The Machine Girl - Movie Review

There is something unsettling about a school girl running around in her uniform killing people. When a pretty young lady sadistically disembowels people with cartoonish results, the outcome is a campy, tongue-in-cheek romp that has a spoof-like feel. Director Noboru Iguchi creates a visually interesting (but goofy) revenge film that maintains a strong graphic comic connection with his 2008 film, The Machine Girl.

Ami Hyuga (Minase Yashiro) seems like a normal school-girl. Other than the fact that she lives alone with her younger brother Yu (Ryosuke Kawamura) because their parents killed themselves after being wrongly accused of murder. Yu is the target of relentless bullying. The bullies are led by Sho Kimura (Nobuhiro Nishihara) the son of a local Yakuza (Kintaro Shimazu). The entire Kimura clan are ruthlessly evil (and cartoonishly flat) people. The kind of people that would make a chef eat his own fingers as if they were sushi.

When Yu and his friend are murdered at the hands of Sho, Ami sets out on a path of revenge. The young lady ends up establishing an unlikely friendship with former biker-girl Miki (Asami). The pair end up fighting their way to the top of the Kimura gang aided by special weapons that attach to Ami's severed arm. The pair vow vengeance in a bloody, graphic mission of shredded flesh.

The Machine Girl is an extremely violent, graphic, bloody revenge film. The plot is fairly simple. The characters are two-dimensional. The violence is so graphic it is almost a parody. The dialogue is ridiculous. The acting marginal at best. So why did I enjoy this film? I don't exactly know how to answer that question. There was something almost humorous. Maybe something akin to the old Godzilla movies. It was just fun to watch. But, the writing could not have possibly been flatter.

Yashiro is a cute girl. She has a girlish charm and a beautiful face that was covered in blood for most of the film, creating an interesting contrast. Her acting was short of noteworthy, but her martial arts moves were fun to watch, especially in the school girl uniform. Asami provides a nice complement to Yashiro, cute with a hard edge. Nishihara was decent, with a smugness that made him easy to dislike. Shimazu had a coif that instantly made him recognizable as a bad guy. He seemed to relish his role as the big evil. The cast wasn't great, but they weren't completely bad, either.

The Machine Girl is unrated. However, it would easily get tagged with an R rating by the MPAA. The film takes graphic violence to a whole different level. Imagine stripping the skin off of some one layer by layer with a machine gun. Or a mother's intestines spilling out of her mouth into a pot where her son's severed head is floating. Those are simple examples of the extreme violence. This film is graphic throughout. The film also has a bit of sensuality, but no nudity that I can recall. This film would disturb younger viewers and easily cause nightmares. Save this one for teenagers with a strong stomach.

With a campy film like The Machine Girl, I try not to be too judgmental, but there were some continuity issues that bothered me. Some were very obvious. Our star has her arm cooked in a pot and turned into tempura, but the arm is fine a short while later. Her fingers on that hand are later chopped off along with her opposite arm. But the next scene has the chopped arm being the one that had the chopped fingers (when both were clearly visible in a bloody scene. Continuity issues were often more subtle, but there were some obvious ones that Iguchi should have caught. Or did he intend to have them in there? Who knows. In a sense, it added to the sick humor here.

The Machine Girl is an odd film. I don't like slasher films, but this bloody revenge film actually held my interest. Even though it turned my stomach at times, the film had an offbeat charm to it. The visual look of the film was very cartoonish, which Iguchi used to his advantage. The two-dimensional features played into the graphic novel appeal of the film. It wasn't great and was probably the most flawed film I have ever recommended. But I would mildly recommend this quirky film with 5.5/10.

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