Don't Fear the Subs: 'Tokyo Gore Police' Ups the Ante

You can't accuse this movie of false advertising. Tokyo Gore Police, which screened this weekend as part of the seventh annual Asian Film Festival of Dallas (AFFD), bursts at the seams with severed limbs, oceans of bodily fluids, and enough intestines to choke a horse. More sensitive souls will run screaming from the room during the first scene, in which a man's head explodes in a cloudburst of blood, but that sets the tone of the movie as a live-action adult cartoon. Just keep repeating to yourself: "It's only latex and corn syrup, it's only latex and corn syrup ..."

Structured very much like a sick and twisted variety show, Tokyo Gore Police is all about the set pieces, which are mighty impressive indeed for fans of "hardcore mega-splatter," as our own Scott Weinberg described a clip he saw a few months ago. In the future, the Tokyo police force has become privatized for the protection of its citizens. That gives them license to execute all criminals with, let us say, extreme prejudice. One strain of bad guys remain a problem, however. Whenever so-called "engineers" lose a body part, the missing limb mutates into a bizarre weapon.

I thought Noburu Iguchi's The Machine Girl was insanely over-the-top, but Tokyo Gore Police ups the ante by mixing in generous nods to Paul Verhoeven, especially RoboCop and Starship Troopers.

Director Yoshihiro Nishimura has extensive special effects experience (Suicide Club, Meatball Machine), so the gore and effects are quite spectacular, considering what must have been a small budget for this shot-on-video effort. The film itself never develops any momentum and drags horribly between the set pieces, but splatter fans should be delirious, and the outrageous fictional commercials are almost worth the price of admission on their own.

Tokyo Gore Police will be released on DVD, probably this fall, by Media Blasters / Tokyo Shock. Speaking of The Machine Girl, it screens at AFFD on Tuesday night. The festival continues through Thursday, August 21.