The Machine Girl

If you're going into this movie expecting Oscar worthy performances, or are so closed-minded to say that the similarities of Planet Terror or Evil Dead make this a bad movie, don't bother watching this.

If you're going into this movie expecting to see mindless violence and take it at face value you'll have a blast!

I insist on rating this movie because I think the more this movie catches on the more movie snobs will bash this film due to "overacting" or the "lack of plot" and so on. Of course every character in here extremely overacts. Absolutely there isn't much of a plot at all. It's a typical revenge tale. A young girls brother gets killed by a gang. She gets pissed. She gets her arm chopped off by said gang. She gets more pissed. She gets a gun. She kills them. Sorry to spoil it for you. Not much to it I know. But who cares? It's fun! Bloody Bloody Fun!

Also any movie that has ninjas dressed as old school Run DMC is A-OK in my book!

Best Shock Film I have seen in the last 10 years! It starts out running and never stops! It's a Japanese School Girl Blood Bath Gore Fest that will have you laughing one second then going EWE the next. If you are into low budget, cheesy, gorey movies then I highly recommend this movie.

If arterial spray was a sexual fetish, "The Machine Girl" would be hardcore porn. If cinematic cheese were real cheese, it could open it's own pizza parlor. If an ultraviolent anime came to life, it would be this film. I haven't seen a display like this since Riki-Oh. And at least that one had the restraint to refrain from drill-bra versus chainsaw duels and Power Ranger-esque ninja death squads. But make no mistake, this is one of the most hysterically good times a gorehound can have with a single DVD.

Blood covers the screen, the heroines, the villains, the floor, and everything else in this film, sometimes to the point where it's all you can see. Fingers are made into sushi, an arm is battered and deep-fried, a woman discovers her son's head in her soup and then vomits as she is stabbed through the mouth from behind, her blood mixing with the extra-chunky puke to pour enticingly onto her son's disembodied head in the bowl in front of her (OWNED!), and that's before the giant machine-gun arm comes in! Have I given everything away? Not by a long shot. By this time you're either in or out, but I'll give you one more teaser. The Flying Guillotine: corniest martial-arts weapon EVER! Love it.

Get ready to laugh yourself sick...or maybe just get sick. Either way, this is one of the giddiest, most profanely violent, and cheesiest grindhouse films I've ever seen. It even comes complete with a score that could have come straight out of a 70's exploitation flick. Consider my faith in Japanese cinema officially restored. This is what I want to see when I pick up a movie with a DVD cover like this one's: a Japanese schoolgirl with a ridiculous machine gun arm blow a hole in a guy and then stick the gun through the hole she just shot in the guy to shoot a hole in another guy's face. Is that too much to ask? Director Iguchi Noboru says "HELL NO!". And God bless him for that.
4 1/2 stars rounded down for some poor special effects.

Machine Girl is a film that seeks to be every type of cult japanese film that it can be in its short running time all wrapped up in a big bow of exploitation. Theres the revenge quotient, some chanbara action with yakuza and wrapped up with a bunch of other stuff I'm too meak to categorize. Its main distributor Nikkatsu is known for producing mainly exploitation films and really the film isn't very serious and silly at the most. But what more can you think when a movies villains aren't only Yakuza but descendants of the Ninja Hattori Hanzo. Despite the glowing sense of stupidity that permeates the whole thing I was wearing a big stupid grin on my face through the whole mess of a film.

Ami is a likeable college student good at basketball who takes care of her younger brother Yu. Of course in the opening minutes we learn that Yu is being bullied and unfortunately tries to fight back. This unfortunately leads to him a friend being thrown to their deaths. Ami trying hard to do the right thing finds herself assaulted by the family she confronts (having her hand fried as tempura but thats not what necesitates the machine gun arm). She then goes into revenge mode and everything goes further into crazy territory as Ami looses her arm and after teaming up with the parents of the Yu's murdered friend gains a gatling gun for an arm. But that doesn't even begin to describe things like a drill bra, a high school ninja assassin team and some reaonably well done gore.

I find it hard to really defend or critique a film this ridiculous. The acting is bland and straight out of the b-movie quality it should be. The gore is too obvious and over the top but once they showed a screaming head with its face torn off any idea that they might have been aiming for realism vanished (and was never there to begin with). And the villains were so overdone but funny in their own little way (not including a crooked police man and his laughing wife, the main villains feed someone his fingers as his sushi and induce their bodygaurds to necrophilia with odd reasoning). This isn't a serious film and its not meant to be. It doesn't reach the heights of some more the insane classics from Japan but with a cheap price tag its at least worth checking out for those interested.

"Tongue in cheek - funny". I mean, you gotta be kidding me. Are Japanese people really entertained by these kinds of violent films? Very bad special effects and totally unlikable people? You would think that when people get cut or lose a limb, they would just bleed. But no, in Japanese films, people spray blood just like having a fire hydrant burst open. It's so ridiculous looking that it's funny. I've heard of being under stress, but these films give "being under pressure" a whole new meaning. Jeez, I'd imagine that have some pretty intense farts too.

This is like a totally, bloody, gory, film with "over the top" exaggerated sarcastic evil with a wealthy family that definitely has social problems. Even their son is dressed to be an evil effeminate pansy if I've ever seen one so, of course, you'd want to see him blown away in the end. Everyone's kinda sick in this movie. I didn't think that Japanese audiences were this warped with what entertains them.