Review of Tokyo Gore Police (2008) by Greg F — 21 Feb 2009

[font=Palatino Linotype][size=3]Sometimes the title says it all. [i]Tokyo Gore Police[/i] is a Japanese grindhouse horror flick abounding with (guess what?) gore. The filmmakers are inventive and their gore scenes are anything but conventional.

They favor a really weird mix of sadism, boundless sci-fi and ridiculously bloody splatter flick to create settings that define the word nihilistic. The movie is not another gore porn, it's beyond that.

The inventiveness of gore sequences at times reaches the heights of [i]Dead Alive[/i] and [i]Evil Dead II [/i]being far less playful and at times even more silly (I know it's hard to believe). It's a slasher version of [i]Kung Fu Hustle[/i] that uses rather cynic interludes (anyone interested in buying a special knife to cut your wrists?) to capitalize on its own extreme character.

You won't see similar scenes in any other horror flick, that's for sure, but I had some really huge problems with [i]Tokyo Gore Police[/i] as well. The storytelling in it just falls flat. Its script is ridiculous and amateurish.

Every plot twist leads to another gory sequence in an artificial way. The main protagonist Ruka is so unlikable and bitchy that you're literally not able care for her. Some ideas of filmmakers are so wild, yet poorly conceived that the movie derails far too often.

For example, the deformed mutants used as sexual objects are plain disgusting. All in all, [i]Tokyo Gore Police[/i] is for adventurous viewers only, those who won't feel offended after seeing numerous atrocities the movie offers.

4/10 (C-).