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.

From the same team that created The Machine Girl, Tokyo Gore Police is quite likely the most aptly titled film ever made. The thing is positively saturated with blood, massive sprays of the stuff filling frame after frame of the film. With its over the top effects and massive levels of splatter this thing is destined to become a classic among fans of the genre. Like Machine Girl the effects are pleasingly squishy, based on real world latex prosthetics rather than CGI, and wildly inventive. Where the two films part ways, however, is in the basic approach to the material. While Machine Girl plays out largely tongue in cheek, Tokyo Gore Police takes its world very seriously. There is no nodding and winking here, instead director Yoshihiro Nishimura sets out to create a sort of alternate future where these events, bizarre as they may be, actually make some sort of sense. The end result is a sort of nightmare fugue, a swirling hallucination that just plunges farther and farther into depravity as it proceeds.

No doubt about it, Nishimura’s effects are what will draw most to the film but what holds it all together is Shiina’s performance. A strange, otherworldly sort of presence, Shiina is one of the more distinctive and compelling actors working in Japan today and doesn’t appear on screen nearly often enough. With a lesser performer at its heart Tokyo Gore Police would descend into camp but Shiina makes perfect sense here and gives the whole thing a strange sort of legitimacy. She works well as an action heroine - fight scenes are well choreographed by Versus‘ Tak Sakaguchi - but more important are the self destructive urges that run throughout her character, her own life mirroring the tone of the Japan of the film.

Laced with sly social commentary - the television ads selling ‘cute’ wrist slicing knives and anti-hari kiri PSA’s are brilliant - and a surprisingly good cast Tokyo Gore Police has goals far beyond being a simple splatter picture. Nishimura clearly has something to say and, low budget or no, his fusion of extreme violence of political satire can’t help but bring to mind Verhoeven’s Robocop and Starship Troopers. The extreme visuals alone make Tokyo Gore Police a must for splatter fans, the added depth makes it a classic of the type. Definitely recommended.

In a future version of Japan, a private company takes over policing functions throughout the country. A special police squad known as the Tokyo Gore Police is tasked with handling a breed of mutants who can turn wounds into weapons ("engineers"). Ruka (played by Eihi Shiina) is the star of the squad. She is tormented by the assassination of her father, a police officer who spoke out against the privatization of the police. Ruka eventually finds the assassin, and learns the secrets behind both her father’s death and the police force to which she has devoted her life.

This back story can easily be ignored as the attraction of Tokyo Gore Police lies in its over-the-top action, and insane visual effects. Nishimura was not working with a big budget but the choices in set design and effects are very resourceful. The film throws everything at the screen, including blood spraying from dismembered torsos in slow-motion, exotic weapons sprouting from injured body parts, and bondage-garbed quadriplegics walking on swords. The Robo-Cop influence is apparent through out, particularly in a series of tongue-and-cheek television ads for products that make it easier to commit suicide. Tak Sakaguchi, who is AFFD’s special guest for 2008, served as fight choreographer, and these sequences are well-done but are cut a little too fast. This is a quibble, though.

Those in the states who missed the AFFD screening will get another chance to catch the film at Fantastic Fest in September 2008. This might be the last time U.S. viewers will be able to see Tokyo Gore Police on the screen this year.