AND now a word from the New York Asian Film Festival about one of the hits of its 2008 edition, “Tokyo Gore Police”: It is “quite possibly the goriest, craziest, most eye-blowing, chunk-spewing, head-exploding sci-fi movie of all time.”
The quote is understated but true.
Opening today for a week, “Tokyo Gore Police” takes place in a futuristic Tokyo, where the police have been privatized into a paramilitary force that uses extreme violence – even public rub-outs – to maintain order.
The force’s scourge is a race of “engineers,” criminally insane gangsters who can turn wounds into weapons (in one case, a penis gun).
But the mutants are no match for Ruka, a no-nonsense cop who carries a samurai sword and dresses more like a schoolgirl than a crime fighter.
The hunt for baddies is personal to Ruka because her father, also a cop, was assassinated.
Enough blood is unleashed to fill Tokyo Bay. Garishly filmed over-the-top mayhem is nonstop and includes S&M-attired quadriplegics walking on swords.
“Tokyo Gore Police” is directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura and headlined by Eihi Shiina, in her first film since she portrayed the psycho lover in Takashi Miike’s legendary “Audition” (1999).
Nishimura paid her the ultimate compliment when he said: “She is the only actress in the world who can look so beautiful just standing in the midst of a gushing spray of blood.”
TOKYO GORE POLICE***Bloody good.Running time: 100 minutes. Not rated (excessive gore, violence). At the Two Boots Pioneer, Avenue A and Third Street, East Village.