Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu (2008)

Director:

Yoshihiro Nishimura

Writers:

Kengo Kaji (screenplay)
Sayako Nakoshi (screenplay) (collaboration)

Release Date:

3 October 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Horror | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Set in a future-world vision of Tokyo where the police have been privatized and bitter self-mutilation...

Plot Keywords:

Engineer | Mutant | Police | Shot In Half | Body Modification

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Eihi Shiina	...	Ruka
Itsuji Itao	...	Keyman
Yukihide Benny	...	Tokyo Police Chief
Jiji Bû	...	Barabara-Man
Ikuko Sawada	...	Bar Independent Diner
Cay Izumi
Mame Yamada
Ayano Yamamoto
Akane Akanezawa		(as Moko Kinoshita)
Tsugumi Nagasawa
Maiko Asano
Daisuke Matsuki
Naofumi Murata
Takashi Shimizu
Oppe Ma

Also Known As:

Tokyo Gore Police (International: English title) (USA)

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Certification:

France:-16 | Australia:R | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Canada:R (Alberta) | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Fever Dreams

Movie Connections:

Spin off 63-fun-go (2009)

A Crowdpleaser With a Nice Mix of Weird Gore and Action

Well, it's finally here. After watching the 5-minute trailer (quite possibly the best trailer ever made, IMO) in early spring of this year, "Tokyo Gore Police" ("TGP") became one of the most highly anticipated films of 2008 for me personally. This anticipation was accentuated even more after these same filmmakers treated us to the wildly entertaining piece of bloody insanity known as "The Machine Girl" (2008), which convincingly showed that these guys give the viewer exactly what they want.

In TGP, Eihi Shiina (of "Audition" fame) is a special division of a privatized Tokyo police force who is called into action when her comrades run into "engineers" – genetically modified supercriminals who can transform open wounds into flesh-metal weaponry. Needless to say, there's much here that mirrors Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" (1989) and the weaving of flesh and metal has been cited as prominent in David Cronenberg's earlier works (of which I am not personally familiar). There are also references to "Robocop" (1987) by way of blackly comic commercial advertisements that are peppered into the film at various times.

Comparisons with "The Machine Girl" are inescapable. We get a similarly impressive opening fight scene in TGP, as well as an ocean full of blood and gore, but what impressed me the most about TGP is the pacing, which is no less than fantastic from start to finish. This is no doubt attributable to the greater presence of horror in this entry. The events in between the action are nearly as engaging as the action itself, with boatloads of cool gore effects all over the place. The character designs of the engineers is so delightfully over-the-top and perverted that it's a joy to simply watch them exist. Despite a 110 minute running time, this feels like an 80 minute film, which is a good thing.

Neither the characters nor the storyline are particularly well developed, but the goodies are more than enough to compensate. As I've mentioned in my previous user comments on movies like "Tom Yum Goong" (2005), applying formulaic "standards" to a film such as this would prove detrimental in that they would undoubtedly smother the inventive visuals that could only exist when the scriptwriter says to himself, "Okay, let's pack as many wild, weird, grotesque combinations of flesh and weaponry as humanly possible into one feature length film." The makers of TGP do exact that. Much of the film follows the lead antagonist as he assimilates various individuals into engineers and unleashes them against the police force. More character/storyline development in TGP would have demanded a cut in the quantity of visual insanity. Trust me when I say that such orthodox methods would prove disadvantageous indeed.

The action is directed by Tak Sakaguchi – made famous by his leading role in "Versus" (2000) – and he does an admirable job. The choreography isn't as good as a Hong Kong martial arts flick, but it piggybacks off of the character designs to provide fights that have never been seen before. It's difficult to get into the specifics without spoiling the fun, so I'll just point out that the good stuff appears *after* someone has been dismembered.

This is quite simply a very cool film that should be seen by anyone who likes mutant-style insanity and ultra stylish film-making. I find that gore films are so much more fun when they're mixed with over-the-top action. I simply cannot wait to see what these guys come up with next. A resounding success.