Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight guys, I'm checking out a Japanese Sci-Fi action movie from 2009. That movie is "Robogeisha".
Now, for those who don't know, "Robogeisha" is made by a studio called Fever Productions, who known for making over the top Japanese movies with tons and tons of gore. In fact, on the front of the DVD cover, they list the two movies that I have seen from this studio. Those films being "The Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police". I really liked "The Machine Girl", and "Tokyo Gore Police, while I think that movie ran a little bit too long for my tastes, it was still an entertaining film.
The other thing I know about this movie is what I read on the back of the case. Allow me to quote what it says.
"The twisted geniuses behind "The Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police" present a tale of sibling rivalry, chainsaw faces, machine gun boobs, and butt blades."
Now I'm willing to buy the chainsaw faces and the machine gun boobs, but butt blades is something I am sort of curious about. And the only way I will know how they will work, or if this movie will be any good, is if I shut up, and I push play. And I'm going to do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back relax, and check out "Robogeisha".
18 minutes later
You know, guys. I totally understand that this movie is trying to be a comedy. But so far, it hasn't really worked. I'm certainly hoping for the movie to get better, well, at least the jokes, anyway. But right now, they kinda have been misfires.
18 minutes later
Wait. Where did that gun come from?! Seriously, where the hell did that thing come from? I'm rather curious about that.
2 minutes later
Well guys, I just got my first look of the machine gun boobs in action and...it was OK. Granted, it wasn't great, but it was at least something interesting.
2 minutes later
So in order to use these armpit blades, you have to strike a sexy pose in order for them to come out. OK. It's kinda stupid. And it probably would've been better if the special effects for them didn't look like shit, but I guess maybe I'm asking for too much.
2 minutes later
Agh...OK. That was rather nasty. I didn't expect a sword stab from a bleeding asshole. It certainly was rather nasty.
17 minutes later
Wow. OK. Never I thought I would see someone getting tempura jammed into their eyes. That was certainly creative and possibly one of the better special effects I've seen in this movie so far.
10 minutes later
Wait a second here. So, how did Yoshie get booted up again? We saw her being shut down earlier by these old people. I'm really kinda curious guys, it's beginning to bug me a little bit.
2 minutes later
All right, that is pretty fucking cool. She's able to turn her lower body into a tank with that guitar and I actually rather like that.
6 minutes later
And now, I'm seeing this demon tower crushing buildings that are squirting out blood...again, it's certainly different. Don't know why the buildings need to be busting out blood. It's certainly rather nasty.
The Review
All right. Well guys, that was "Robogeisha". Let me shut that off...OK. Where the hell do I even start? I guess I should start by saying this. This movie is definitely not as good as I thought it was going to be. I guess maybe it's because of the fact that the two movies I watched before this, "The Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police" were both that good. So I had my expectations set pretty high. But unfortunately, it didn't quite meet those standards.
I guess I should start off by talking about the writing. Our story here is actually OK. Because it involves our main character, Yoshie, and her older sister, Kikue, who is a geisha in training. She wants to be a geisha herself and you get to see development on how Yoshie and Kikue both want to be geisha's, which is where the rivalry kinda starts. Later on, they get invited to this corporation where they are turned into androids, and thus they get upgrades and such to try to 1-up themselves.
Now the plot, as I just stated, is OK, and it does kinda work. Because we do have some rather decent development between the two sisters. But I think the biggest problem is that the movie doesn't know what it wants to be. You might've noticed during the start of the reaction portion, I said that this movie was trying to aim for a comedy. And unfortunately, it fails at being that. There were maybe like, one, or two moments where I kinda got a chuckle, but nothing that was laugh out loud funny. But for the most part, the movie wants to mix in drama in certain parts, such as the scene with the elder people. Without going into spoilers as to their agenda in the movie, it seems like the movie wanted to focus more on them, but it doesn't really work. And because the movie wanted to mix two, well technically four with Sci-fi and action, different genres in here, it comes off as kind of a mess.
And being that this is from the same studio that made "The Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police", I'm going to briefly explain what those two movies were trying to be. "The Machine Girl" was a straight-up revenge film with goofy, over the top action scenes. And moments where the story took itself seriously, but not too seriously. "Tokyo Gore Police" was also in that same boat, while also treating itself as kind of a mystery film that kind of worked. And even though that film dragged on at times, the movie still knew what it wanted to be. This movie on the other hand, tries way too hard, at times, to take itself seriously, in a movie about a girl turning into an android geisha fighting against goblins with butt blades, machine gun boobs, and armpit blades. I'm sorry. But when I think of all of that, it's very difficult to turn that into a movie that tried to aim for drama as one of it's target genres.
On top of that, I had just thought about something that I overlooked in terms of comedy. And that is directly announcing what the characters are saying. What I mean by that is that you will have shots where if a character is being stabbed, they will say "I've been stabbed". If a character is bleeding, then a character will say "I'm bleeding". Because instead of letting the viewer know what is happening on screen, the actors have to tell you to you're face and say what they are experiencing. And if they were meant to be jokes, then they failed at that as well. I may not be an expert on comedy, but if there is one thing that is painfully obvious, you don't explain a joke to anyone. Because then, the joke instantly dies.
Now beyond all of that, I can say that the acting is pretty good. Now mind you, I am watching this with the subtitles, so I have to judge it based off of that. There are, like, several moments where there is a bit of hammy acting, but I can't say it's terrible and sorta works with a bit of the cheesiness of this movie. Now according to the back of the DVD case, there is an option to watch this with an English dub. I'm not totally sure if I will watch this thing a second time with the dub, but is an option, on the off chance you want to check this movie out for yourselves.
Now let's move on to, at least for me, the biggest issue I have with this movie, and that is the special effects...oh boy. I should mention that when you are watching B movies like these is that the one thing you should always expect is cheesy over the top kills with tons and tons of gore, and I know that's not going to be everyone's thing. However, the special effects in this movie are a ridiculous mixed bag. As I watching the movie, I decided to look up the movies budget. I had a feeling that this movie had a low budget, but when I did that, I noticed that the movie was made at around $250,000. Which is mind boggling to me, because I then have to ask, why do most of the special effects in this movie look so cheap? I could be lazy and say the special effects were done better in "The Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police", but I'm not gonna do that. And thinking about it, I may know why the special effects are so poor. And that's because most of it was done in CG. And that wouldn't really be a bad thing, if the special effects were halfway decent, but they aren't.
For example, the biggest one I can think of at the top of my mind at the armpit blades. Because Yoshie has to do her stupid dance in order for them to pop out, the blades pop out and go through two guys mouths. Now the blades themselves look fine, until the CG blood shows up and it looks terrible. It basically looks like it was poorly photoshopped. And as for the blood itself, a majority of it is CG. Which means that there isn't a ton of practical blood used in this movie. And that's kind of a shame, because the practical blood looked pretty good. And while I'm on that subject, the practical effects are done pretty well in terms of makeup effects, such as whenever someone is dressed up as a geisha, or when one of the goblins uses the devil's breast milk on someone, and no, I'm not kidding about that. The after-effects are rather good. It's just, I wish would've put more time and effort into the CG because, as I said, most of it looks cheap and lazy, with like one or two exceptions, such as when Yoshie's lower body turns into a tank as she's riding it, and that looked OK. But everything else just...eh, it's rather half assed.
Otherwise, camerawork is pretty good. The lighting is well lit. Sound-mix is competent. The music...isn't really that great, in fact I would say the both the score and soundtrack are rather weak in this area.
So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Robogeisha?" Um...I'm leaning towards no, however, I could maybe recommend it as a rental. If you can find this movie on, say, Netflix, Hulu, or if you find this movie cheap on DVD or Blu-ray. Because, I'm going to tell you this now. I found this at my local Mini Mall for about $13. And this movie is definitely not worth the $13 I spent to buy this thing. And unfortunately, this movie is, by far, the weakest film Fever Productions has ever put out. Which is rather shameful, because, I really wanted to like this movie. I really did. But unfortunately, it just didn't happen.
Now as for me, I think I kinda want to go and re-watch my copy of "Tokyo Gore Police", because at least that movie was halfway decent. At least, halfway decent when compared to this pile of mess.
Anyway guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen. Take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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