Noboru Iguchi, “RoboGeisha” (2009)
For a film about two sisters and their love-hate relationship, “RoboGeisha” offers more than just the usual floods of tears, emotional declamations of undying loyalty and a climactic reconciliation in which the siblings united save the world from being wiped out by a nuclear bomb. Anyone keen on an army of bikini-clad cyborg bimbo ninja soldiers who shoot burning-hot milk from their nipples and shurikens from their bums at enemies? Who’s dead set on watching a geisha transform herself into a racing hot-rod or a flying mini-jet chasing a giant pagoda castle robot intent on chucking a nuclear bomb down Mount Fuji? “RoboGeisha” has all this, and much more.
Well yeah, the story is very thin and hardly makes much sense so let’s get it out of the way quickly. Maiko (trainee geisha) Kikuyakko and her younger sister Yoshie (Aya Kiguchi), also a maiko, meet a mysterious client Hikaru who is the son of the founder and head of Kagero Steel, a giant zaibatsu-like corporation. Needing new blood for his army of geisha girl soldiers, Hikaru spots fighting potential in Yoshie, an otherwise shy and unassertive girl constantly bullied by Kikuyakko. Through extreme training and body modifications, Kikuyakko and Yoshie become fearsome fighting machines. They are sent out on various missions to kill enemies of Kagero Steel … until Yoshie is given the job of obliterating a group of elderly people. She learns that the pensioners have all lost their daughters and grand-daughters to Kagero Steel and that Kagero Steel is planning to destroy Tokyo – and maybe all of Japan – by dumping a nuclear bomb into Fujiyama and causing that dormant volcano to become active again.
The geisha cyborg gimmick wears out very quickly after the first scene in a geisha house and so Iguchi and his screenwriters throw in every outrageous joke and cliché they can think of. The female body as a metaphor for what men fear about women’s body fluids is, er, milked for all it’s worth. Just when you think the film-makers have exhausted every wacky device and avenue to hold viewers’ attention, they deliver a tour de force of a giant walking castle that wades into Tokyo and karate-chops down office buildings which (inexplicably) gush human blood while frightened crowds mill about and run for their lives. Where is Godzilla when you need him?
The acting is as embarrassing as having your face filled with those bum shurikens though Kiguchi manages to acquit herself as the cyborg geisha who still loves her sister in spite of everything the older girl has done to her and who transforms herself into a hot-rod racer and flying machine without falling over laughing. Good use of spinning cinematography compensates for the failed acting but the film also relies too much on cheap CGI which gives it more of a cartoony look than it should have for a campy B-grade film that at its core has a message about the importance of love and connection.
What makes the film work in spite of all the cheese is its hidden plea for families and siblings to stick together thick and thin, and for adults to care more for their children. If children are deprived of parental love and left to their own devices, they may end up joining a bad crowd or become hateful and jealous people. Self-sacrifice for one’s family and nation and working and striving together as a team – both very Japanese values – are also key themes. The film has a wide-eyed innocent naivety that makes the comedy work. Even crude and apparently sexist jokes come across more as absurd rather than knowing and derogatory.
On a certain level, the film celebrates and sends up Japanese institutions and values, and mocks itself as well, and this aspect is likely to ensure it continued cult status as a sort of quirky social commentary.