The Machine Girl

The Machine Girl is one helluva film and when pitted against other similar gory Tokyo Shock releases such as Versus or Ichi the Killer it definitely comes out the squelchiest. In fact I’m willing to bet pounds for pennies that they actually soaked the film stock in blood before shooting. Blood spurts, sprinkles, pours, explodes, sprays, sprays and sprays even more from gashed arteries and severances, the bodies of which are turned into super-soakers (yeah a decapitated body is actually used as a water pistol) The amount of blood isn’t really what makes this film special though, it is the ingenious murder methods, the outrageous use of weapons, the choreography and the feeling that this is what a j-drama would be like if it was made by insanely sadistic ninja-demons who when they’re not going on killing sprees, like writing scripts about going on killing sprees. Wait, there’s also the dynamic characters such as the lead school-girl she-devil Ami Hyuga (Minase Yashiro) who is hungry for the revenge of her dead brother; Miki (played by a 22 year old pornstar named Asami) a really tough but beautiful mom who wants revenge for her dead son; and a marriage made in Yakuza lunacy with the two main villains of the piece, Ryuji and Violet Kimura being so merciless but ridiculous that it’s hard to despise them for being so nasty because they are so compellingly unhinged for parents.

The film is about a parentless teenage girl named Ami who seeks revenge against a group of bullies, the leader of which is the son of the Yakuza, for murdering her younger brother Yu. After finding her way to the Yakuza household she makes a brave attempt, fighting past ninjas and their arsenal of Shurikens, to kill Sho (the son) but unfortunately is unsuccessful, leaving her to be tied up and sliced at will by Ryuji the father and master, a finger at a time. Needless to say Ami ends up losing her left arm but manages to escape only to collapse outside a mechanics shop. The mechanics shop is run by the parents of Takashi (Yu’s friend) who was also killed by these bullies, and after some initial animosity between Ami and the mother Miki, they put their differences aside and decide to team up to get their pound of flesh (putting it mildly) from those that have taken their loved ones. Miki’s husband helps by stitching up Ami’s severed arm and building for her a machine gun that causes so much entertaining havoc.

As the film goes on and reaches it’s end you’ll really wonder how Ami was able to have her life destroyed, undergo fatal bloodletting (the more blood she loses the more focused she seems to get) and go from a sporty, pacifist achiever to a black belt, killing machine with little training, within the space of a couple of days. Oh, I apologise, it seemed I was trying to take this film seriously, something that is impossible to do if you are to enjoy it in the slightest. Don’t go trying to figure out where Ami gets her superhuman strength from either or why her amputations/mutilations just stop bleeding whilst everyone else that suffers inferior wounds dies immediately. You will only do yourself harm if you try to rationalise The Machine Girl, what’s better is to see it as Noboru Iguchi’s take on 1 Litre of Tears but with an obvious adjustment.

It may seem like there is nothing new going on with this film, what with limbs being replaced with weaponry, vixens on the hunt for vengeance and a nice big gang of bad guys to be slaughtered, but breaking new ground isn’t the film’s objective and the absurdity, due largely to the cultural idiosyncrasies of the Japanese in film, is what makes it outshine other efforts it has been compared to like Grindhouse, more specifically Planet Terror and dare I say The Evil Dead. This is because what we’re seeing are exaggerated action voices, facial expressions that range from rockstar to cute puppy and ordinary folks such as a schoolgirl, some average parents suddenly turn terminator even when it comes to a slight provocation. One scene that illustrates this well is where Ami goes to the house of one of the boys that was bullying her brother (and helped in his eventual death) to have a civilised talk, but what she gets is an encounter with a seemingly sweet and frail housewife and a proud father, the former of which cackles like a hyena whilst trying to deep-fry Ami’s hand in Tempura and the latter becoming a ninja Nick Faldo, brandishing golf clubs like a pair of Sai, when all she wants is answers (well at this point that all she wants). Also, the actual execution of death scenes will leave you breathless as you will become so enthralled by them breathing may be demoted to being a tertiary function. There is even a throwback to Tetsuo the Ironman whereby a pneumatic drill for a penis is replaced in this instance with Violet’s steel bra that has drills on each cup. To see it rip through Ami’s breasts while she screams bloody murder was definitely the most uncomfortable scene for me.

All in all The Machine Girl is just a cooler and more stylish film than those action/horrors that have preceded it, because it not only has you nodding your head going “that was mental” or in shock at how deranged Noboru Iguchi makes even normal characters to be, but also because it can take ideas that have been recycled over and over and make them fresh again, as though you were seeing someone being shot, stabbed, sliced or decapitated in film for the first time.