Review of Tokyo Gore Police (2008) by John M — 07 Sep 2013

One line summary: Ruka is out to avenge her father's death at the hands of crooked cops; so is her adversary, Key Man.

One star of five; three black holes (opposite of stars) for cinematography, special effects, and acting.

Cinematography: 2/10 Often dark with insufficient contrast and soft focus. Framing mistakes, jumpy camera work. Panning with blur. Blood on the lens, too many times. The blood here is Texas Longhorn orange; that is, not very red. Yellow and orange filters applied for no apparent reason.

Sound: 2/10 Weak. The incidental music is often amateurish in composition, poor in quality, and hollow sounding. At times it seems the actors are not miked properly. There was a significant number of lines spoken in Japanese that had no related English subtitles. This did not help following the plot.

Acting: 2/10 There are too many actors with total lack of affect: stone faced and silent without much body English. The protagonist is the prime example. Also, her fight movements are often out of synch by one to five seconds, as if reacting to off-camera cues.

Screenplay: 3/10 Gallons of blood sprayed, followed by zero landing on actors' clothes. This repeated a dozen times or so. Acquaintance with the laws of physics and logic is out the window. Given that, we're down to special effects and character motivation. The FX were really bad, so motivation would have to drive the plot. Motivation is fairly well lost as well. One segment goes to another with little or no explanation. The plot is more of an archipelago than a road from here to there.

Special Effects: 2/10 Cheesy blood spatter. Enough blood to float small boats. Badly done fake chopped off body parts. Blood pipes made obvious when a limb or neck or finger is sliced off.