What better way to spend half of a Sunday besides running out to pick up the Nintendo 3DS for some of you than to chill out with a couple of crazy Japanese movies over Netflix's HD stream. I watched two of them back to back - alone by the way since my significant other was away - and while the first one almost made me doubt that I was doing the right thing this afternoon, at least the second movie brought the whole session into a rousing close.
First on the list was Robogeisha, a 2010 movie by Noboru Iguchi. Perhaps the most fascinating things about Japan to me - second to its video gaming revolution - are the geisha so I expected that this movie was going to be entertaining from the get go. As if that wasn't enticing enough, the promise of a cyborg geisha made me very giddy inside. Unfortunately, this movie fell short when it tried to take itself a little too seriously, deviating from its ridiculous premise and hilarious beginning.
Robogeisha tells a story of two sisters who got kidnapped by a secret organization that trains geisha into deadly assassins. These geisha assassins are then tasked to kill off targets who are deemed to be a threat to Japan. Things are not what they seem however and eventually, the sisters found themselves being altered with robotic parts... mostly for their own satisfaction. But enough about the plot. When you are watching about a movie called "Robogeisha", you want to see some sick and sexy action but sadly, despite some creative weaponry like swords that stick out of the geisha's armpits and buttocks, the fight scenes are mostly boring and the bad special effects are way overused. I don't expect to see expensive, Hollywood quality CGI when watching a Japanese movie but its implementation here went beyond cheesy and into the real of lazy. There are a couple of interesting blood-gusher scenes but the when you use CG blood explosions, make sure to at least dab some blood on the corpses afterwards.
The real problem with this movie however is the inconsistent storytelling. There was this "sibling rivalry" theme in the movie that really brought the level of fun and energy of the movie down because it was suddenly turned into "sisterly-love" right before your eyes leading towards the rather somber climax. If the film just stayed as a nonsensical action/comedy, it would have worked better. Seeing the sisters fight each other was fun, but seeing them pretend to care about each other was not and actually seeing the movie trying to create an emotional situation out of nothing was just bad. [RATING: 2 out of 5]
Next was the 2009 film directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu called Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and yes, the whole thing is as kick-butt as its title implied. This movie was obviously inspired by the Twilight films but it is a lot more fun than any of the films from that series combined - yes, I do watch the Twilight movies. Instead of a moody vampire guy with sparkles on his skin, we are presented with a vampire girl in the form of a new high school transfer student. She becomes interested in the most popular guy in school and later took him away from his "girlfriend" rather aggressively. The girlfriend retaliated of course and that eventually lead to her death and resurrection... Then, you guessed it, the two fight once again to claim the man that they both so desperately want to keep for themselves.
The setup is rather straightforward and this movie is filled with extreme gore. The vampire girl isn't dainty and that is what makes the movie endlessly fascinating. The way she fulfills her desire for blood is very disturbing and even though she is made to be the heroine of the tale, there's just something about her that is just not good. The daily high school life presented here is definitely not realistic with things like the wrist-cutter club and a borderline offensive club for girls who are into a sort of "reverse Michael Jackson". Speaking of the wrist-cutter club, there is a must see movie moment of a wrist-cutter drive that is just an absolute riot to watch, especially with the way that the event ended.
Vampire Girl is a goofy romance with just a hint of sappiness. It is more of a horror comedy with a nasty twisted ending too that was really well thought of. The movie doesn't rely too much on CGI unlike Robogeisha and the extremely bloody moments manage to be cheesy, sickening, and shocking all at the same time. Who needs the realism of young love when you can have a bloody massacre from your vampire film, right? [RATING: 4 out of 5]
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