Hot Picks
|
|
|
Bakuretsu Mashin Shojo - Basuto Mashin Garu
Rise of the Machine Girls
Japan 2019
produced by Yoshinori Chiba, Yoshihiro Nishimura for New Select, Nishimura Eizo/Nikkatsu
directed by Yuki Kobayashi
starring Yuya Ishikawa, Kanon Hanakage, Tak Sakaguchi, Toshie Negishi, Rie Kitahara, Sachi Nakajo, Hideto Nakanishi, Nishi-kun, Kokone Sasaki, Ririne Sasano, Ryuju Sumikawa, Himena Tsukimiya, Jingi Umemoto, Taro Yabe, Yu Yasuda
written by Yuki Kobayashi, Jun Tsugita, based on characters and concepts created by Noboru Iguchi, music by Kou Nakagawa
Machine Girls
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
Sisters Ami (Yuya Ishikawa) and Yoshie (Kanon Hanakage) have been sold
to the organ harvesting Dharma corporation years ago, but have since
escaped, but not without giving up several organs - including Yoshie's
arm) first. These days they perform elaborate trick-shooting and martial
arts shows at a circus in the poor part of town. But by night Yoshie,
wearing a machine gun in place of her arm, goes on raids against the
Dharma corporation with several other slumdogs wronged by Dharma. One
night though, Yoshie and her gang are defeated and all but her and her
right hand Ryuji are killed - however not before they manage to kill
Dharma's top machine girls, who used their big breasts as shields. Ayama
(Toshie Negishi), Dharma's CEO, is furious, so she keeps Yoshie and Ryuji
to experiment on them.Ami decides to pay Aoyama a visit to beg for
forgiveness and pretty much offer whatever it takes for the release of her
sister. Aoyama makes Ami humiliate herself, then has her brutally beaten
up, and ultimately cuts one of her arms off and throws her into the gutter
- but she doesn't release Yoshie, instead she sends Riko, master
markswoman with her monstrous Siamese twin growing out of her belly as
back-up, to the slums where Yoshie and Ami live to just shoot everybody
dead ... everybody but Ami, who's protected by assassin Matsukata, who
eventually manages to kill Riko and her twin. Ami and Matsukata vow
revenge, so they attach machine guns to Ami's arm stump and enter Dharma
headquarters ... to brutally kill everyone in sight and lure Aoyama out
into the open - but Aoyama has an unpleasant surprise for them, and it's
Yoshie and Ryuji, augmented by guns attached to their bodies, and fully
brainwashed to do Aoyama's every bidding ...
Now in direct comparison, Rise of the Machine Girls is
no match for the original Machine
Girl from a dozen or so years prior (of which this is not a direct
remake but re-boot of the concept), mainly because the premise felt much
fresher then, its plot was less in-your-face and more thought through, and
it didn't try this desparately to go over-the-top all the time. But
taken by its own merits, Rise of the Machine Girls is also loads of
fun to watch, basically because it seems to know no bounds, it's crazy for
crazy's sake, and it seems to serve every Japanese crazy-movie fetish,
from school girls to upskirt pics to big guns to body horror to gallons of
gore, with a gusto and a wink at the audience. In other words, this is not
a movie to be taken seriously, and not to be offended by - and when you
manage those two, you'll feel splendidly entertained. True, not much of
the story will stick with you for long, and much of what's in this one you
might even have seen better elsewhere - but that's not to say this isn't a
laugh-out-loud movie, probably best consumed with beer or recreational
drugs.
|
|
|