danand82's Movie Review of Machine Girl, The ( Kataude mashin gâru )

Girl with gatling gun arm seeks revenge...
danand82 - wrote on 09/07/08

I urge everyone to check out the trailer for The Machine Girl. If you don’t laugh, this film is not for you. If you do, prepare to rupture something as, over the course of 90 minutes you will experience: tempura battered forearms, digit-spiced sushi, dismemberment through tripping, A DRILL BRA, ninjas in tracksuits, sapphic arm-wrestling, necrophilic deflowering, bullet flaying, vomiting intestines and gallons and gallons of geysering blood.

Good writing, good performances, good CG and good taste are not The Machine Girls’ forte. What it does have going for it is an abyssal black sense of humour and a penchant for treading the line between the disgusting and the absurd (avoiding, as it does so, the pitfalls of some more extreme Japanese horror offerings). The story, such as it is, revolves around a seemingly normal Japanese high school girl who – after the death of her brother – goes after the ones responsible. There are some other incidentals; the mystery surrounding the death of her parents and the over-complicated bullying of her brother but they are really filler – the tasteless bread surrounding this sandwich of ultraviolence. The opening scene is a perfect demonstration of Machine Girls’ intentions – it contains plot spoilers that reach halfway into the film – effectively stifling any chance of tension or drama. And then a petite girl in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit straps a Gatling gun to the stump of her left arm and you understand. You reach calmly into your brain and turn the switch marked ‘Reality’ to the off position, dial your gorge reflex down a couple of notches and prepare to ride the claret rapids wherever they may take you.

The Machine Girl is gory, tasteless, voyeuristic and peppered with 'performers' from Japan's porn industry. It is also funny, self-aware and delivers on its promises very effectively (mainly: lots and lots of blood. It has some corny moments and is technically rather low rent but, in all honesty, competent film-making would only distract from the films gleeful, nihilistic bloodletting. So sit down with some popcorn (avoid sushi), grab the (even more hilarious) dub of The Machine Girl and prepare to dissolve all sense of good taste and decency for an hour and half. I almost guarantee you'll enjoy it…