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Bob Doto [Film Festival 07.16.10] Japan review action

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Year: 2009
Directors: Noboru Iguchi/Yoshihiro Nishimura
Writers: Jun Tsugita
IMDB: link
Trailer: link
Review by: Bob Doto
Rating: 6 out of 10

Goofy Japanese splatter films are an interesting breed with clear ties to a more candy coated slice of punk culture. Highly collaborative, working with low budgets, misfiring sidesplitting special effects, and cut-to-the-chase plots make for a truly junk food experience. They’re like a Snickers bar, if instead of chocolate, the nougaty peanut extravaganza was covered in feces. And when you tried to take a bite, a ninja from out of nowhere cuts your face off with a chainsaw shooting out of his rectum. Mind you, I’m not that far off from what actually goes on in the Noboru Iguchi / Yoshihiro Nishimura / Tak Sakaguchi directed MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD. There are chainsaws. They protrude from unsavory orifices. There is a lot of mayhem.


The story is basic: Japanese girl with glasses (read: nerd) is ridiculed in school. She’s an outcast and constantly tormented by the rich popular kids. However, on her sixteenth birthday all that changes when she finds out from her mutant parents that she too is an ungodly mutation of humanity! Immediately she is thrown into a world where her race of mutants, the Hirukos, are on the brink of brutal annihilation. Much decapitation ensues.

In the States we’re given an almost highbrow interpretation of the mutant. Mutants are “marginal,” often roaming the earth in order to fight evil forces. In Japan, mutants are repulsive. In MGS, Mutants have disgusting bloody creatures projecting out of their sternums cooing you to come closer. They’re not so much battling the forces of all badness as much as they are doing whatever it takes to stay alive. If that means disemboweling an army sent to destroy their kind by shooting booger bullets from their noses, than so be it. Yes, it is that stupid.

There is something of value to MGS, however, which prevents it from being all but ignorable. While many silly Japanese splatter fests rely entirely on power violence in order to captivate an audience, and mind you MGS definitely does do that, few take their shtick to the next level. And while MGS doesn’t do too much with the craft, I will say that there’s a lot more Cronenberg than one would expect. In the end MGS takes the worst of William Burroughs and attempts the best in gore-punk in order to create a motion picture of hyper-carnage specifically designed to shock and awe you into psychic disrepute. Buy a popcorn. Drink a soda. Laugh if you’re up for it. Cringe if you must.



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agentorange (1 year ago) Reply

Bob said: "They’re like a Snickers bar, if instead of chocolate, the nougaty peanut extravaganza was covered in feces. And when you tried to take a bite, a ninja from out of nowhere cuts your face off with a chainsaw shooting out of his rectum"

HA! Totally.

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Jezizup (1 year ago) Reply

Ha, that was my favorite line too! Classic.


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