Noboru Iguchi's Robo-geisha is a pretty, visual delight of fun action

A Japanese businessman fawns over a geisha in a tatami room. Her body soon sheds itself in two, and a woman emerges who is equipped with mecha-armored forearms, a mask covering the lower half of her face and an armored geisha hair-doo. She still appears to be a geisha, though with a slightly different outfit. As she attacks the man (with metal blades emerging from her arms), the shell she has shed reforms and takes on a life of its own, as a geisha with a buzz-saw emerging from its mouth.

But, the battle soon becomes complicated when the businessman turns out to be a shell for two tengu-masked Japanese girls, one sitting on the shoulders of the other, who resume the fight with the Robo-geisha.

Robo-geisha (2009 Noboru Iguchi) is definitely the prettiest film I’ve seen this year and also the one in which I had the most fun. The first time I saw the trailer, I admit, I thought this looked stupid. But after seeing the 35mm print projected in a theater, I now see it as a work of art.

The rivalry which exists between a geisha and her sister who works with her is the center of the drama. The plot involves Kageno Steel, an evil corporation that kidnaps and brainwashes young women into servitude for corrupt purposes. And the CEO of the corporation, who happens to be the romantic interest of both the geisha and her sister, has a diabolical plan to take over the small town with his army of robo-geisha.

Tengu #1 and tengu #2 are collectively referred to as the tengun. Played by Cay Izumi and Asami, these girls wear black boots, fishnets, bikinis, and red, phallic-nosed, evil-looking masks (matching masks cover their breasts, and shoot out corrosive “milk from hell”). The tengun are the coolest part of the movie because they are not only badass mecha-equipped warriors with, among other things, ass-katana, they are also abrasively loud, aggressive, and sexy counterpoints to the sweet Robo-geisha who features as the film’s protagonist.

Cay Izumi (left) and Asami.

Robo-geisha's director, Noboru Iguchi.

The tengun in costume.

The color palette, with its pink hues and soft shades, and CGI blood make for a glossy, although absurd, visually delightful and highly entertaining work from Iguchi. This exploitative film’s final act left me aghast with pleasure. Consistently comical, Robo-geisha’s innocent playfulness has no peer when it comes to cool, imaginatively implausible fun. Unsurprisingly, special makeup effects artist Yoshihiro Nishimura teamed up with Iguchi again on this film, and the two have something wonderful going on here.

Trivial Observations: In the second act, when Robo-geisha meets her first client, the Japanese Yakuza boss is played by Yoshihiro Nishimura.

In attendance for the film, Noboru Iguchi informed the audience that in the print screened, “hip-katana” was incorrectly translated in the subtitles, and should actually read “ass-katana.”

-Dregs

Attended screening on 9/25/09 at Fantastic Fest, Robo-geisha premiered in Japan on October 3, 2009.

After the screening, the tengun fought in the theater.

And then things just turned into comptete chaos.

The House of the Devil deserves credit for developing tense atmoshpere while letting its story unfold

During the early 1980s, 70% of people believed in the existence of Satanic rituals being practiced in the United States.

Over 30% of them rationalized the occurence of unsolved violent crimes due to Satanic cults.

This is based on those events.

In a quiet neighborhood, overcast skies above and autumnal foliage convey the season. A young woman in a gray, insulated nylon jacket, bundled up with a white knit hat and scarf, receives instructions from a middle-aged woman about the particulars of the new room she will be renting. This surprises the young woman because the landlady has called her on short notice, citing the cause as the sudden disappearance of the tenant who had previously made plans to rent the room.

The House of the Devil (2009 Ti West) returns to, as Ti West referred to it, the “Satanic Panic” craze of the early 80s. The opening vignette lays down a small detail: the girl who was supposed to rent the room before Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) "seems like trouble,” and is unable to commit to the living arrangements. As the plot unfolds, Samantha responds to a post on the bulletin board of her college campus which ominously reads, simply, “babysitter needed.” After she shows up for the job, she hears that there was another girl interested in the opportunity, but she was “unreliable.”

It’s best not to spoil anymore of the plot.

Stylistically, West has committed to the fashions of the early 80s. Samantha and her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig), both with respective brunette and blonde feathered hair, and in Megan’s case, acid-washed jeans, revisit styles of this bygone era.

College life is similarly depicted with respect to the period, and early on, the pizza-parlor location, dorm life and sleeping in evoke the simple, carefree, daily lives of the film’s protagonists.

The highlight of this movie is the casting of the couple who have put out the babysitter ad. Particularly Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan, who seems to be perfectly cut out for this type of role, delivering a chilling performance), the owner of the large house which holds the suspense West carves his Polanski-inspired tension out of.

Unlike other recent horror films, The House of the Devil is not a hyper-kinetic freakout. The story builds at an assured (sometimes slow) pace, and Ti West succeeds at crafting an atmosphere-driven narrative with subtle details. The lunar eclipse which takes place on the night the film is set, for example, adds to the appeal of this modest, quality horror effort.

Trivial Observations: During the Q & A, Ti West mentioned Roman Polanski’s trilogy of apartment-living thrillers: Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and The Tenant (1976) as inspirations for this film.

Dee Wallace (landlady in opening scene) and Mary Woronov (Mrs. Ulman) also appear in the film. Wallace has a cameo and Woronov acts her role in a frightening capacity.

This film was shot on super 16.

-Dregs

Attended screening of The House of the Devil on 9/29/09 at Fantastic Fest. Magnolia Releasing will be giving the film a limited theatrical run (including Austin) starting tomorrow, October 30, 2009. Rated R, 95 minutes.

Cheesy plot only makes Ninja Assassin that much tougher, like its predecessors

A group of Yakuza thugs accompany a cocky, high ranking Yakuza who is getting an elaborate, colorful back piece by an elderly Japanese tattoo artist in a dark, spacious bar. The older man offers the Yakuza some of his wisdom, when the belligerent young man loses his temper and gets tough. This geezer knows his Ninja-lore, and no sooner than he begins to warn of the dangerous Ninja wrath to be expected, does the awesomeness begin, post-haste!

Ninja Assassin (2009 James McTeigue) dispatches the action before you can blink an eye, and in this sense, foreshadows the stealthy attack methods of the figure its high-concept title announces. No detail is spared from the iconography. Everything is here, from throwing stars to impossibly-agile, black-clothed wall-scalers. And of course, there are the fight scenes.

The effects in this movie are in line with what the Wachowskis (the film’s executive producers) and McTeigue have been honing ever since The Matrix (1999 Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski). Managing to update a genre that has been dormant since the 80s, it is fitting for this disposable narrative to look (and sound) fantastic. Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, they’re practically Ninjas; they all wear black and perform amazing feats of acrobatic martial arts. So, why not give McTeigue the chance to strip away the fat and serve up this technical, set-piece driven genre pic?The key to the action is that when it happens, it takes place on a grand scale, and spectacularly fills the frame with CG blood, blurred shadows (sometimes barely sensed), and weapons heard and seen flying everywhere.

Nearly the whole movie takes place in perpetual darkness. For the urban locales anyway, there is the exception of the scenes taking place in the remote, mountainous Ninja training school.

This wouldn’t be a Ninja movie without the pseudo Eastern-philosophizing either, and the laconic leads are contrasted by the disciplined diatribes of Lord Ozunu (Sho Kosugi). Incidentally, there is a plot: Ozunu is the leader of a clan of Ninjas who are kidnapped as children and undergo lifelong training to become skilled Ninja Assassins. Raizo (Rain; a Korean actor formerly known for being a huge pop star) rebels against the clan and after fleeing, simultaneously comes to the aid of Europol agent Mika Corretti (Naomi Harris), who is uncovering clues leading her to the culpability of the Ozunu clan as part of an international crime-ring. The tacked on romantic yarn between Raizo and Mika isn’t all that special; which is a good thing because it keeps this action pic all muscle.

To my understanding, Ninja movies of the 80s were typically low-budgeted and had flimsy plots. The characterizations and plot of Ninja Assassin veer from cheesy to awful, but that should not detract from its accomplished goal: a B-movie with A-caliber production values. The German location work adds gloss to this visceral and satisfying escapist romp.

Trivial Observations: Sho Kosugi (who plays Lord Ozunu) was the original Ninja star of the 80s appearing in titles like: Enter the Ninja (1981 Menahem Golan), Revenge of the Ninja (1983 Sam Firstenberg), on TV in The Master (1984), Ninja III: The Domination (1984 Sam Firstenberg) and Nine Deaths of the Ninja (1985 Emmett Alston), among others.

-Dregs

Attended screening at Fantastic Fest on 9/29/2009. Warner Bros. is releasing Ninja Assassin November 25, 2009. 99 minutes, rated R.

High school love doesn't get any sweeter than Nishimura's bloody valentine, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

An insert frames a frilly, heart-shaped box of candy in its center. Below the image, cursive pink text reads: “In Japan, it is traditional for girls to give boys a heart as a symbol of their love.”

Making an escape of some sort in medias res, Monami, Vampire Girl (Yukie Kawamura) cruises down a highway in a convertible with a boy she loves. Vampire Girl encounters a group of Frankenstein Girls in a desolate field, and battle ensues.

Special makeup effects artist Yoshihiro Nishimura has established his reputation as director with his second film, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009 co-directed with Naoyuki Tomomatsu), and his previous movie, Tokyo Gore Police (2008), with prosthetic latex creations which display every imaginable way to see people dismembered in the goriest possible ways, with a few hundred gallons of stage blood drenching the productions for a good hour, at least.

On top of all that, Nishimura also has a tendency to turn every conceivable body part into a weapon. Here, the Vampire Girl is introduced decapitating a gang of Frankenstein Girls with her arms (which mutate into bloody swords).

The fashion of the two main characters is very cool. It consists of Vampire Girl wearing a navy-colored school uniform with a hood. And, as the film progresses, she becomes entwined in a love triangle with the boy she loves and the (soon to become Frankenstein Girl) spoiled, bitchy, Lolita-Goth attired Keiko (Eri Otoguro).

The soundtrack is the final touch used to flesh out the vibe of this campy, 60s go-go-feeling, monster mash-up. An upbeat Japanese female-vocalist fronted garage band gets the party goin’. This works to the film’s advantage because everything about this movie feels campy; and it constantly plays out like an extended joke where things just keep pushing the limits of silly as far as possible.

There’s also the just plain wrong, offensive Afro Rika and her Ganguro Girl posse. These girl’s wear giant fake afros, black skin-paint, oversized fake lips (one with a plate embedded in her lower lip), and protest infringement upon the rights of black people. At one point chants of advocating “change now, like Obama says” begin.

Boredom is never an issue when watching this offensive, grossout/cute high school romance concoction.

Other characters include another group of high school girls who enter a wrist-cutting competition. Their box-knife wielding leader looks like Linda Hunt reincarnated as a Japanese schoolgirl (sorry, I think Linda Hunt is still alive actually). Far from gratuitous, these extra-curricular clubs will later serve the plot cleverly.

Kenji Furano, “the scientist of the century,” and Midori, “the over-sexed school nurse,” highlight the school’s colorful faculty. This movie is remarkably consistent in its efforts to play out like a comic version of Buffy, if remade as it would be in a world where moral sensibilities never existed.

It’s funny how straight the love story plays out against the mayhem of the high school drama. Can’t wait to check this out again, when it comes out on dvd!

Trivial Observations: Vampire Girl’s mom, as seen in a flashback sequence, is played by Eihi Shiina, who starred in Audition (1999 Takashi Miike) and Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police (2008).

-Dregs
Watched this at Fantastic Fest on 9/30/2009. Photo: Yoshihiro Nishimura in downtown Austin!

Yatterman is the perfect movie to recapture the feeling of a Saturday morning cartoon

Amidst highrise office buildings downtown in Tokyoko, mecha-warfare ensues on a very large scale. The mechas are 40 foot high combat vehicles which tend to resemble some sort of animal or person and are operated by one of two antagonistic factions: the heroic Yatterman duo and the three villains in The Doronbow Gang. Yatterwoof is a big red dog-looking mecha who acts like a dog, and can be repaired by eating a special bone-device. Yatterwoof is battling an evil, cook-looking mecha (in the third act, the Doronbows construct Bridesmaidiot, a bridesmaid-looking mecha). Each side also has smaller robots which have their own personalities and help in their own way.

Impeccable CG makes this live-action-cartoon-world a delectable feast for the eyes. The opening set-piece looks like an epic downtown battle from one of Raimi’s Spiderman films, yet feels far more fantastical, and resembles more of a Godzilla movie acted out by futuristic toys designed by ultra-cutesy Japanese imaginations.

After the Doronbow gang defeat the Yatterman group (ultimately blocking the attempt to administer the repair-bone to Yatterwoof), their leader, Lady Doronbow, accidentally hits the self-destruct button while they are all inside the mecha. A HUGE explosion then thwarts their victory (of course, they survive to resume battle the same time the following Saturday and each one after that). These events take us into the first act of the Saturday moring Japanese 70s cartoon-remake world of Yatterman (2009 Takashi Miike).

Miike previously directed Audition (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001); two of the darkest, most visceral and disturbing movies to come from Japan in the past 10 years, which also happen to be modern masterpieces of the transgressive urban narrative. Always one to try new things, Miike has no problem helming this family-friendly big-budget action pic.

This film is enjoyable as a kid’s movie done by someone who knows how to keep the narrative from wilting of boredom. Loud, catchy J-Pop adds to the fun too. There is nothing like Miike’s Yatterman that recaptures the pass-times of lost youth: playing with toys and watching Saturday morning cartoons. The innocence and creativity are spot on, and the mehca dog and pig characters of the Yatterman team are contrasted by the pig and rat henchmen of Lady Doronjo and her continuous skull-motifs.

The plot was easier to follow than expected. It’s simple: Skull Obey is a badguy who speaks in a deep voice and ends every sentence with “obey.” He is trying to alter the time-space gap and become all powerful by doing so. After he gains the ability to travel through time, the flow of time will become distorted and things will disappear (a hilarious example of this is shown when what looks like London Bridge disappears, but inexplicably, there was a Tyrannosaurus Rex on it which subsequently loses its footing). To accomplish this he sends the Doronbows on missions to collect all four pieces of a skull. The Yatterman duo try to stop this.

Trivial Observations: This movie is based on a Japanese animated TV series from 1977, and was also remade as an animated TV series in 2008.

Tokyoko is a slightly fictionalized version of Tokyo. Other fictionalized locations include Ogypt and the Southern Halps.

-Dregs

Fortunately I don't have to get too deep here and this surface analysis will suffice to explain my total enjoyment of this latest film from one of my favorite directors. Attended screening at Fantastic Fest on 9/26/2009. Yatterman runs 119 minutes.

Brace yourself for the visually inventive and psychedellic House

An animated title appears: House.

The “o” in House (the print I saw had the English version of the title) has sharp teeth and drips blood after chomping, and behind it a large tongue looms. What a great way to get into the fun attitude you’ll need to enjoy this movie.

Gorgeous is a Japanese highschooler who learns that she is about to be getting a stepmom. This causes her some unrest and she reacts to the news by travelling to the titular “house” of a distant aunt whom she has not seen for many years. Joining Gorgeous are six friends from school:

Mac- She has an insatiable appetite.
Fantasy- She has an active imagination.
Kung Fu- She is athletic.
Melody- She can play the piano.
Prof- She is smart and wears glasses.
Sweet- You guessed it.

Absurdist Japanese cinema begins with Hausu (1977 Nobuhiko Obayashi). As of the drafting of this blog entry, today is the 40th anniversary of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-1974). Fittingly, it seems sensible to cite that TV show as an influence on the evolution of absurdist cinema here. Because the Pythons are the ones who made absurd premises into hilarious comedies through sketches that were not merely surreal, but silly and over the top.

And while the Pythons were excellent writers who were literate and educated, House brings a worthy contribution to the “absurd” genre by seeming to go over the top for the sheer sake of having as much fun with the conventions of twentieth-century cinema as possible; without requiring its audience to think or reason, because you really only need to enjoy this movie with your eyes.

The year 1977 also brought the comically-Brechtian Annie Hall (Woody Allen) and the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker spoof Kentucky Fried Movie (John Landis) to theaters. Kentucky Fried Movie's distinction is the low-brow slant it endows its zaniness with. These comparisons serve to highlight the shared spirit that year which dared to take comedy to dizzying new heights of absurdity. Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker went on to pioneer the spoof-film. Whereas House began and ended a cinematic language that seems to have exiled itself into music videos, audio-visual performance acts like Devo or The Residents, and animation.

You won’t see a movie like House anywhere. It is so much fun because when events occur, they look and are funny, but serve no other purpose; scenes don't have to make sense in this movie. The director had a background making Japanese commercials, and he seems to have learned the tools of the trade masterfully. Pristine Panavision cinematography captures dreamily-artificial looking sets on soundstages, black & white silent movie segments with intertitles, animation, looping-techniques used in the editing, various scenes using Schüfftan process and travelling mattes, stage-blood, a watermelon, and a Persian cat named Blanche which are all utilized by Obayashi in this psychedelic extravaganza to create a new visual language.

From the movie: “Any old cat can open a door. But only a witch’s cat can close one.” Uhmm, okay. This movie has a wealth of cuteness that really makes it endearing. The theme-music is also very catchy and there's no shortage of it.

Trivial Observations: In some scenes there is a super-imposed mouth with red lipstick that was likely inspired by a similar image used in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975 Jim Sharman).

-Dregs

I saw this at Fantastic Fest (10/1/2009) and a clever programming gag was that the audience was able to see all of the Japanese “Mandom” cologne commercials Obayashi filmed with Charles Bronson (they’re also on youtube) for about half an hour before the film started. Running time is 87 minutes.

The bizarre true story of Army psychic spies, The Men Who Stare at Goats, is a humorous, wild ride

Text over a blank screen reads: “There is more truth to the following events than you think.”

Seated at a desk in an office, General Hopgood (Stephen Lang) stares directly into the camera for a few moments. He suddenly rises, exclaiming that he’s “going into the next room.” As he sprints a few feet across the office, he runs directly into a wall and falls back onto the floor.

In the following scene, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) apprehensively interviews Gus Lacey (Stephen Root) at his home, who begins reflecting on stories of his past as a psychic spy. This sets up a prologue which finds Wilton divorced (his wife leaves him for his boss who has a claw-like prosthetic arm) and entering into a new phase of his life as a journalist struggling to get into Kuwait.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009 Grant Heslov) next plays a credit sequence over various video excerpts depicting the Middle East, Saddam, Bush 41 etc . . .

Epitomizing “offbeat,” this comedy follows Wilton and Lyn Cassaday (George Clooney) on a roadtrip through the desert.

Wilton is a war correspondent who is looking for a scoop. Cassaday, a stranger he meets at a bar in Libya, happens to know all about Gus Lacey and the history of the Army's psychic spies. As Cassady helps Wilton get into Kuwait, he begins to tell of The First Earth Battalion that existed during the late 70s and ended around 1980. The First Earth Battalion was a division of the U.S. Army headed by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) which was formed to research psychic powers as a military resource.

This metaphysical comedy frequently jumps back and forth from past to present, and often uses vignettes and short montages to patch together a narrative that doesn’t stick around any one place (geographical or temporal) for long. Equal parts set in the late 70s and early 90s make this a rare blend of a period piece.

Comparing the quirky nature of the film’s humor to the Coens is doing it a disservice. Yes, Clooney plays a mustached-oddball. Yes, Jeff Bridges plays a long-haired, goateed-hippy. And yes, the military here is indeed depicted as comically inept, but this film does not linger in the shadow of the Coens or any other particular filmmaker's style.

The Men Who Stare at Goats succeeds as an adaptation of a factually-based novel. The humor is dry; and arrives as a welcome change of pace compared to other recent comedies. Kevin Spacey also gives a great comedic performance as one of the other psychic soldiers. It took some warming up to get into this, and one of the only problematic sequences involves LSD. Somehow having a bunch of guys tripping on acid is a plot-point which is more worn out than funny.

While not particularly impressive in any single area, the top-notch cast makes this an enjoyable tale of plausible subject matter. Well, up to a point anyway. There are the few scenes involving psychic powers!

-Dregs

I attended a screening of The Men Who Stare at Goats at Fantasitc Fest (on 09/25/09). The print was unfinished and didn’t have end credits; ran 88 minutes and rated R. Overture Films will be releasing this on November 6, 2009. One-sheet from impawards.com