"That was so stupid. And it was so long!" "You can tell it was made in two weeks, even though there are some good shots in there."
Ah, Portland niche film crowds - don't ever change. Truly, I do not understand some of the folks who pack these theaters if all they're going to do is bitch - loudly - in said theater. A Yoshihiro Nishimura film in a North American theater isn't exactly common. Button the lip or save it for the car, babe.
Of course, these aren't takes worth dwelling on. Tokyo Gore Police remains an effervescent triumph, an adrenaline-charged shock to the sensibilities that takes no prisoners and leaves no psychosexual itch unscratched. The imaginative imagery pushes action cinema to its logical conclusions; it is hard for me to imagine many directors locking step with the killer petgirl or croc pussy. Not to mention the pissing human chair, which earned a sole "aw, yeah!" from one guy three rows behind me. Just him, a forniphiliac about town.
I enjoyed it a great deal more this time through by virtue of its breakneck pace and limited means. It is impressive how little money this was made for, when taking each SFX shot and tokusatsu-esque fight into consideration. Further, the punk-rock anarchist style could only have come about from such a breakneck production schedule. Sacred cows and cultural tropes are sacrificed gleefully, stylishly, with a smile on the actors' faces. The whole thing is a ribald geek show of the Heisei vanities.
Gore Police, if taken seriously, is a razor-sharp satire about the intersection of corporate meddling and law enforcement. It takes cues from Robocop and Starship Troopers for a heightened, comical take on propaganda and commercialism in a way only Nishimura ultimately could. It's impossible to not see the political utility behind hara-kiri PSAs and kawaii wrist cutters for teen girls. This is not random shock comedy, but a classical exercise in the erotic grotesque. Absurd, disgusting, upsetting imagery that isn't "about anything" yet is - conveniently - drenched in cultural analogue.
Tokyo Gore Police makes ero-guro for everyone, which I would say is one of Nishmura's biggest strengths in general. Ero-guro is, to me, one of the most important artistic movements that came out of the 20th century. When and why it arose in Taisho Japan is a fascinating phenomena, as you can see an artistic and civilian collective ruminate on atrocities that its nation's military would become famous for. There is a tacit admission to the sadistic, class-based cruelty of post-Meiji Japan in that art, and because we are still living in the wake of Commodore Perry, this artistic approach still has merit.
How Gore Police makes this accessible is by leaning into elements that work well with cult film audiences. Screaming Mad George-adjacent body horror and splatter-punk geysers of blood laced with imagery that's upsetting and arousing in equal measures. Offensive, insightful, stupid, brilliant - that's the beauty of great erotic grotesque art, and it's all on full display here. Using this sort of imagery has political utility, in that stuffed shirts think your work is so puerile, so depraved, so devoid of worth, that they roundly ignore any counter-cultural elements. Those who know how to read between the lines, however, will not.
Grateful to the nebbish, sweet-natured guy who presents these things. His flubs about 'V Cinema' really got to me during Mermaid in a Manhole - I'm a bitch when it comes to factual inaccuracies - but you just can't knock somebody getting up on a stage, showing this movie in earnest to a packed house, and doing it all with a warm, genial smile. That's showmanship, baby.