User Reviews

I found the entire exercise in endless over-the-top gore, seriously twisted sex and (as has been pointed out elsewhere) ROBOCOP/STARSHIP TROOPERS-style satire to be too confusing, too nihilistic, and too...much, ultimately. But I won't deny that there's definitely an audience for this movie, even if the graphic violence effects range from astonishingly good to patently obvious.

Briefly, the story involves a near-future Tokyo where the police force has been privatized, fighting homicidal maniacs called "Engineers" who, upon being seriously injured, sprout Cronenberg-like "flesh weapons" to seriously ramp up the death and destruction before they are killed. A young policewoman with serious personal issues, having seen her policeman father assassinated as a girl, is tasked with hunting down these Engineers with the aid of her katana (Japanese longsword) - only what the Engineers are, and how they relate to both the father's death and the privatizing of the Tokyo PD, is all part of the same deep, dark conspiracy....

In the end, whether you love it or hate it is completely a personal call. I'd recommend renting before buying, unless you absolutely are a gorehound.

Two hours? This film is two hours long? Dark brooding tale of a world where self mutilation is the norm, where psychos have to be killed out right, and some mutants called engineers can re-sculpt their bodies in gruesome ways. Into the mix is a woman who's job is to go out and kill the engineers and who is looking for the man who killed her father.

One of the genre of gore films from Japan that exist purely to watch the blood and body parts fly. Its all over the top and many of these films work in a wonderfully disgusting sort of way. Most of the films I've seen tend to run under 90 minutes, do what they do and get off. They are amusing time killers for people who like things sprayed with fake blood.

As the gore films go this is one of the best looking and one of the dullest I've seen. The visuals of spraying blood and flying body parts are first rate. If you like this sort of thing odds are the visual compositions will make you smile, as will the cleverness, say the geisha girl who chops up subway molesters carrying an umbrella so as not to get covered in the red stuff. Equally good are some of the character designs which sometimes run toward the dark fetish (leather bound girl on all fours anyone?) The problem is that the films sense of story (okay yes I know the story isn't the point here) and pacing is way way off.The film just drones on, through terrible exposition scenes. yes the commercials are funny, but the story of the brooding heroine who saw her father die is really boring. Even more so when you consider that the girl never changes her expression. I was bored by the end of the first hour.

Far be it for me to suggest some one go at this film with a pair of shears and cut a half hour or more our of it, but in my humble opinion I think thats what this film needs. For me I'm glad I saw this on video where zapping to the next blood soaked sequence was easy.

Those loving ultra gory cleverness and a finger on the remote are directed to this film. Anyone else, especially those with an ounce of good taste, are directed elsewhere.

Ruka(..scrawny and sullen Eihi Shiina)watched an assassin blow her father's head apart and bears this burden as an "engineer hunter"(..humans with hideous mutations genetically created)working for a "privatized police faction" known as the Tokyo Police Corporation who destroy criminals on the spot, wearing heavy armour and equipped with state-of-the-art machine guns under the control of a Police chief(Yukihide Benny)whose vocal cords are severed and speaks through a special magnified intercom system attacked to his uniform. Ruka is on the prowl for the mastermind behind the engineers, a madman who actually injected himself with the genes of notorious serial killers, his method for being able to create this race he claims derived from the devil after attempting to kill himself. The Mastermind wishes to join forces with Ruka, both have something in common, concerning her father's murder and how the assassin relates to him. Ultimately, The Mastermind will inflict Ruka with a genetic mutation(..inserting a hunk of flesh, in the form of a key, duplicated from a sample found in the Mastermind's body after awakening from a coma which derived from his attempted suicidal leap from a building, leaving his face scarred)that will turn her into the very thing she hunts, with complicated results. The Mastermind will also infiltrate the Tokyo Police Corporation, using one of their own men, after turning him into an engineer when he visited an underground freak show containing mutants. This sets off a chain events which will expose the corruption of an organization which was built, supposedly, to protect citizens, with Ruka forced into fighting against the very ones she's worked for her entire adult life.

Outrageous, cartoonish, over-the-top, extremely graphic action-horror hybrid featuring every possible violent act that can happen to the human body. Body parts are ripped away or chopped from victim's bodies and blood sprays all over the place. Faces are stabbed and mutilated, even removed from the head. Hideously grotesque body mutations are a constant(..clearly Cronenberg's Videodrome has had a profound impact on the filmmakers)such as a crocodile mouth forming from the arm or legs of humans effected by The Mastermind's mutations, chomping down on limbs and faces, jerking them from victims' bodies. Faces are often deformed with icky make-up effects. Ruka uses a Kitana sword and many a victim are split apart with blood squirting, whether it be someone's head parted down the center or bodies cut in half and hacked to pieces. This kind of film is not for the squeamish, that's for sure. The mutations are liable to get under the skin of those who have a hard time dealing with fleshly deformities and abnormalities. I think the film goes a little overboard with it's excess of gore..a woman is torn to shreds after the Tokyo police pull her apart using four separate vehicles, her hands and legs all pulled in individual directions. Multiple heads are severed and a kooky coroner has a missile launcher he uses to blast human arms(..they even give poor Ruka the finger!)! One poor soul gets his penis bitten off with a large mutation growing in it's place shooting flesh-bullets at the police! The film, as it continues, just gets more ridiculous, surreal and crazy..it's hard to ever take serious even when the story unfolds a grim fact involving Ruka's father, an advocate against a privatized police force, and her boss, the man who raised her. Features commercial bits representing a hostile future embracing the violent nature of a culture spiraling out of control and the dark humor on display will not appeal to everyone, some would find it unpleasant and sick. But, this film is a no-holds-barred, go-for-broke type of entertainment that is audacious and repulsive in equal measure. Spirited camera-work, colorful visual style, and energy to spare, Yoshihiro Nishimura aims to please gorehounds with a penchant for ultra-violence. The visual effects are, at times, so bizarre, revolting, and shocking(..while also, at times, looking rather unconvincing as if it was the director's intent to make the violence seem unrealistic and cheesy)that it elicits awe and surprise. Rarely does the director let you catch a breath, either, and there's hardly ever a moment where the film is civilized or humane. Enter at your own risk.

The producers get an A for effort for this one. I wasn't expecting much when I started watching, and I wasn't even really paying attention to the subtitles for a while as I thought this was pretty run of the mill. But then the weirdness gets ratcheted and some supreme body horror comes into play.

Being a big fan of, well, gore, and body horror, I was digging this movie after about 30 minutes. It didn't grab me right away, but I'm glad I stuck with it. For the price of admission, you get some pretty good stuff. Some of the important scenes could have been better with a bigger budget, but even the ideas they had were great, if the execution occasionally lacked.

Seriously, when was the last time you saw a girl get ripped in half by a Mac-10, only to have a crocodile mouth grow out of her lower torso, compete with a gnarly vagina waiting at the end of that gruesome gullet? Or a the bigger payoff---a quadruple amputee bondage slave girl(for some reason referred to as He) who was 4 samurai swords for limbs? Some trick shooting and CGI kept that scene from being totally wasted, and it's one of the highlights of the movie.

And, for the squeamish, be warned. There is a pretty graphic groin-biting scene. Again, we have some Japanese bleeder that ignores how the body really works, even beyond showers of blood. But that's sort of the point here: the plot revolves around genetically modified killers who can grow monstrous new limbs fighting a corrupt privatized police force with a hot little mama wielding a sword against both factions.

I was pleasantly surprised for a change that not only does the title say it all, but the film actually lives up to the name. Gorier and better produced than The Machine Girl, but you should probably knock both of these out together over beer and pizza. There are worse ways to kill a weekend and brain cells.

Recently, I popped this film into my DVD player, not really expecting much. From the box, it appeared to be yet another Japanese film based on an anime (which I generally don't find that entertaining). In any case, I watch loads of Japanese films, as I'm learning the language. (Incidentally, the original Japanese language title for this film is: "Tokyo Cruel Police.")

Five minutes into the movie, "Tokyo Gore Police" had my complete and full attention. I was stunned at what I was seeing. I've seen a lot of Japanese horror films and a lot of blood-soaked movies. But this film takes it to another level. "Tokyo Gore Police" has the ability to shock even those who are jaded and think they've "seen it all." "Tokyo Gore Police" is incredibly bloody and violent---maybe the most gory movie ever made. It makes the films of Takashi Miike seem tame by comparison.

And it reminded me, once again, why I am a huge fan of Japanese cinema. Whereas today's Hollywood movies are dull, predictable and follow tiresome rules, you never know what to expect with a Japanese movie.

This is particularly true with the horror genre. Hollywood-style predictability has ruined many a horror film for me. That's why many of the best horror films these days originate outside the Hollywood system.

Do you think Quentin Tarantino is radical, cutting-edge and dangerous? If so, watch "Tokyo Gore Police." It makes Tarantino look like the over-rated, predictable bore that he really is.

"Tokyo Gore Police" stars the dazzlingly beautiful Eihi Shiina, who also appeared in Miike's classic, "Audition." She plays a ruthless cop who goes after bizarre, murdering monsters called "Engineers." There's a bit of "Blade Runner" in this film, as well as some Paul Verhoeven-style social commentary. In fact, I'm sure Verhoeven would approve of the over-the-top violence.

And there is blood. Lots and lots of blood.

If you like horror, blood & guts and bizarre cult films, be sure to check this film out.

I give this film 9 out of 10 stars.