A Machine Girl Retrospective

It's been about three years now since The Machine Girl was first released to the American public. It's honestly hard for me to imagine a time before this little piece of Japanese splatter comedy gold came into my life. A world without killer ninjas in tracksuits and prosthetic chainsaw legs is like a summer day without sunshine. For those of you who aren't in the know (though I'm pretty sure most of the people reading this do indeed know), The Machine Girl tells the simple tale of a girl who loses her brother and her left arm to a irredeemable group of yakuza. Our protagonist then attaches a machine gun to the stump and sets out for revenge. That's it.

One of the beauties of The Machine Girl is that doesn't even try to develop an intricate plot. The characters and their motivations are exaggerated as is the violence and the gore. This approach results in an epic tale of blood, guts, and hilarity. Is it shallow? Yes, but you'd be hard pressed to find a boring second in the movie. In the spirit of my previous post on Lucio Fulci's Zombie, I have decided to do a countdown of three reasons why The Machine Girl is awesome. You can thank me later.

1. Its commentary on Japanese cuisine
The Machine Girl trailer, which is a work of art in itself, promises viewers chainsaws, a drill bra, revenge and...sushi. The sushi in question comes into play when a chef screws up on the job and is forced by the sadistic yakuza mama to eat his own fingers along with the sushi he prepared earlier. The chef's terror and anguish are, as expected, exaggerated to comic effect. As good as the sushi stuff is though, the real memorable food moment in the movie occurs when the protagonist's arm is dipped in batter and fried like "tasty tempura"! Truly there is enough culinary goodness in The Machine Girl to make both Julie and Julia green with envy.

2. The aforementioned sadistic yakuza mama
This woman beats a maid to death with her bare hands, constantly berates her husband for showing any signs of compassion, and is the owner and wearer of the deadly "drill bra" shown in the trailer. She is a hilarious villain for the ages.

3. The gore
The copious sprays of blood and gore in The Machine Girl are both impressive and funny in their excess. The special effects in the film were created by a guy named Yoshihiro Nishimura, whose previous credits include Suicide Club and Meatball Machine. Nishimura would go on to direct Tokyo Gore Police, an ultra-gory sci-fi movie with a similar brand of humor as Machine Girl. In 2009, Nishimura co-directed Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, which was basically a high school comedy with supernatural elements and lots of blood splatter.