Full Metal Yakuza (Full Metal Gokudô) 1997 Not Rated
This quaint little movie is one of the first by infamous Japanese director Takeshi Miike. A director known well in Japan for his work on Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) moviesbut well known worldwide for his bizarre and shocking "horror" films. This is one of his unusual combination films. It's a Yakuza story, with elements of horror, science fiction, Mafia pictures, and Robocop.
The story revolves around one of Japan's crappiest Yakuza underlings, who, of course, wishes he was more. The head of his, uh, "mafia gang" has taken a liking to him regardless of his grandiose incompetence. Eventually, both are killed, then rebuilt a la Robocop into: "Full Metal Yakuza!" That's right, they're rebuilt into one mostly robotic super-Yakuza warriorthat's primarily the mind and personality of the wimpy warrior. Complete with appetite for nuts-n-bolts dragging around his gigantic penis. Go ahead, reread that sentence. You read right. The new RoboYakuza eats hardware like nuts, bolts, screws, nails, what-have-you for energy. And, he has a huge wang. Well, anyway, he goes around fighting and killing people that were enemies to him and his Yakuza master before they were killed. So it's a revenge story, too. One with cheesy dialog, rampant violence, amusing characters, and laughably horrible special effects. Movies made for PBS don't often look this bad! But the film is decently fun to sit through, so long as you like cheesy Yakuza movies, constant violence, and Takeshi Miike. But keep in mind, this has exceedingly low production value, and is cheesier than Wisconsin. 5/10
www.ResidentHazard.com