Movie Review: RoboGeisha Finally released in England on DVD, RoboGeisha takes a sci-fi / dark comedy look at martial art films. What would be the least likely person to be a dangerous killer in Japan? Answer, the lowly and submissive geisha.
The film is about a young woman name Yoshie that is quiet and often bullied by her attractive older sister Kikue. While her older sister works as a geisha, Yoshie finds herself cleaning the geisha house and ignored. Yoshie is often bullied by Kikue and we meet her character with low self-esteem. After a fight with Kikue, for ruining her performance for a handsome young ceo, Yoshie is spotted tearing a phonebook in half with her bare hands and is drafted into an evil secret assassin group by the ceo. His organization is a right wing extremist group that plans to use geisha assassins to “correct” what they see as the source of problems in Japan. (Mostly Yakuza members and corrupt politicians.) The company has big plans for Japan and the CEO and his father are ruthless about it. After intense training, Yoshie quickly becomes the most skilled out of the large team of assassins. She enjoys the recognition that she is finally receiving and gains confidence. Soon Kikue becomes the teams discipline enforcer by killing anyone that gets out of line. For their excellent work, the two women are given robotic additions to their bodies including hidden swords and machine guns. (I will not tell you where.) The action in the film is similar to Machine Girl. The people that created Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police also created this film, so if you have watched either film you know what to expect. The special effects are pretty interesting to see and some look as if they are in 3d! There is also a different type of camera shake that they use in the film that is not as bad as American made films. Overall, there is a certain level of silliness that shows up in the action scenes that pokes fun at the tradition of geishas in this film. They also poke fun at sexuality, which seems to appear in many action films as well as anime that come from Japan. It may be a running joke in Japan, but it definitely shows in this film. The director Noboru Iguchi does pull you into his strange alternate universe and makes you want to see more of it. Pros: Some of the effects are very cool and new, Very quirky and funny film. The fight scenes are exciting and contain a high level of silliness that offsets the splatterific gore. Cons: There are some slow spots that take away a bit from the pacing of the overall film but it creates a subplot. Some effects do not look like they were fully rendered. Japanese with English subtitles. Unavailable in the US unless you have a friend that has it. Rated PG13 3.5 stars out of 5
