Cine-Sunday: ‘RoboGeisha’ Review

Stars: Yoshihiro Nishimura, Naoto Takenaka, Asami, Takumi Saito | Written and Directed by Noboru Iguchi

To help them achieve their goal of taking over the world, a megalomaniac Japanese businessman and his son recruit a vicious gang of Geisha assassins. These include two feisty sisters with an amazing range of surgically added weapons. But when one of these Robo-Geishas refuses to kill an innocent group of ex-employees, its butt-blades versus wig napalm and machine breasts against killer-cleaver socks as the assassins take on the Geisha’s in one of the most mind-bending movie battles of all time.

RoboGeisha is the latest in a long line of bizarre, OTT cult movies from Japan, a film whose trailer went down a storm when it debuted online back in the day. Available on DVD courtesy of Cine Asia, can it live up to the hype and the anticipation built by the rumoured craziness within? In this particular case I’m sorry to report sadly not…

Whilst RoboGeisha is brimming with over the top ideas and freaklish imagery it sadly doesn’t follow through in its execution – failing on the promise of the trailer thanks to some weak direction and poor special effects. For example: epic concepts such as the Geisha’s arse swords looked amazing in the trailer, but in the film it just doesn’t work. The actresses looked frankly ridiculous bent over wiggling their butts at each other whilst the swords flopped around ‘behind’ them.

It’s not like RoboGeisha is a fun film either, writer/director Noboru Iguchi crafts a tale of two warring sisters who constantly fight with each other, and neither of whom are that likeable anyway! It’s surprising that the film lacks the fun factor given Iguchi’s experience with the outlandishness: he also helmed the likes of Sukeban Boy, Machine Girl before this… All of which are, despite their faults, are more enjoyable than this. Which makes me think in this case there may have been something lost in translation.

I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve seen too many of these OTT Japanese flicks or whether it’s a fault of the film, but I felt that it was lacking… something… Unlike others of it’s ilk, where I usually would find myself going “Oh my God!” or “That did not just happen!” with RoboGeisha I found myself thinking “Is that it?” Not a good sign.

RoboGeisha is available now from Cine-Asia. Use this link: http://amzn.to/2jvqe05 to order and help Nerdly out in the process!