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Hagane (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) is a small fry gangster who is actually totally
incompetent and much too mild-mannered for the job, but who joined the
Yakuza because he admires boss Tosa (Takeshi Caesar). Then though, Tosa is
sent to prison for five years, and in that time, the organisation changes
... and when Tosa is picked up by Hagane after his five year stretch, he
and Hagane both run into an ambush laid by Tosa's own boss Yomo and are
riddled by bullets ...
Later, Hagane awakens in the lab of otaku scientist Hiraga (Tomorowo
Taguchi) and realizes that he is made almost exclusively out of metal and
hardly human anymore ... and he has all kinds of superpowers. Hagane uses
his superpowers to get even with all those who wronged him, andthus soon
kills himself through his old gang ... but when it comes to killing big
boss Yomo, Hagane is stopped by his former friend Taka, whom he could
easily kill physically, but his conscience says no ...
Hagane decides to turn his back on humanity and lives in a tent next to
Tosa's grave, where he one day meets Yukari (Shoko Nakahara), Tosa's
ex-girlfriend, and when he consoles her, the two fall in love ...
But then, Yukari tries to kill Yomo, but his bodyguards manage to
instead make her their captive, and now they want to use her to make
Hagane kill Yomo's rival boss Kozoi (Ren Osugi) - which Hagane sees
himself forced to do.
Meanwhile, Yomo and his men want to all rape Yukari, but she commits
suicide by swallowing her tongue - which doesn't keep Yomo from fucking
her anyhow.
When Hagane arrives at Yomo's place he's in a rage slaughtering
everybody in sight, and it of course doesn't get any better when he finds
Yukari dead ... and this time, Hagane even kills Yomo, only when it comes
to Taka (who has meanwhile made an attempt at Hagane's life) he hesitates
- until Taka shoots him in his only vulnerable spot, then Hagane slashes
him in half using his trademark samurai sword before he too collapses ...
This film, a blend between a traditional yakuza flick (complete with
slashings by samurai sword) and the Robocop-franchise might
sound very exciting in writing ... but unfortunately the film itself is
less so: The film seriously lacks decent pacing, with long deliberately
slow-moving sequences and sudden outbursts of (comic book style) violence
proving to be uneasy bedfellows which totally fail to outbalance each
other. Also, the film often seems to be undecisive about being totally
tongue-in-cheek or being serious (if incredibly cheesy) drama.
That all said, the film is not all bad, it's a fun and silly little
action flick with its shortcomings but also its good moments. Just don't
expect too much ...
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