Name: Mutant Girls Squad (2010)
IMDb: link to Mutant Girls Squad page
Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Comedy. Country of origin: Japan.
Cast: Yumi Sugimoto as Rin,Yuko Takayama as Rei, Naoto Takenaka as Defense Minister Koshimi, Suzuka Morita as Yoshie, Tak Sakaguchi as Kisagari.
Directed by: Noboru Iguchi. Written by: Jun Tsugita.
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| Rin, Yoshi, Rei |
The initial tableaux:
Rin is picked upon at school. Her possessions are vandalized, objects are thrown at her, and her teacher does not defend her. Of course, some of the upper class girls can buy and sell the teacher.
Rin's life changes when she is 16; she is beaten by upper class classmates, and diagnosed as a mutant at school. Her abilities assert themselves and she escapes. At home her parents have a birthday party planned, but the authorities follow her home, and her parents get killed. She flees after dispatching most of those sent to kill her.
She's confronted with small crowds and her skills shine on. After more than decimating a small town, she finds some mutant allies, and joins their camp.
Delineation of conflicts:
The mutant leadership puts Rin through rites of passage, which are rather unpleasant, then send her out to assassinate an anti-mutant military leader. The command to slaughter all at this engagement brings out Rin's compassionate side, which does not please her superior, Kisaragi, nor Rei her instructor. Rin and Yoshie go into rebellion. Rei comes to join them.
Resolution:
Many of the human purebreds want Rin dead. The mutant leadership is too extreme for Rin's taste. She would like to steer clear of both groups, but can this work for her?
One line summary: Hybrid Rin finds her own way in the human versus mutant war.
Statistics
Cinematography: 9/10 Sufficient light, clear focus, reasonable framing. Occasional jumpy camera work, and some fits of 90% of the screen being overexposed badly.
Sound: 8/10 Good enough. I can hear the actors, and the incidental music is not too irritating. The foley for combat seems only a little exaggerated.
Acting: 5/10 Has its ups and downs.
Screenplay: 7/10 The plot progresses in a fairly connected fashion: shock to revenge to realization to rebellion to resolution.
This film is far better than the hideous Tokyo Gore Police (2008) with its terribly poor production values. Besides the camera work, the sound, and the screenplay being so much better, there is even a bit of acting in Mutant Girls Squad. There were some borrowed pieces from the earlier film: breasts spewing acid, samurai style police garb, dismembered forearms used as intelligent projectiles.
SFX: 7/10 Lots of bright red blood splatter. Curious choices in CGI for dismembering bodies and slicing heads into layers. Bizarre tentacle rape, female mutant violating male soldier. Of course, the long sword up the reverse direction of the GI tract is just as shocking. The nose guns on the anti-mutant soldiers were somewhat amusing, but not convincing.
Final Rating: 6/10
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