Directed By: Noboru Iguchi
Starring: Minase Yashiro, Asami, Kentarô Shimazu
Tag line: "Schoolgirls, Drill bras, Ninjas, One big machine gun!"
Trivia: According to writer and director Noburo Iguchi, the idea for The Machine Girl went back to a simple idea he had about a one-armed girl in a bikini looking for revenge
A revenge flick drenched in blood, The Machine Girl is a wild and crazy gorefest that, despite its intense storyline (a schoolgirl avenging the death of her younger brother), is so outrageous that you can’t help but laugh while watching it.
Even though they’re orphans (their parents committed suicide when they were falsely accused of murder), Ami (Minase Yashiro) and her brother Yu (Ryôsuke Kawamura) are trying to live as normal a life as possible. That changes, however, when Yu and his friend are bullied by Sho Kimura (Nobuhiro Nishihara), the son of a local Yakuza boss. With the help of his gang, Sho terrorizes the two boys and eventually kills them. Suddenly all alone, Ami seeks revenge, only to be captured by Sho’s parents, Ryûji (Kentarô Shimazu) and Violet (Honoka Ishibashi), who slice off Ami’s left arm while torturing her. Ami does manage to escape, and makes her way to a garage where Miki (Asami) and Suguru (Yûya Ishikawa), the parents of Yu’s friend (who was also murdered), nurse her back to health. What’s more, they outfit Ami with a special appendage to replace her missing arm: a high-powered machine gun! Together, Ami and Miki decide to make one last stand against Sho and his family, but are they powerful enough to defeat an entire Yakuza clan?
The splatter effects for The Machine Girl were handled by Yoshihiro Nishimura, who, later that same year, would direct the equally bloody Tokyo Gore Police. And like that film, The Machine Girl has its moments of incredible brutality, almost all of which are as over-the-top as you can get. In the opening scene, Ami (who already has her machine gun) takes on some of the members of Sho’s gang. With often pinpoint accuracy, her machine gun lops off heads and obliterates faces, resulting in lots of blood spraying in every direction. It’s a messy beginning, to be sure, but merely serves as a precursor for the true carnage to come.
It may sound pretty gruesome, but The Machine Girl is perfectly aware of the insanity that plays out on-screen; each new death is more overblown and exaggerated than the last, as if Nishimura was trying to out-do himself with each successive scene. Those who shy away from overly-gory films will want to steer clear, but if severed limbs and spurting wounds are your cup of tea, then The Machine Girl should be the next movie you watch.