Movie Review: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

I don't get to watch a lot of movies in the theaters (mainly because that sh*t is expensive, but you know that already), and when I do, I watch superhero movies with my friend Will and Dacarllo.  When I'm not with them, I use the Internet.  Now, I'm not out there torrenting like the rest of y'all.  I use other forms to get my movies--all of them legal.  Which brings me to my movie review subject: Tokyo Gore Police.

I watched it and I can truly say this movie lives up to its title, as all movies should.  The film (used loosely) is set in a futuristic Tokyo, some time after the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been privatized and merged into the former.  Apparently, all Japan is now Tokyo...or not, I am unsure.  Also new to the mix are "Engineers"--a new type of life-form that causes mayhem in the streets and turns ordinary criminals into super-powered villains.
Enter Ruka (played by Eihi Shina of Audition fame), an expert "Engineer Hunter" with the Tokyo Metro Police, who hunts using only a samurai sword.  True to Japanese fantasy tropes, she weighs 90 pounds soaking wet and no family lineage is tied to the weapon to explain its unnatural ability to remain undamaged throughout the film as she fights hulking monsters.  She does her best and is celebrated in the ranks of the police department...but off-duty, she is a sad young woman who laments the loss of her policeman father years ago and makes cuts on her left arm for catharsis.  Only with the arrival of a particular Engineer monster does the story begin to evolve from a simple hack-and-slash videogame parody into something resembling a murder mystery.

- ATOMIC BOMB REFERENCE LOL -

There are a lot of counter-culture elements, sexual elements, dark humor (i.e., cutesy wrist-cutting devices that "make the blood sweeter"), and alternative lifestyle choices on display, which pale in comparison to the main event the movie puts forth.  When a person talks about themselves as an expert and says that "[Insert field of expertise here] is my middle name", they want you to believe that they were born with an intense knowledge of the field.  The same holds true for Tokyo Gore Police.  GORE is its middle name.

There were a lot of moments when I had to stop watching--not because I was gonna throw up, but...  Y'know what?  I'm lying.  Lying, and lying so hard.  I was gonna throw up so many times while watching, because I had just eaten dinner and there was so much gore for the sake of it.  Characters who could have just hit their opponents in the head with a bottle and stopped there, chose to jam the broken bottle into their opponent's face and use it to cookie-cut the flesh and bone from his skull.  What does that do? He dead!

The worst part of the movie for me was when I was watching it, I began to get used to the simulated carnage--the watery blood, the churned-up whatever they were using to simulate destroyed flesh, the ever-increasing attempts at body horror, etc.  Each special effect kept taking me out of the story.  At the end of it all, I was more concerned with the story than the poor tries to keep my attention with special effects.

Normally, I give Japanese films a pass when their story surpasses their special effects (STACY, Mechanical Violator HAKAIDER), but this movie is on its way to becoming the next Death Trance.  What's Death Trance, you ask?  Exactly--you probably don't know.  That's how bad it sucked.  I truly wish more time was spent developing the characterizations of Ruka and the bar owner--ESPECIALLY the bar owner.  Instead, we have a fine revenge story and a great fantasy world that is undercut by its own special effects.  For shame, Japan. For shame.

Movie Review - Hamlet 2 (2008)

So I just sat through a movie called Hamlet 2, whose main draw was to showcase its main character as a crazy man for sequelizing a work of William Shakespeare.  It put me through several emotions: sadness, satisfaction, anger, and happiness.  Not to mention the embarrassment for the city of Tucson, Arizona.

The film centers on the life of unpaid drama teacher Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), who has big dreams of acting, but kinda sucks at it.  He is a drama teacher at West Mesa High School in the aforementioned Tucson, which has only 2 students: Epiphany (Phoebe Strole), a racist young woman, and Rand (Skylar Astin), a closeted young man.  The two acting students participate in Dana's plays, which are always stage adaptations of popular movies.  Unfortunately, these adaptations are very unpopular, particularly with the local theater critic--an 8-year-old who writes in the paper, Noah Sapperstein (Shea Pape).  So Dana's life continues to flounder, both professionally and personally with his wife Brie (Catherine Keener) and their roommate Gary (a wasted David Arquette).

When the other high school electives are cut due to budget problems, the drama class grows to a healthy size and introduces us to our other characters Ivonne (Melonie Diaz), Octavio a.k.a "Heywood Jablowmey" (Joseph Julian Soria), Vitamin J (Arnie Pantoja), Chuy (Michael Esparza) and the silent yet accident prone Yolanda (Natalie Amenula).  This leads to interesting adventures with a kaftan, and ultimately to experimenting with original work for a play.  The principal (Marshall Bell) still has to cut funding, and drama is next on the block.  Dana is pushed to create a new play, this time with the added utility of saving the drama program.  His original material: a sequel to William Shakespeare's Hamlet.  This proves problematic, as everyone in the Shakespearean play dies at the end.  Luckily, Dana has decided to dive into the fan-fiction writer's toolbox and is able to bring back all the principals using a time machine, a light-handed homage to Grease, and a modernized Jesus Christ (who is written in Dana's script as having a swimmer's bod.)

Due to some disagreements, the principal gets his hands on the script and objects to the sex, violence and general blasphemy in its pages.  Instead of firing Dana outright, he locks the gym--where the play was originally to take place, then threatens him like some right-wing nut.  With the principal's help, the city of Tucson gets involved and serves him with a cease and desist order, as well as informing the local churches of the play's content.  With all these stumbling blocks and then some, Dana still manages to have some help on his side: the ACLU sends Cricket Feldstein (an on-target Amy Poehler) to fight on behalf of Dana's 1st Amendment rights.  The kids won't give up, and with their energy, neither will Dana.  What ends up on stage is the most controversial, explosive, and silly sequel of anything ever made.

This movie made me feel uncomfortable at times, with the pain of Dana's life being put out on front street for our amusement.  It's some fucked up stuff, but it's supposed to make us laugh.  I just couldn't.  Not to say that the rest of the movie isn't funny, though.  There are good comedy moments, and some interesting commentary on race relations--very minute, but worth a look.  Of particular note is the introduction of a character who is playing a fictional version of herself: Elizabeth Shue.  She is a minor character who comes to some prominence at the end, and hers is a character that was a nice addition.

CHOICE CUTS:

• The kaftan scene.  I had to rewind to make sure I saw what was shown.
• Every time Yolanda got hurt: it's funny because you would hope she says something, but no...
• The pronunciation of Dana's last name throughout the film.
• Watch Amy Poehler's acting when she meets Dana--one minute it's "we'll help you fight this injustice", and the next it's "your play is irrelevant".

PRICELESS QUOTES:

"Chuy, you're going to have a magical life.  Because no matter where you go, it'll always be better than Tucson."

-Dana, to one of his students

"I have so much anger. I feel like I've been raped. In the face!"

-Dana, after reading a bad review of his stage adaptation of "Erin Brockovich"

"It's a slippery slope... beer, liquor, dope, coke, meth, chicks with dicks, then jail!"

-Dana, who has let us all know more than we needed to about his battle with alcohol.

This movie could have been funnier without all that other shit that made Dana a wackjob, and I would have loved to see more of the other students' lives like they did with Octavio.  At the same time, I'd seriously like to know what crawled up the writer's ass about Tucson.

RATING: 4/10