Japanese cinema has a distinctly extreme and bizarre sub-genre of action/horror movies all its own … The Machine Girl fits right in. The story follows young Asami as she seeks vengeance for her little brother’s murder by a gand of bullies, led by the son of a powerful Yakuza boss. After learning of his demise and the identities of those responsible from her brother’s journal, she sets out to seek revenge but initially only finds pain and torment as she’s not yet strong enough to take them on. In the process, she is captured by the Yakuza and the boss has her strung up and removes her left hand with his sword.

Asami is strong-willed and more resilient than the Yakuza predicted as she manages to escape her captivity, minus her left hand. Bleeding to death, she seeks out and befriends the mother of her little brother’s friend, who was murdered along side her brother. The two mourning women train together and the other boy’s father constructs a daunting metal machine gun arm for Asami to use in battle. At this point, mass amounts of gratuitous blood and violence ensue, including several dismemberment’s, bodies split in half, holes shot, cut and blown through bad guys … the glorious extra-cheesy extreme carnage goes on for ever, it seems. The duo is up against quite a large force of Yakuza thugs, but they make it look easy. That is until the pair of femme fatales find themselves standing toe to toe with the gang leader’s parents. His father is the Yakuza boss and his mother is perhaps one of the most sick and demented, totally twisted, ice-cold [female dogs] possible … oh yeah, and she sports a special steel giant drill-bit armed killer bra. That’s right … a bra that kills via sharp spinning drills of death!

The special effects are pretty good if you’re into that sort of really fake looking, but grotesquely fun over-the-top blood-letting. ‘The Machine Girl’ clearly draws from several cinematic influences, the most obvious of which is Asami’s metallic battle attachment for her missing hand … aka Ash’s gas-powered chainsaw of of justice in ‘Army of Darkness’ … which, believe it or not Asami actually dawns a replica of in the later portions of the film, replacing her machine gun option. There’s also a few vague similarities in parts to Peter Jackson’s ultra-gory zombie horror/comedy ‘Dead Alive’ which don’t really do the classic gross-out film much justice as an homage. Ami Hyuga (Asami) actually does a fairly decent job in what is her very first attempt at both acting and being an action star.

Tags | The Machine Girl, Tokyo Shock