(2001)
Dir - Teruo Ishii
Overall: MEH
Closing out his decades-long career, filmmaker Teruo Ishii's Blind Beast vs. Dwarf, (Mōjū tai Issunbōshi, Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf), is a shot-on-digital-video reworking of Yasuzo Masumura's 1969 movie Blind Beast, both being adaptations of Rampo Edogawa's novel Moju. As has been the case with a number of exploitation directors, (and even David Lynch on Inland Empire), they have switched to the SOV framework for later efforts, likely due to budgetary reasons here as well as the niche market that such a movie would fall into. A handful of other Japanese filmmakers appear on screen, the most prominent being Shinya Tsukamoto in the second-billed role of a police inspector who is trailing the exploits of the two title maniacs. Even though it regrettably looks cheap and suffers from such a lack of production values, Ishii's eye for wacked-out visuals is still on point. There are numerous severed limbs, a weird room full of body part statues and a pair of lips to crawl through, a bunch of people are unwittingly fed human flesh only to understandably puke it up, plus Hisayoshi Hirayama's Blind Beast makes out with a woman's head after cutting it off. The story is convoluted and boring though, with the weirdo bits spread out too leisurely to make a memorable impact.
THE HOST
(2006)
Dir - Bong Joon-ho
Overall: GOOD
The often ridiculous and just as often amusing The Host mostly does a bang-up job as an actually good giant monster movie. Our protagonists in the Park family are dysfunctionally humorous, though at times it is hard to tell just how much we are supposed to be laughing at them. For instance, is it absurd to grieve to THAT extent or were we only supposed to laugh when they all fell down and started flaying about all silly like? There are a number of dark surprises that are always appreciated, though it did feel like the movie overstayed its welcome just a tad with a few too many improbable moments stretching the running time to where it felt unnecessarily tiresome. The sub-par look of the monster gets an obvious pass as we are clearly not dealing with Hollywood level budgets here. That said, the movie garnished a considerable sum for its production based on the success of Joon-ho's previous Memories of Murder and this would in turn go on to gross record-breaking figures in South Korea. As it should.
(2008)
Dir - Noboru Iguchi
Overall: GOOD
Writer/director Noboru Iguchi's The Machine Girl, (Kataude Mashin Gāru), stays in its ultra-violent lane as far as cartoonish revenge movies go. Squaring off against a bratty ninja yakuza clan that killed her brother, Minase Yashiro's title character possesses inexplicable superhuman agility and ass-whooping skills even if she is a self-proclaimed "average" high school girl at the tale's infancy. Plausibility is hardly a concern though, with physics-defying set pieces flying at you from left and right, as well as a wacky tone that blends preposterous overacting with so many people wailing over brutally murdered family members set to melancholic music. The main selling point of course is to watch Yashiro flip around in a schoolgirl outfit with a machine gun arm, effortlessly slicing and dicing up her opponents as she becomes just as sadistically-driven as the bad guys. She is assisted/trained by Asami Miyajima, (eventually equipped with her own weaponized appendage in a chainsaw leg), and the two of them form a feminist anti-hero team that helps us root for all of the reckless violence, disregard for human life, and justified comeuppance, all of which is enhanced by splattery practical effects and some truly embarrassing CGI ones.
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