Movie Review: The Machine Girl (2008)

How to explain a movie like The Machine Girl? You start here: a Japanese revenge flick with some martial arts and as much gore as you would find in any splatter film. Maybe more.

But that doesn't do it justice. A young schoolgirl named Ami Hyūga is seeking revenge against the son of a Yakuza boss because the boy killed her brother. She loses her left arm to the Yakuza boss after she invades his compound. She is sheltered by the family of her brother's friend, who was also killed by the son of the Yakuza boss. Ami has her arm replaced with a Gatling gun. And then she and the mother seek revenge.

And did I mention the gore?

The Machine Girl is a pulp film in all the right ways. Lots of action and over-the-top violence. Then you add in the ridiculous carnage and you get a really good cult film.

How ridiculous is the carnage? There is one scene where the Yakuza track Ami to the family that is sheltering her. They send three ninjas after them. After an extensive fight, Ami uses the gun to blow a hole through a ninja's chest. Then she shoves the gun through the hole to blow away the other ninja. And that is one of the tamer scenes in the film.

Minase Yashiro, who plays Ami, does a good job in what appears to be her first role on film. Ami comes off as a nice girl forced to be hard as nails, which makes it easy to be sympathetic to her even as she hammers 20 nails into someone's face. And I enjoyed Kentaro Shimazu as the insane head of the yakuza family. At his core he is a father defending his son, even if he is homicidal in how he goes about it.

Even with all these compliments, it should be understood that they are made within the context of what is a pulp film. The actual dialogue is often ridiculous and a lot of the acting could be generously described as "wooden." Part of the reason for that could be the background of most of the people involved. Director Noboru Iguchi seems to have got his start in both softcore and hardcore films. Many of the actresses in this film have an adult background in film or photography. You're not exactly getting the elite in acting from that arena.

But at it's core, this is a fun little revenge flick with the gore dial cranked up to "11" the whole time. If I did number scores, I'd call it between a six and seven. For what it is, it's pretty good. It was a direct-to-video release originally in 2008. Amazon is selling it anywhere between $13-$18 right now, which is a decent price if you like these kind of films.

Movie Review: Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

Ahh...Hobo with a Shotgun. The film born from a trailer competition at SWSX. If you are not a fan of gruesome killings, buckets of blood, kids being torched on a bus and Rutger Hauer, then this is definitely not a film for you. I suggest watching The Notebook.

If, however, you do like all that stuff wrapped up in an homage to 80s splatter films, then you have found a film you will like.

Hauer is the Hobo mentioned in the title. Much like in the competition trailer, he comes to a city to try a buy a lawnmower because...well, that isn't really important. The city, once called Hope Town, is a pit of death and despair run by a psychopath called The Drake and his two sons.

And I do mean psychopath. With the police under his thumb, the Drake and his boys take people off the street and beat them to death. They tear people's heads off as warnings to the populace. They allow drug dealers and pimps to work freely. As a dystopian backdrop, director Jason Eisener has created probably the worst one (which is good) in recent memory. It makes Jasper, Missouri look like a beacon of law and order*.

So, the hobo sees all this decay and crime. He stops a prostitute from being killed by one of the Drake's boys and pays a heavy price. He finally raises the money for the lawnmower he sees in a pawn shop and just as he is about to buy it, thugs come in and try to rob the place. By threatening to kill a baby. Instead of the lawnmower, the Hobo takes down a shotgun. Mayhem, of course, ensues. Bloody, vicious mayhem.

I won't go into what happens further on. It's all pretty boilerplate as far as these films go. But there is one creative twist, and that is The Plague.

The Plague are an other-worldly duo - demonic bounty-hunters - who will capture anyone for the right price. They are pretty great as an idea and are executed well on the screen. It adds a little something to the film that separates it from others of its kind.

What I also like about the film is how very...80s the film is. From it's general look to the character types to the clothes and even the film quality, it screams mid-80s.

And it goes without saying that Hauer is awesome. He really does look like a hobo. To think he has a career that has spanned over 40 years, from films like Soldier of Orange and Blade Runner to Blind Fury and Hobo...talk about range.

Hobo with a Shotgun isn't "good" in the sense that it is a film you'll revisit over and over again. But as a homage to the "blood and guts" films of the 80s, it's right on target. Had it been released in 1983, it would have made the "video nasty" list in the UK without any problems. And I mean that as praise.

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*Roadhouse! You all knew that, right?**

** Something that has always bothered me about these cities, be it Hope Town or Jasper...where are the state authorities? Or the feds? If one town or city was having a guy splattering bums' heads with a bumper car or running over cars with a monster truck, don't you think the state police or someone else would eventually notice? I'm pretty sure burning a bus full of kids to death breaks at least one federal law.