6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 1.0 | |
Reviewer | 1.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
A teenaged girl seeks justice after her younger brother is killed by bullies.
Starring: Minase Yashiro, Asami, Kentarô Shimazu, Yûya Ishikawa, Hiroko YashikiHorror | 100% |
Foreign | 87% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p (upconverted)
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 0.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
Good schlock takes talent and a certain kind of glee at being naughty, much like that of a kid eating too much candy. When an admirer of schlock cinema like Robert Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino pays homage to their grindhouse gods, you can feel the admiration, but the result doesn't have the same impact, because there's an inescapable self-consciousness about the whole enterprise. They're too academic and "look at me!" about recreating the junk food they enjoyed when they were younger. You're always aware that they're indulging in nostalgia and that, tomorrow, they could just as easily decide to pay homage to Sergio Leone or John Ford. No such ironic distance is on display in Noboru Iguchi's The Machine Girl. Iguchi forges joyously onward with wilder and more extravagant set pieces and not the slightest concern for either realism or basic rules of physics, biology or even edible cuisine. The only challenge is finding more, different and increasingly elaborate ways to rip, shred, chop, tear, grind and mortify (in all senses of the word) the human body in a manner that one would otherwise expect in a video game. As both writer and director, Iguchi cheerfully dispenses with all but the barest essentials of plot mechanics or character motivation. His ruthless concision suggests the efficiency so admired by the acclaimed American screenwriter William Goldman, who once famously summed up a character's motivation in a few short phrases that would be equally apt if spoken by the heroine of Machine Girl:
Hello. My name is Ami Hyuga. You killed my brother. Prepare to die.
A month ago, I reviewed a Blu-ray title, Bobby G. Can't Swim, that, at the time, was the worst quality Blu-ray I'd ever seen. It now has a rival for that dubious distinction. Even though the AVC-encoded image on the disc has a technical specification of 1080p, no one would ever mistake it for a high-definition image. Detail is fuzzy to non-existent, outlines of shapes are shifting and undefined, black levels are atrocious, and colors are so washed out that you might be pardoned for thinking that something has gone wrong with your display. Aliasing, combing and motion artifacts are frequent. Copious amounts of video noise are present in every frame, so much so that it's a frequent distraction and often obscures the image. (Some viewers may mistakenly term this "graininess", but it's not. There is no grain structure to these sizzle patterns. They're just noise, which probably results from upconverting a 480i image to 1080p for Blu-ray.) I have read statements on the Blu-ray.com forum to the effect that this disc looks little better than DVD, but I disagree. This image look worse than a well-mastered DVD. Even with consumer-grade digital video, a better image could be produced at NTSC resolution.
The story with audio is somewhat happier. The DTS 5.1 lossless track makes good use of the surrounds for the appropriate purposes in an action film. Voices from characters speaking off-camera are placed in the surrounds, flying objects such as whirring blades ping appropriately around the room, and Ami's machine gun roars with the right degree of thunder. There is a score, which is credited to prolific horror composer Takashi Nakagawa, but it is purely functional and not likely to linger in the memory. Since I listened to the original Japanese language track, I can't comment on whether the dialogue was clearly rendered. The English subtitles are yellow and always legible.
As has previously been reported by some users, there is a mastering error that sometimes causes the menu cursor to disappear, especially after playing one or more special features. When that happens, no menu entry can be highlighted or selected, and the only solution is to stop the disc and reload it. (It may take several tries.)
Because Blu-ray.com has rules limiting what we can and can't show in screenshots, I have not posted images illustrating the full extent of Iguchi's style in The Machine Girl, but trust me when I say that it's extremely gory and not for a moment the least bit credible. If that kind of cartoonish violence appeals to you, then this is your kind of movie. Unfortunately, the Blu-ray is of such atrocious quality that it is most definitely not recommended.
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