Robo-Geisha Review

• 1st Sep 2010

Daft, ridiculous and kick-ass are not normally adjectives that could reliably be inserted into the same sentence when reviewing a movie but with Robo-Geisha, an exception to the rule can most certainly be granted. Basically, as long as the term ‘kick-ass’ is used somewhere in the sentence, you can add whatever word that springs to mind. Directed by Noboru Iguchi, the man responsible for cult titles like Machine Girl and Sukeban Boy, this film unashamedly sells itself as a B-movie from the very start.

RoboGeisha has a very loose plot, not that the film particularly needs any plot whatsoever. Indeed the title gives you all the clues you need to discover that the movie is basically about geishas that are well, cyborgs – a secret band of specially trained assassin geisha cyborgs to be more exact. RoboGeisha centres around the story of two sisters; one, an ambitious, outgoing, wannabe robogeisha, the other, a shy, reluctant Cinderella type, given the menial tasks within the clan and bullied by her more popular sister and the rest of her peers. You can probably imagine how the plot unfolds from here and what you have is the usual ‘sibling rivalry’ plot. In most films utilising this well trodden path however, the main protagonists don’t usually resort to major body modifications in the form of machine gun breasts or a katana producing posterior to settle their scores.

The closest that western cinema has come to this kind of film was with Robert Rodriguez’s immensely entertaining Planet Terror and fans of that will have no trouble identifying with RoboGeisha, even though the film’s production values seriously remind me of that of a TV movie. Still, as a prelude to a main event, RoboGeisha’s blend of laugh out loud and almost cringe worthy gags, mixed with random acts of violence and obscure set pieces (check out the acid breast milk lactating woman scene…) is a sure fire way to entertain fans of the genre. Just don’t expect this film to emotionally touch you, or inspire you to utter anything other than a char-grinned ‘wicked!’ during the film’s more interesting scenes.

Dan Beadle