THE GEISHA OF GORE: “Universal Monsters? No Way!”
by Colleen Wanglund

One of my favorite people working in the Japanese movie industry today is Yoshihiro Nishimura. Credited with establishing the “gore effect” and referred to by some as the Tom Savini of Japanese horror, he began his career as a Special Makeup Effects artist and Model Maker, but has quickly found his niche as a director, as well. As to strictly special effects work, some of his movies include MACHINE GIRL (2008),  SUICIDE CLUB (2001), MEATBALL MACHINE (2005) and SAMURAI PRINCESS (2009). He has recently started his own special effects company—Nishimura Motion Picture Model Makers Group—with a staff of about 10 people. His special effects are amazing, his blood effects are over the top, and his “monster” effects are not to be outdone. What’s most amazing is that Nishimura doesn’t use CGI….it’s all props, molds, prosthetics, and camera work. I absolutely love his work.

His directorial debut was TOKYO GORE POLICE (2008), which was based on a short film he’d done some years earlier called “Anatomia Extinction” (1995).  A horror-comedy, TOKYO GORE POLICE tells the story of Ruka, (played by the beautiful Eihi Shiina) who hunts genetically engineered monsters, or Engineers, for Japan’s private police force. Ruka herself becomes an Engineer and learns that the head of the police force had her father killed some years earlier for opposing privatization. The opening sequence is killer, with Ruka wielding two chainsaws, yet still managing to look hot in her leather skirt and boots, even with the massive amounts of blood and body parts flying around her.  If I did the whole cosplay (costume play) thing at horror and comic conventions like my daughter and so many others do, she would be my costume character of choice….easily. She’s one of my favorite movie characters—what’s not to like about a strong female protagonist?

Aside from the blood and gore in a Yoshihiro Nishimura film, he likes to throw in a bit of social commentary, taking aim at certain aspects of Japanese society. In Japan suicide has long been tolerated, so in TOKYO GORE POLICE, to mock this tolerance he places a “commercial” aimed at stopping hari-kari—ritual suicide—among middle-aged men and another for colored box-cutters aimed at high-school girls and the increase of suicide and cutting. We even see Ruka cutting herself in the opening scenes, with a ridiculous amount of blood.  Another movie that Nishimura did the effects for, SUICIDE CLUB (2001) opens with 150 high-school girls committing suicide by holding hands and jumping in front of an oncoming train (One of the best opening scenes of a horror movie, in my opinion). Again he’s mocking and bringing to light this cultural phenomenon–an average of 300 people a year kill themselves that way in Tokyo alone. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, reaching 12 years in a row with suicides topping 30,000 each year.

In VAMPIRE GIRL vs. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL (2009), Nishimura mocks the trend of cutting again, as well as another trend in Japanese society—the Ganguro fashion among young Japanese women. Based on a manga of the same name by Shungiku Uchida, VAMPIRE GIRL vs. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL is directed by both Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu [STACY (2001), ZOMBIE SELF-DEFENSE FORCE (2006)] who also wrote the screenplay. The movie opens with a fight between Monami (Yukie Kawamura), who is a vampire, and three Franken-monster girls—and it’s as bloody and gory as you’d expect from Nishimura, as he was also the Special Effects Director. It then goes back to Valentine’s Day and tells Monami’s back-story, as a transfer student starting at a new high school. She meets Mizushima (Takumi Saito) whom she really likes, but he has a girlfriend, Keiko (Eri Otoguro). As is the custom on Valentine’s Day, Monami gives the boy she likes, Mizushima, a gift—chocolates laced with her blood. When he eats the chocolates Mizushima becomes a half-vampire. This is accompanied by some very bizarre and manic shots of him seeing people as only their vascular systems. Monami tells him all about what she really is, while on the roof of the school. Her mother, played by Eihi Shiina [TOKYO GORE POLICE and AUDITION(1999)] a cameo appearance, was killed by a vampire hunter—St. Francis Xavier!– when Monami was a little girl, but she managed to protect her daughter from the slayer. The school janitor is Monami’s Igor—that’s actually his name—he keeps her secret and gets rid of the bodies. She also tells Mizushima that he must drink her blood to become a full vampire. After he does just that, Keiko comes onto the roof and confronts Monami because she is pissed off. Keiko ends up falling off the roof during the argument and is killed.

Keiko’s father, Furano-san, is the school’s science teacher and assistant principal. As it turns out, he is also a mad scientist; a self-proclaimed successor to Dr. Frankenstein, with the school nurse, Midori, his assistant. What I love about Keiko’s dad is that when he’s in his “mad scientist” mode, he’s in full-on kabuki costume—big white wig, full makeup, kimono, obi, the whole thing—the exact opposite of the weak man who does whatever Keiko tells him to do. Midori finds a bit of Monami’s blood in the sick room and brings it to Keiko’s father for study in his lab—which is conveniently located under the school. He even uses students as his guinea pigs. There’s a scene where we see Midori and Furano killing and then reassembling a student and it looks more like a music video with Midori as a go-go dancer! When he is told of Keiko’s death, Furano-san decides to use her body with the parts of some of her classmates to create Frankenstein Girl (Midori goes on a killing spree and is then brought down by the student body). You may recognize the Franken-monster girls in the opening fight as Keiko’s little clique. He coats screws with the vampire blood and then uses those screws to put the Franken-monsters together—I love the shots of the screws writhing around in the vampire blood….very worm-like.

Ultimately there is the final battle between Vampire Girl and Frankenstein Girl. Their first meeting is in the school gym where Keiko has Mizushima tied to a cross, which is weird. Keiko looks pretty good for a chick that has been brought back from the dead.  Igor shows up to help Monami and how he looks in “battle mode” is priceless. Furano-san and the Franken-monster Midori show up in the gym and Igor sends Mizushima to help Monami, but I have to say he proves to be almost completely useless. The two girls are now on top of Tokyo Tower. The battle scenes in both the gym and on the tower are epic—epically funny and epically gory. I must admit, the first time I watched this movie I didn’t think too much of it…and my original review will attest to that. However, since watching it a few times since then my opinion has changed. I love this movie. It’s pure Nishimura—funny, gory and over the top—exactly what I would expect from this special effects genius. There’s a cameo appearance by director Takashi Shimizu (The JU-ON Series and both versions of THE GRUDGE) as a Chinese kanji teacher and the kanji characters he’s teaching is for the word “curse”—Ju-on!  It’s a really funny scene, but you have to pay attention to what he’s saying in the background.

Among all that’s going on in the movie we also are introduced to the Wrist Cutters Club and the Ganguro Club. The Wrist Cutters are preparing for a competition; we even see them practicing their cutting and see the scars all over their forearms. At the competition a girl is disqualified because she cut her arm off…it’s pretty sick. Once again Nishimura and Tomomatsu are mocking this tolerated behavior among the young people of Japan, and it’s a bit of a nod to TOKYO GORE POLICE. The Ganguro girls are another thing entirely. There is a trend in Japan among the teenage and twenty-something girls where they tan their skin, bleach their hair, and wear white makeup around their eyes and white lipstick. The Japanese word ganguro literally means “black face” and in making fun of this trend, Nishimura and Tomomatsu give three of the four girls in this club actual black faces and hair and have them declare they are Black. It’s actually quite bizarre to see and I must admit was a little unsettling at first. I believe they were expressing a sentiment common in Japan that these girls are rebelling against everything they know, including their ethnicity.

This is another great horror-comedy movie from the twisted mind of Yoshihiro Nishimura. I’ve seen it multiple times and I love it.   Funimation, an anime/manga/movie distribution company here in the United States has recently announced that it has bought the distribution rights and will be releasing VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL on DVD and BluRay in October of this year. If you don’t want to wait that long you can watch it for free on http://asian-horror-movies.com/. While you’re at it, check out some of his other movies that I mentioned above…you’ll thank me for it.

© Copyright 2010 by Colleen Wanglund