Tokyo Gore Police
2008; directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura

A fun mix of action, horror, and sci-fi thrown into a cinematic blender and doused very liberally with buckets of blood, Tokyo Gore Police is definitely not for those with weak stomachs. But for those seasoned exploitation fans looking for something a bit different to wet their whistle with, this picture will do the trick.

Tokyo Gore Police takes place in the near future, where the police force is now run by a corporation. Eihi Shiina plays Ruka, a special type of officer called a "hunter", who is tasked with trying to kill a new type of criminal known as "engineers", whose genetically-altered bodies allow them to use their own severed limbs to create deadly weapons. Ruka seems to be making headway in the fight against the engineers until a mysterious new one, who uses cold calculation along with terrifying power, arrives on the scene and puts Ruka firmly in his sights.

Like the recent The Machine Girl, Tokyo Gore Police is a knowing tribute to the exploitation films of the 1970's. The extremely over-the-top nature of the film makes this one that you're not likely going to take seriously, and frankly, when you're given images like a man that uses arterial spray from his severed legs to fly around a room, you're probably better off turning off that part of your movie-watching brain that likes to nit-pick.

With an inventive story that's not afraid to poke a bit of fun at itself, Tokyo Gore Police is one of the more successful of the new wave of Japanese splatter-fests. Sure, this movie isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea -- not everyone's going to get into a film where a woman's vagina literally becomes a man-eater or one of the villains uses a cannon that shoots out human hands. But for the gore-hounds out there, Tokyo Gore Police definitely delivers the goods, and is well worth checking out.

RATING: 7.5