Welcome again puny humans. Let’s start things up with yet another live action review.
A follow up to Noboru Iguchi’s The Machine Girl (the excellence of excellence), the film Robogeisha ushers in his second attempt at cheesy laced violence. (Mmm,cheese.) Let’s see what this Japanese flick has in store for us, and why you don’t mess with a cyborg geisha.
Robogeisha tells us the tale of two geisha sisters, Yoshie Kagusa(played by Aya Kiguchi) and Kikue Kagusa(Hitomi Hasebe). Younger Yoshie lives humbly assisting her older geisha sister, but they both run into problems when they are kidnapped by the Kageno Steel Manufacturing Company. This is a group dedicated to conquering Japan by using geisha super soldiers that assassinate unsuspecting targets through seduction. (An honored pastime in Asia.) Yoshie and her sister are modified to become the perfect killing machines but they eventually must fight their way to survival.
Gun bras are the latest fashion
What follows is a nonstop barrage of hilarious action sequences of the weirdest kind, including cyborg machine gun breasts and ninja stars shooting out from the butts of female assassins. There are some pretty good action scenes. Right off from the beginning of the movie we get a pretty good sword fight involving the two villainous goblin assassin women versus a group of bodyguards. Of course there are sword fights a plenty in this since there are so many lousy shots when using guns (otherwise known as the storm trooper method of gunmanship.) Things get even crazier as Yoshie and her sister descend into the form of cyborg geisha assassins. (Hey look! A bleeding building.)
The special effects are handled by Iguchi’s peer film maker Yoshihiro Nishimura, the director behind such esteemed films as Tokyo Gore Police and Vampire girl vs. Frankenstein Girl. Unlike in his previous film Machine Girl, the gore level is severely played down here. There’s plenty of blood spurting, but hardly the severed limbs and organs rainfall of Iguchi’s former work. Though no need to worry since this hardly hampers the action and humor throughout. (If you’re a gore hound…yeah,tough luck for you.)
Here's a little pity butt-stabbing.
On that note, the humor is put to good use. From the two sisters bickering and a bizarre song sung by senior citizens to a man yelling angrily after Yoshie smashes his head deep into his body, it is very obvious you are laughing along with this flick rather than at it since the film feels like it’s aware that this is an absurd premise.
Adding to the humor is the music. The rhythm sways according to the situation quite nicely. Examples of this are a funky beat in the films introduction, hard driving guitar during assassin training, and a parody of the Robocop theme when Yoshie’s legs transform into a tank. It’s the John Williams of b-movie soundtracks.
Feel the rhythm ....and a few tons of steel.
But one thing not to forget is that at the heart of all this madness is the basic premise of the complex relationship between sisters. Despite going for b-movie factor, the acting is fairly reasonable in portraying this sisterly relationship. Even though the two leads are models (director Iguchi’s favorite field from which to pry actors out of) they do a fairly good job of making us believe the characters are who they portray. Kikue gets worried for the safety of her sister Yoshie throughout the movie. The pair go back and forth between hate and love for each other. (How dare the academy awards look past this film!)
Obviously this movie is meant for those (and probably only those) who crave the hilarious violence Iguchi and his contemporaries have been recently gushing out like so much blood from characters in their movies. Iguchi in some ways recycles the themes of siblings, getting revenge for family, and an opening that contradicts the ending that were found in The Machine Girl, but he does a decent job of executing it in a way that doesn’t look like a rehash.(Although I hope he doesn’t continue doing the same thing in his future films in this genre.) The improved action is definitely a step above his previous film. So if a series of bizarre images, adrenaline pumping sequences, and comical moments are what you crave, then Robogeisha won’t disappoint you.