Tokyo Shock/Media Blasters
Director: Noboru Iguchi
Writer: Noboru Iguchi
Stars: Minase Yashiro, Asami and Kentarô Shimazu
(From imdb.com)

What they say: The life of a young, Japanese schoolgirl is destroyed when her family is killed by a Ninja-Yakuza family. Her hand cut off, she replaces it with various machines-of-death, and seeks revenge

What I say: The Machine girl is one of the first films from the team that went on to make Tokyo Gore Police and Helldriver. You can definitely see the groundwork being laid for these later films here. The Machine Girl is rather amateurish; the camera whips all over the place, there is barely any hint of a storyline, and the effects are decent but repetitive. However, the film is strangely hypnotic and compelling. I constantly thought OMG that looks cheap, but I kept watching and frequently giggling at the crazed action.

This is by no means a traditional horror film. Hell, I don’t know what to call it. The severed limbs and aerial sprays of blood reach pure insanity pretty quickly. And the film constantly tops its self. This is no easy task but this crew was certainly up to the challenge.

From the above, you might assume I did not like The Machine Girl, but that is truly not the case. It had problems galore, but the sheer glee Noboru Iguchi exudes from this film is contagious. I mean it is almost porn-like with all the bodily carnage and blood spraying, but damn is it fun.

Picture quality was honestly awful, but this was massively low budget. It does look a LOT better than the previous DVD release with better color range and clarity. The sound was very good with nice use of all the speakers. The Blu-Ray defaults to English, but the Japanese track is there also.

The Machine Girl is jam packed with extras with a making of, a bunch of promotional video, and the spin-off short Machine Girl Lite, where most of the dead characters from the main film come back. The short is actually MORE disturbing than the main film, and I have to say that took some doing.

Film: 7/10
Blu-Ray: 8/10
Recommended to gore hounds!