nishimura claims to have been inspired as a child by Salvador Dalí's distorted figures, and though his queasy fantasies are indeed the stuff of fanboy titillation, more adventurous cinephiles can still admire his unique artistry.

Posted by ahillis at January 13, 2009 9:56 AM