Robo Geisha

Starring: Aya Kiguchi, Hitome Hasebe, Takumi Saito

Synopsis

Geisha Kikue (Hasebe) is intensely jealous of her Cinderella-like sister Yoshie, who works as her attendant and is constantly treated cruelly, The situation isn’t improved when well-to-do businessman Hikaru Kageno abducts the girls and forces them to train as assassins for his right-wing organisation which plans to eradicate all weak-willed politicians. During their training, Yoshie and Kikue’s sibling rivalry pushes each of them to undergo more and more bizarre surgery to have new weapons implanted in their body making them a deadly force to be reckoned with. Out on a mission, Yoshie suddenly regains her humanity and turns on the organisation that trained her.

Robo-Geisha’s problems start right from the off, as we are treated to a great prologue with Robo-Geisha coming to the rescue of a politician about to be killed by a robot with a circular saw eminating from her gaping mouth. Then, she starts to recount her tale. The problem is, her tale allows no room for the prologue we’ve just seen to exist.

The film delivers everything that is in that crazy trailer and maintains a certain level of quirky kitsch, but it just feels like it’s bizarre for bizarre sake. It is also very predictable, which is a total crime for this sort of film. Even Machine Girl headed in unexpected directions, but other than teh outlandish weapons and death scenes, everything here is by the numbers.

The film's sense of humour - check out the politician's commentary on his own impending demise in the prologue for an example - seems very forced and just not funny - at least when sober.

While Kikue is a complete bitch, Yoshie isn’t much of a sympathetic character either. The way their animosity towards each other drives them to request more and more outlandish "implants" is interesting and very well handled, and the actual fight scenes work well.

Verdict:I may seem to be overly negative here, it's just that we've seen better examples of the genre with the likes of Dr Frankenstien Vs Vampire Girl, Tokyo Gore Police and Machine Girl. There is still a lot of fun to be had with Robo Geisha , and it's a good start for newbies to the genre.

6 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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