Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

Title: Tokyo Gore Police (Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu)
Starring: Eihi Shiina, Itsuji Itao, Yukihide Benny
Studio: Tokyo Shock
DVD Release Date: January 13, 2009
Language: Japanese
Rating: 2 Stars

The title says gore and gore is just what you get. Tokyo Gore Police, or Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu, presents to you an image of Tokyo that is dystopic to say the least. In Japan, the police have been privatized with a license to kill while a special breed of criminal runs amuck. These criminals are known as “engineers” because they can engineer their body into weapons. With each wound they receive, they can modify their body to become a weapon to further fight. Present in the body, a calling card of their nature, is a key shaped tumor. That is not the only problem in Japan, though. Throughout the movie are commercials presenting the viewer with images of what sort of society the people of the movie live in: suicide is a problem and it is popular to self harm. The main character, a cutter named Ruka, is part of a special task force whose job it is to hunt these mutant engineer criminals. Her memories are bitter with images of her father’s assassination, killed as he tried to protest the privatization of the police force he served dutifully.

The movie assaults you with blood and action from the first scene. The first scene of the movie is a fight between the police and a criminal who soon ends up with a chainsaw for an arm that he uses to hack away indiscriminately. Cue Ruka with swords, laying waste to the man. She is the type of woman that you don’t want to fondle on a subway, which one unfortunate man learned of when he had his arms cut off for doing so. More blood spurts out of the bodies in this movie than humanly possible! The movie has its slow parts, but it well makes up for them when the violence gets started.

This movie has it all: mutant strippers, samurai swords, a limbless bondage gimp, swords for arms, a penis canon, eye cannons, a man with no top skull, a woman with an alligator mouth looking thing for a bottom half, a snail woman, a school girl with a box cutter for an arm, video games where you kill people in real life, a canon that shoots fists… and much, much more. It’s the kind of movie that will make you laugh, scream, and shield your eyes with an, “OH MY GOD!” Sometimes at the same time. At times the plot and the props can get kind of campy, but everything is shadowed by a creepiness that is hard to shake. There’s just no moral rightness in this movie. Everyone is corrupt in their own unique way. The police force, a group meant to serve and protect, are some of the worst out there! Towards the end of the movie, they go on a killing rampage.

As a viewer, you may find yourself confused with certain scenes. The blood sprays everywhere, people move about with quickness, and some things are just so strange that they seem to have no possible explanation. There were moments when my eyes glossed over because all I saw going on in the movie was flashing bodies too quick to make any sense of, and a lot of pinkish red. If there is anything to criticize, it’s that… and, well, the campiness. But, I sort of expected that to be an aspect.

Title: The Midnight Meat Train
Starring: Ted Raimi, Roger Bart, Peter Jacobson, Vinnie Jones
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Release Date: February 17, 2009
Language: English
Rating: 3 Stars

The Midnight Meat Train is a story taken from Clive Barker’s Books of Blood series, directed by Ryuhei Kitamura who has done one of my favorite movies, Versus. I had been reading a lot about this movie in Fangoria as I anticipated its release, and reviews seemed to regard it favorably. After all, this is Kitamura meets Barker with buckets of blood and gore. Sure to be a success, right?

The plot? A photographer who feels he needs to develop a bit of edge in his art finds himself on the trail of a subway serial killer who works during the day in a meat factory. There are a few threads to the plot such as why is the killer murdering on the subway and will the photographer wind up dead as he trails this obviously dangerous man. As the film progresses, the subway train itself becomes a meat locker full of bodies like cattle to be sliced up.

The first thing I noticed when the movie began to play is the blueish tint to everything. The coloring made the train scenes seem stark and glowing but shadowy and dark at the same time. All but the blood plastered everywhere seemed to glow a blueish-gray. In fact, the coloring of the scenes seemed an important element in setting up the mood throughout the film. Some scenes were very red and brown while others were more blue and gray. The scenes on the subway train where the brutal serial murders takes place are shot in such a way that you, the viewer, feel closed in and claustrophobic. As the meat hammer wielding killer strikes down his victims as if he were a butcher in a meat factory, you feel as if you were right next to them with no escape. The setting is very effective and I have to praise Kitamura for his style and directing with this one.

If you don’t like bloody movies, this one isn’t for you. It’s very graphic and the red stuff just oozes and floods the scenes when the murders occur. The killer has a number of tools for his trade, but his favorite is a meat pounding mallet that smashes skulls. If you think the camera pulls away or shields the gore with a conveniently placed piece of hair, you’re wrong. Kitamura makes sure we see every bit of the gore. Eyeballs fly and skulls smash right before our eyes. I am not one for gore for the sake of gore alone, but that is not what these scenes were about. It was never mindless gore, but rather a story that started shocking and jarring and got steadily more suspenseful and scary.

The twist at the end? Well, I can’t say I was surprised. Barker IS the man who created the Cenobites. Still, I feel that the ending took away from the element of realism that had until that point characterized the film. Up until the ending was revealed, it almost seemed as if the subway could be plagued by a rogue train carrying a meat packing serial killer who strikes at night after work in a clever, clean suit. I’d say see the movie but maybe turn it off before the last 15 minutes. Unless you like weird monsters. If so, watch it all the way through! It’s worth it either way.