Tokyo Gore Police had been one of my favourites of the Japanese school of 2000s exploitation high on splatter and sexual perversity, but it turns out i’ve never actually reviewed it, just mentioned it as as the “gold standard” for other films of this ilk.
But as i learned of Yoshihiro Noshimura’s passing earlier this May (his last film was Geisha War, released post-humously this September), by actress Eihi Shina (better known for her role in Miike’s Audition and as the lead in Tokyo Gore Police) reflecting on her experience working with him over the years… it’s time to pay my respects to the “Japanese Tom Savini”, as he had been called, and i’m more than happy to oblige.
Especially since Tokyo Gore Police is the first film he ever directed, after having been a special effect and make up supervisor for many films, including Sion Sono’s Suicide Club, the 2003 comedy horror romance A Larvae To Love by fellow guro gonzo filmmaker Noburo Iguchi, and even worked on the special effects for Meatball Machine, directed by Yudai Yamaguchi and Jun’Ichi Miyamoto.
After working with Noguchi again on the fx for The Machine Girl, Noshimura was asked if he wanted to do anothe movie, so he chose to remake his 1995 “short” film, Anatomia Extinction, into what would become Tokyo Gore Police.
Seems kinda silly to even discuss what this movie is about, given its title, but you would miss how and why “ze police” is goring all over the place.
Turns out, in an even more dystopic Japan, a mad scientist known as the Key Man (unrelated to Jack Stauber, i assume) has created a virus that transforms people into mutant cannibals that sprout cybernetic weapons when they’re injured, dubbed Engineers, and to combat these the Tokyo Police Force creates a special unit, the Engineer Hunters, a quasi military force that uses violence, sadistic behaviour and liberally executes criminals in the streets to kill these monsters and “uphold the law”.
One of these Engineer Hunters is Ruka, a very skilled loner that joined for the express purpose of getting revenge for her father, a kind old fashioned officer, was killed in broad daylight by a mysterious assassin.
Again, if you’re vaguely familiar with Japanese turn of the centhury cyberpunk, this isnt anything too new, but it is one of the first of these hyper splatter gorefest horror films, the gonzo japanese bizarre of extreme violence, so much blood to make Sam Peckinpah blush, and plenty of sexual perversions, taking often satirical stabs or making absurd farces out of various genre cliches, especially ones derived from anime and-or tokusatsu.
After all, in 2008 Noburo Iguchi also released The Machine Girl, before his ero guro delirium became well known internationally with Robogeisha.
Yet, Tokyo Gore Police you can tell is not directed by Iguchi, it lacks the propension for sexual perversion and its far less juvenile in humour, it even has the focus on wrist cutting that would return in Yoshimura’s Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl, and overall there is a more conscious, actual effort to have a proper plot with a more serious tone…. as serious as it can be when its such obvious, outrageous satire of police corruption, with the (and even a Battle Royale-esque announcer) the special squad made up of sadistic fascists donning a kabuto helmet on top of the Kerberos-Wermacht style armours, the division having a pet pluri-amputee gimp and their own Igor-esque hunchback mortician that laughs while cutting up mutant corpses.
Heck, it even has Starship Trooper-esque style fake PSA and commercials, courtesy of Noburo Iguchi and Yūdai Yamaguchi, which you can tell aren’t directed by Yoshimura, but frankly help balance out the more “serious” tone of the main film, and they’re pretty funny (there’s even a Wii parody commercial).
it’s basically liveaction anime, where logic applies its own way, for example, Ruka, to reach the top of Tokyo Tower, rocket jumps… Quake style, aiming the bazooka at the ground to proper herself upward, it’s that kind of world.
There’s so much i didn’t even hint at, because i don’t wanna spoil the experience any further.
While the opening is simply perfect, thankfully it ain’t the case where the movie peaks immediatly and then can’t sustain its crazyness and excesses, the rest is pretty good and the ending manages to still be incredible, even without the Iguchi inserts there’s plenty of absolute weird shit that still hits hard, and – as i’ve said before- unlike most of these, it works even when the novelty has wore off, because there is an actual proper plot and actual characters alongside the gallons of bloods and the plethora of excellent practical effects (there is CG but it’s very minimal).
So oddly it being 2 hours long is not daunting as it might seem, since there are character arcs to make complete, backstories to flesh out, the plot is a typical revenge story, but it works enough and it is actually a proper plot, and overall you’ll want to see what else the movie has in store, there’s always something that you won’t quite predict, at least in the way you might expected.
Turns out Tokyo Gore Police is still an absolute blast of demented excess, and i love it exactly as i did years ago, i can’t but reconfirm this being still one of the best of these, even if Nishimura made other films of this type, the aforementioned Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl, or another favourite of mine, Mutant Girls Squad…. Tokyo Gore Police still stands out to me as one of the best, if not THE best of the bunch, i usually enjoy Yoshimura’s stuff more than Iguchi’s.
The ending teases a sequel, or some continuation, outright saing “More gore to come!”, but a sequel never came, and after Yoshimura’s passing, it’s arguably more respectful not to bother, if there were any sort of plans for it to begin with.
Yes, technically Noburo Iguchi could continue the story but it’s unlikely because Iguchi doesn’t seem like the person that would do such a thing, even as a tribute to a former collegue of his, since it would be an Iguchi film, not Yoshimura’s vision.
Maybe it’s for the better and i’m glad we got this film in the first place, so thanks, Mr. Yoshimura, may you reast in peace.
I guess sometime in the future we’ll take an extended look at Anatomia Extinction, and the 3 spin-off shorts (plus 2 fake commercials) that tied into Tokyo Gore Police, but for now i’ll just bow in respect.
