Welcome, one and all, to the final Reaction & Review of 2020. My god, guys, it's been a very interesting year for this series. I know I've already said that, but I still can't believe I have made it this far with this series. And I have found a movie that will, hopefully, end the year on a high note. It is a Japanese gore movie from 2010. That movie is "Mutant Girls Squad".
Now, I don't know a whole lot about this movie. About the only thing I can tell you that I do know about it is the people who worked on this movie. You see, this movie was co-written and co-directed by a man named Noboro Iguchi. And he is responsible for writing a couple of other films that I have seen before. One of those films was "The Machine Girl", which I thought was amazing. But he also wrote "Robogeisha", which I covered for this series, and that film kinda sucked. So I do know that the man can stumble from time to time.
But unlike those movies, where he was solely responsible for writing and directing them, this one has it where he has some assistance in both areas. Now, I can't tell you anything about the co-writer, because I couldn't find any information on him, but I can tell you about the other two people who co-directed this movie with him. The first one is a man by the name of Yoshihiro Nishimura, where he had a had in directing another movie that I saw from him, which was "Tokyo Gore Police". And, for the most part, I really enjoyed that movie, despite it being a little long. And the second person who had a hand in directing this movie is Tak Sakaguchi, who has starred in a few Japanese movies that I have seen him in. I'm talking about films such as "Deadball", "Tokyo Gore Police", and "Yo-Yo Cop Girl". He also starred in another movie that I haven't seen called "Death Trance", but I do have the movie, and I do plan on covering it sometime in the future.
So, with all of that, tonight's movie sounds like it's going to be promising. But I do know that this movie could be a massive letdown, because as I mentioned before, Iguchi wrote "Robogeisha", so I'm being a bit cautious here. But who knows? Maybe with other people helping him write and direct this movie, it could turn out amazing. But the only way I'm gonna find that out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Mutant Girls Squad".
3 minutes later
Well, guys, I have heard the expression of the kiss of death, but that one was kinda sick. Just seeing his head develop a giant swelling and causing him to bleed out is a little bit messed up. But still, it was a rather cool death and...now these guys have all been killed off. So far, guys, the movie's off to a rather interesting start. I kinda hope it stays that way.
7 minutes later
O...K...never thought I'd see someone's ear get cut off like that. Granted, it was a quick cut, but just looking at it in a pool of this doctor's blood is a little bit sick. And now I'm kinda thankful I never took up being a doctor.
3 minutes later
What the fuck am I looking at here...? Guys, I wish I could explain what I'm seeing here, but the best thing I can say is that Rin's father has no nipples and no penis. No, guys, I am not making that up. And I can't describe what I'm...oh, and the mother's head just exploded. And the father has been shot at by these guys from earlier with the nose guns. Yeah, I'm kinda at a loss for words right now by what just happened.
8 minutes later
So this idiot chef kept twirling his wife around him while Rin was busy slicing her up until she turned into a literal baguette. I don't know what sense that made on the chef's part, unless he was just using his wife as a human shield. If it's the latter, then I don't really feel sorry for him.
20 minutes later
O...K. You know, guys, out all the things I expected to see in this movie, Yoshie's face turning into an anteater, with her mouth inside one of the soldier's mouth was not one of them. It certainly is unique...but do we really need a close up of it? Oh...and, now this guy's eyeballs just popped out of it's skull...all right...that was kinda disgusting. But it's still certainly rather unique.
10 minutes later
Oh boy...well, guys, after seeing this General vomit blood into the bowl of Katsudon, I think may have just lost my appetite. I'm probably not going to get that image out of my mind. That was just...oh god, was that just nasty.
14 minutes later
You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this song that's playing during this little killing montage is kinda catchy. I'm beginning to dig this song, guys.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Mutant Girls Squad". Let me shut the movie off...OK. You know, guys, going into this movie, I was kinda setting my expectations high. Because, as I mentioned before, this is from the same people behind films such as "The Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police", two films which I really liked. But I was also cautious, because while I have a soft spot for these kinds of goofy, over-the-top, Japanese gore films, I did watch "Robogeisha". A movie that, while it sounded awesome, it wound up being a massive letdown for me. And the one thing I wondered about before watching this movie was how would Iguchi do, if he wasn't the only one involved in the writing and directing. Well, after this movie, I can safely say that "Mutant Girls Squad" stands head and shoulders above "Robogeisha", and I would say it's about as good as "Tokyo Gore Police". Now I gotta talk about why, though. So let's start with the writing.
You guys may have noticed that, as I was watching this movie, I didn't really comment much about the writing. I was mostly commenting on the kills and the shock humor. And that's mainly because the writing in this movie was that good. Granted, it's nothing too deep, but it certainly kept me engaged as I was watching the movie. The story does take itself seriously, but not too seriously to a point where the movie sucks all the fun out of what it was trying to be. A real good example would be "Robogeisha". I talked about it briefly when I covered "Samurai Princess", but I feel it needs to be addressed more properly. "Robogeisha" tried to mix in a bunch of different genre's such as comedy, drama, sci-fi, and action. But it failed at doing so, because the movie never properly focused on any one of these genre's. It had a lot of different story angles going on, and because of it, the movie lost focus and, ultimately, the writing suffered because of it. This movie is simple and straight to the point. It doesn't try to be something that it's not, and it works because of it. We have a story that will keep you engaged, and the writing is certainly smart and funny enough to where you can enjoy this movie, providing of course that you are into these kinds of B movies. I will talk about that later on.
Our story here is rather solid. Because the story is divided into 3 chapters. And each one is focused primarily on a different aspect of the story. The first chapter, also known as "The Awakening", focuses on our main character, Rin, who is shown to be bullied at school because she is different. And the reason why she is different is because she is a mutant known as the Hilko. Her parents know that she is a Hilko, because her father is also a Hilko, who ran away from his clan to marry a human woman, which was Rin's mother. After he tells her this on her 16th birthday, they are then killed by these anti-Hilko soldiers, which ultimately awakens Rin's superpowers and killing the soldiers that killed her parents. So basically, the first chapter is a prologue story of how Rin first discovers her mutant powers and just goes off on a massive killing spree on just about anyone who is hunting for her because of her being a descendant of the Hilko clan.
The second chapter, "The Revolution", is mostly about Rin coming into contact with this other group of Hilko that she's brought into. And from there, she's being trained into honing her powers properly. By the way, I should mention that all of the Hilko that we come across in this movie are all females. Well...sort of. Which leads me into one of my only gripes with the writing. It's not necessarily a negative, but I feel like it's worth bringing up. Why are all of the Hilko members female? Aside from Rin's father, we don't ever see any male Hilko members. The only other exception would be Kisaragi, but even that gets shot down because he/she, you can take your pick there, is a transvestite in this movie. I would've like to have seen at least one other male Hilko member, but that's really just a nitpick. But anyway, the second chapter is really good, because we get a ton of backstory on one of the other main characters of this movie, Rei. She gets a ton of development. We don't get a lot of character development on Yoshie, though, because she is the other main character of this movie. And you would think that because she gets a lot of screen time, the movie would give Yoshie some background on her character. But no, that doesn't end up happening. She's really only there to help move the story along by talking about Rei's backstory to Rin, or when she eventually fights with Rin to side with her for reasons I'm not going to spoil. We also have a ton of different Hilko clan members who don't get a ton of depth, but that is intentional. Which leads me into the third, and final, chapter in this movie, "Insurrection". Now, I'm not going to go too much into "Insurrection". But I will say that it starts out with some of the Hilko clan members sacrificing themselves in order to kill the humans for revenge against their race. And it's up to Rin and Yoshie to try and stop the war against the humans.
In a way, the story structure of this movie reminds me of how the Michael Bay "Transformers" movies are set up. Because the first movie was mostly story driven with not much action. The second movie was the reverse opposite, where there wasn't a whole lot of story, but the action was definitely there. And the third movie was a good mixture of both plot and action. And that's what the chapter structure of this movie goes by. Where, in the first two chapters, they have the reverse set-up of the first two "Transformers" movies. The first chapter being action heavy and not a whole lot of story, the second chapter being mostly plot and not much action, and the third chapter basically following the third "Transformers" movie's route of mixing in both plot and action. Now, some people won't like the idea of me comparing this movie's story structure with the Michael Bay "Transformers" movie layout, because I know that are those who don't like the live-action "Transformers" movies. But to me, I feel like making the comparison was fair, because the story structure of these chapters works out great. Because each chapter has something to offer. And as I said, you're going to be sucked into this movie because the story is that good. Again, it's not super deep, but it doesn't need to be that way for this kind of movie. So overall, the writing in this movie is just really good.
The acting is also really good, too. Now, I should mention that there is no English dub for this movie. So I do have to warn you there, on the off chance that you want to watch this movie. Because I know that there are those who prefer to watch a foreign product, be it for anime or whatever, with some kind of an English dub. However, I would still say this movie has fantastic acting. Nobody here, as far as I could tell, was trying to phone in their performances. So, I can say that the acting works really well here, and I can give all of the actors in this movie a ton of praise.
Special effects in this movie are mostly good. Now, it's very possible that this movie was filmed on kind of a low budget, so there are some effects here that are kinda cheap. But that's what you would have to expect when you're watching a B movie such as this. I will say that, compared to other over-the-top Japanese gore movies that I have seen, this movie handles blood effects really well. There are some instances of digital blood, but it's not going to be as noticeable, because there is quite a bit of practical blood. And the practical blood that's used here looks amazing. So much so, that it disguises the digital blood to where you won't notice the differences between practical and digital. As for everything else, makeup effects look amazing, the CG is mostly good, save for one area. And this happens during the first chapter "The Awakening". Where we see Rin just killing humans left and right with her razor sharp claws. And, for the most part, most of the kills look amazing, except for when she has to slice a couple of the humans faces horizontally. You can see the faces are slowly sliding apart from the cuts that they received, and the effects for it look rather shitty, even for a low budget movie. It really could've been rendered so much better, but honestly, that's really about it in terms of bad CG. Everything else looks great, so I can say that the special effects are some of the biggest highlights of this movie.
As for technicals, the camerawork is really good, the lighting is lit well, the sound-mix is pretty good. The music is nothing special, though there is one song that I can recall that plays during the beginning of the third chapter "Insurrection". And the song is sort of a mixture between Japanese and Mexican music, which I don't think I've ever heard of until this movie. And the song is pretty good, which isn't saying much, because it was the only song that I could remember from this movie. But overall, the music here is fairly decent, and does work with the tone and style of the movie.
So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Mutant Girls Squad"? Yes, provided you are into these kind of over-the-top Japanese gore movies. If you are a fan of B movies, then this is certainly worth a watch. However, if you are not into any of these kinds of films that have low budgets or you don't like tons of blood and guts in your movie, then I would say avoid this thing. But personally, I would still recommend it overall. If you can find a copy of this thing anywhere on DVD or Blu-ray, go ahead and pick it up. If you want to save time and money, then you can watch the copy of the movie I watched on YouTube. And I can say that the subtitles are mostly good, save for a couple of lines where the word "aren't" is spelled "arn't". But that's just a minor nitpick that won't ruin the movie for you, unless you're some weirdo who absolutely must have perfect subtitles. As for me, I really enjoyed this movie, and if I find a copy of this movie anywhere, I'm definitely going to pick up a copy of this thing, because it was that good.
And, with that, we come to the close on the final Reaction & Review of 2020. I know for some people that this year hasn't been too kind to them, but even with that, I'm still happy that I was able to start up this series. And I hope that next year, it's going to be better. And seeing as what I have planned for the new year, I'm really looking forward to what I'll be watching during my first themed marathon. And with that, guys, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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