The Machine Girl

NYTimes

The Japanese obsession with cavorting ninjas, cunning hardware and comely young avengers in abbreviated plaid skirts reaches some kind of climax with “The Machine Girl,” a riotous blend of arterial spray and grindhouse glee.

More About This Movie

The Machine Girl

Playing Ami, a basketball-loving high schooler whose beloved brother is killed by bullies, the soft-core starlet Minase Yashiro blazes through the movie like a vengeful hall monitor. Seeking justice, Ami confronts the parents of the lead bully, who respond by pan-frying her forearm — an extremity that will later be replaced by a machine-gun prosthesis. Like Rose McGowan’s character in “Planet Terror,” Ami is retrofitted for revenge.

Written and directed by Noboru Iguchi, “The Machine Girl” playto the balcony with schlocky effects (the camera lens frequently suffers collateral splatter) and visible roots (a terrifically cheesy 1970s title sequence). As Ami tackles a bewildering array of adversaries — including a bunch of bereaved parents known as the Super Mourner Gang — faces are flayed and eyeballs impaled in an escalating rush of inventive mortifications.

Offering her fans only a teasing glimpse of pristine white panties, Ms. Yashiro remains aloof from the screenplay’s sleazier moments. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the movie’s scariest villain, a yakuza mom only Tarantino could love. What she does with her bra is worth the price of admission alone.

THE MACHINE GIRL

Written (in Japanese, with English subtitles) and directed by Noboru Iguchi; director of photography, Yasutaka Nagano; edited by Kenji Tanabe; music by Koh Nakagawa; production designer, Yasuo Kurosu; visual effects supervisor, Tsuyoshi Kazuno; produced by Yoko Hayama, Yoshinori Chiba and Satoshi Nakamura; released by Media Blasters Releasing, Fever Dreams and Tokyo Shock. At the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 East Third Street, at Avenue A, East Village. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Minase Yashiro (Ami Hyuga), Asami (Miki Sugihara), Ryosuke Kawamura (Yu Hyuga), Nobuhiro Nishihara (Sho Kimura), Kentaro Shimazu (Mr. Kimura) and Honoka (Mrs. Kimura).

TheFlickChick

Review: The Machine Girl (2008)

Director: Noboru Iguchi
Starring: Minase Yashiro

So, a little back story on this one: sometime last year my brother found the trailer for this movie online and we both thought that it was a parody or something and then discovered that it was an actual, bona fide movie and became determined to find some way to see it. Having now had the opportunity to see it, I must confess that words aren’t really adequate to properly describe it, but I’m going to do my best to apply a few. I haven’t bothered to assign this a star rating because movies like this one really defy the concept of a star rating, being as it is so shamelessly and awesomely ridiculous.

The plot of Machine Girl... actually, let me back up a bit. There’s something you need to understand about Machine Girl before we even get into the plot. She is pissed off. I mean, reallypissed off – like, imagine the most pissed off you’ve ever been and then multiply it by about a million. She’s also lost an arm and had a machine gun fashioned to fit over the stump, leaving her other hand free to wield another weapon. These facts we learn in the prologue but then the film doubles back, showing Machine Girl (aka Ami, played with admirably manic energy by Minase Yashiro) in a simpler time... kind of.

Ami and her brother are orphans, their parents having killed themselves following allegations of murder. The Ami of these early scenes is kind and caring, just as long as you don’t get her angry (you wouldn’t like her when she’s angry). Unbeknownst to her, a group of bullies has singled out her brother and his friend, and eventually torments them to death. When it becomes apparent that the bullies won’t be punished, Ami decides to take matters into her own hands and make them pay. During her quest, she loses her arm and almost dies but is saved by Miki (Asami) and her husband, the parents of the other dead boy. After several bloody battles, Ami and Miki storm the compound of the ringleader of the bullying, a little psycho who, judging by his parents, comes from a long line of psychos.

Machine Girl isn’t for everyone, but it might be for you if any of the following apply:

1. You like every wound to result in a fountain of spurting blood;
2. You’re curious regarding the aesthetic appeal of a bra fashioned out of drills;
3. You’ve ever wondered what it would look like if someone vomited up their intestines;
4. The words “flying guillotine” capture your imagination.

A lot of blood is shed in this film, but the violence is of such a cartooney variety that it’s difficult to take seriously. And lest you think the film is entirely devoid of cinematic value, rest assured that there is a moral to this story, voiced by Machine Girl in the final moments, regarding the importance of standing up for yourself or some such thing. At any rate, if simply standing your ground doesn’t work the film does have many creative suggestions for inflicting bodily harm on your enemies.

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