MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Machine Girl’

Posted on June 13, 2008
Filed Under MasterChugs Theater | |

Asian cinema may be the craziest in the world. Where else can you get movies involving humans being fed into sweet buns (possibly based on a true story, no less!), superheroes named “Rapeman,” giant monsters that continue to go after Tokyo despite our best efforts and cartoons so blue that they’ll make you blush? Not in South America, that’s for sure. As such, the shortened theme for June 2008 shall be “Asian movies are fricking bonkers.” We do so hope that you’ll enjoy. How can you not?

The first entry for this month is loving coming of age story. It’s about a girl. It’s about her left arm that’s become a gun. It’s about teppenyaki. It’s about family. It’s The Machine Girl. Read on for more.

Older sister Ami lives alone with her younger brother Yu after their parents killed themselves from shame over false murder accusations. Vowing never to lose any more loved ones because of violence, Ami and Yu try to settle any argument they encounter in a civil, peaceful way. This becomes very difficult to do when Yu and his friend Takeshi are targeted by a vicious gang of bullies, led by the son of a Yakuza clan leader. The gang’s indifferent brutality leads to Yu and Takeshi being killed, and when Ami tries to investigate what happened she gets viciously assaulted by the gang members’ parents.

Ami snaps, forgoes her peaceful ways and becomes a killing machine out for justice. Killing the Yakuza clan turns out to be quite difficult though, because they are members of the Hattori Hanzo ninja dynasty! When a fight with these ninjas (in stunning red Adidas track outfits, no less) has Ami losing an arm, she gets nursed back to health by Takeshi’s parents who own a garage. Before you can say “A-Team” they make a wicked new arm for Ami: an eight-barreled machine gun. Retrofitted for revenge, vengeance and bloodshed copious amounts of bloodshed are nigh!

Written and directed by Noboru Iguchi, The Machine Girl plays to the balcony with schlocky effects (the camera lens frequently suffers collateral splatter) and visible roots (a terrifically cheesy 1970s title sequence). As Ami tackles a bewildering array of adversaries—including a bunch of bereaved parents known as the Super Mourner Gang—faces are flayed and eyeballs impaled in an escalating rush of inventive deaths.

You’ll get everything you want out of a movie with this premise. It’s a 90-minute splatterfest with enough blood spraying to fill a swimming pool. The bad guys are so bad they’re not just senseless killers; they’re also necrophiliacs. It’s always fun to see how far the Japanese will go with the bizarre and the grotesque, and clearly in this movie there’s no limit line. Like I said, Asian cinema is fricking bonkers.

The Machine Girl is one of those movies that is successful only because it tries to be bad. Iguchi made a wise decision by not taking the movie seriously. The over-the-top visuals and cheesy lines like “What would Mom and Dad say, before they killed themselves over murder allegations?” make it clear this movie is a big joke aimed to amuse in the cheapest ways possible. If you’ve got the stomach to handle it, then watch this movie. Alcohol will help, but it’s honestly not a prerequisite to watch it. Let me emphasize that, though: you must have the stomach to watch this film, because there is a stupid silly amount of gore in it.

Still don’t believe me? I give two last words in order to sway you to my opinion: Drill Bra.

Written by Chris "Chugs" Taylor