Hmmm, Tokyo Gore Police was an interesting one for me. Initially this review was one of the first reviews I did on this site, and as with a few of them, I’ve decided to revisit the films. Some of these reviews benefit from a second viewing. This is definitely one of them.
I am not at all familiar with much of anything from the world of Asian horror so I found this one really hard to follow initially. (It probably didn’t help that I’d had a few drinks) but with the benefit of a re-watch, this film made a lot more sense. I’m still going to say the story was a little disjointed. The cinematic style is much different from what we’d expect in western cinema. The film contains much more vibrant and contrasting colours than what we’d be used to seeing in western cinema. Combined with this some truly disturbing visual creations. The violence/gore is waaayyyy exaggerated, and quite sexualized, which may turn some off or others on depending on what your bent is. There is some extreme stuff depicted in this film, I would not recommend it to young people or anyone new to the world of horror movies.
THE PLOT
Basically, it follows main protagonist Ruka. She is a cop in the not too distant, but much grimmer version of Japan. Ruka Is an elite cop following in the footsteps of her father and is looking to avenge his violent death. She hunts down biomechanically enhanced mutant criminals called ‘engineers’. This of course makes for some excellent gore opportunities! The colours, abstract shooting style, and excessive violence confused/distracted me a little. Possibly why I’m sure I missed a lot of the finer points of this film the first time round. Lots of WTF moments appear throughout the course of the film. Even whilst at times not entirely knowing what’s going on, the film is a great visual voyage of abstract but very artistic horror. but the initial confusion does lend itself to a second viewing.
THE PLOT
Maybe Tokyo Gore Police was just an excuse to cram as much bloodshed and violence into a film as possible. Maybe it was a vehicle to show off the visual creations of director Nishumura (as it was his first film). Is the plot really just secondary to this? Either way its good squeamish fun!
For more great horror movie be sure to check out https://www.gorenography.com on a regular basis!