‘Robotrix’ DVD Review
Stars: Amy Yip, Chikako Aoyama, David Wu, Billy Chow, Ken Goodman, Wing-hin Ho | Written by Jamie Luk, Siu Man Sing | Directed by Jamie Luk
After watching Robotrix it’s not shock to me that this film was released in 1991, if anything could be described as the remnants of the creativity of movies like Robocop and The Terminator. There is no hiding the fact that the movie is softcore porn and could lovingly hug the word sexploitation, because this is a perfect example of it though surprisingly an example that actually works.
Robotrix is somewhat crazy in nature, and some would say that is a description of the acting, or lack of it. The story or lack of it revolves around a mad scientist who transfers his mind into a robot, then kidnaps the son of a foreign king. The robot then proceeds to make his way through the city murdering and raping women as he goes. When a female detective is killed her body is used to create a Robotrix, the only thing that can defeat the evil scientist.
Filmed in Hong Kong the release on DVD comes with two tracks, the original Cantonese and a dubbed track. Although I rarely recommend watching the dubbed track this is worth it just to add to the ludicrousness of the film as a whole. It’s easy to imagine what kind of film this is, think over the top kung fu fighting, nudity just for the sake of it and a few really bad sex scenes straight out of something like The Red Shoe Diaries and you get the idea of what you get with Robotrix. A dodgy script and bad acting just add to how bad the film is, but in a “so bad it’s good” sense this is at least watchable. Sure, the level of misogyny on display may give some people something to complain about, but to be honest a softcore kung fu porn movie should be enough of a warning to them not to pick this one up.
For fans of cheesy kung fu films I’m sure they will find plenty of fun here, with the idea of robots fighting this gives the excuse to have arms flying off, decapitations and headless robots having to put themselves together. I’m sure when it was made, they thought it was going to be serious stuff but now around fourteen years after its release this is stupidity to an extreme level. Comparing it to the film that it obviously rips off, this is no Robocop though it probably wants to be. What Robotrix is though is an oddity, and if there is one thing that fans of cult films can’t resist it’s an oddity. It’s odd in a way that the very thing to kill the evil robot are women robots, when the film itself is so blatantly sexist. Women are objectified and men are made to be drooling idiots, and robots are sex mad. It makes no sense at all really, but I guess when you are wanting to create a softcore porn kung fu robot movie nothing is really going to make sense.
Part of me wants to say that Robotrix is not fun, that it should be forgotten about and left in the nineties, but the truth is I’m not going to say that. For fans of the strange little movies that are totally pointless yet are totally crazy then Robotrix just might be for them. Just don’t start watching it looking to be offended, because then it’s your own damn fault.
Robotrix is out now on DVD from Mediumrare Entertainment.
