The Machine Girl (DVD)

note: also appears in part on Flixster and The Student Room There has been a sort of Grindhouse revival in recent years (of the famed schlock film movement of the 60s and 70s primarily), with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's epic Grindhouse causing many subsequent films to imitiate, with an intentionally bad, "so bad it's good" tone, that's complete with a postmodern sensibility and sense of ironic wit. One of the more recent entries is The Machine Girl, a strange, hugely ultraviolent film that has some hilarity, but also only barely skates the difficult line between amusing irony and laziness. Minase Yashiro plays Ami, a Japanese ...  Read the complete review

Japan is a country deeply enriched with history, tradition and honour. It is the second biggest economy in the world and is associated with researching and developing cutting edge technology. Japanese people have the longest life expectancy and benefit from what is probably the best public transport infrastructure in the world. It is not uncommon for generations of the same family to reside together to share the cost of living in deep respect for the family unit. So it would follow that Japanese cinema would be of a mainstream substance with equal helpings of morality and humility. But not so. Every country has an appetite for films across genres and Japanese ...  Read the complete review