Crash (1996)

David Cronenberg’s 1996 movie Crash, shot in Toronto, is based on J.G. Ballard’s 1973 book.

The movie starts with a car crash. James Ballard (James Spader) is involved in a crash in which a man is killed. The man’s wife Dr Helen Remington (Holly Hunter) survives.

Ballard and Helen are soon involved in a sexual relationship, the sexual electricity coming from their shared car crash experience.

They both notice something odd. After their crash there seems to be a lot more traffic on the roads.

Ballard meets Vaughan (Elias Koteas), a man obsessed by car crashes, and gets drawn into a strange circle of car crash enthusiasts. It’s not a cult but it is an obsession and it’s a sexual fetish. If driving a car is a sexual act then a car crash is the ultimate orgasm.

Ballard’s wife Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger) is drawn in as well.

Vaughan recreates famous car crashes such as the James Dean crash. Despite the use of stunt drivers it’s very very dangerous, which is why it’s exciting.

Gabrielle (Rosanna Arquette), one of Vaughan’s little circle, suffered such severe injuries in a car crash and has so many metal prosthetics that she seems almost cyborg-like. Ballard enjoys having sex with her because it’s almost like having sex with a machine-woman.

Ballard is being more deeply drawn in and Vaughan is becoming increasingly obsessed. It’s as if his 1963 Lincoln Continental convertible is now an extension of his body, or perhaps his body is now part of the machine.

These people are all discovering that they cannot get real sexual pleasure unless the sex act is linked with cars and car crashes.

All these people are strange to start with. There’s something oddly disconnected about them. It’s not like being involved in a car crash suddenly changes their lives. The car crashes just bring things into focus for them. Suddenly their sense of disconnectedness makes sense to them.

There are obvious thematic links to Cronenberg’s earlier Videodrome. That whole Long Live the New Flesh thing. In Crash as in Videodrome we see the birth of almost a new species with people radically changed by their interface with technology and machines. Their emotions are different. Their sexuality is entirely different and cannot be understood in terms of any of the traditional classifications. The body and the machine are one. When characters have sex in a car (which they frequently do in this movie) it’s not a man and a woman having sex. It’s a threesome with the car being the other partner. The car is not just a convenient place in which to have sex. The car is the essential element.

It would be a mistake to see this a psycho-sexual thriller or a psycho-sexual drama. It’s not really a psychological movie at all. It’s not exploring the psychology of the characters nor is it concerned with society in a straightforward way. It’s more of a philosophical movie. Cronenberg thought of it as an existentialist movie.

This is a science fiction movie and it could even qualify as cyberpunk. In fact I do consider it to be cyberpunk. Cyberpunk concerns itself with the interface between humans and machines and the effect that has on our humanness and Crash explores similar territory. Cyberpunk usually focuses on AIs and robots but when Ballard wrote his book in 1973 the internet, AIs and personal computers were not even thought of. Ballard focuses on cars instead.

Cronenberg maintains this focus and it’s interesting that there is not a single computer in the movie. Which I’m sure is deliberate. Ballard’s idea of cars and freeways modifying our bodies and our behaviour and our sexuality still worked in 1996 and it still works today.

The fact that it’s cars rather than robots gives the human-machine interface a more visceral edge, cars being more brutally machine-like and more obviously dangerous while at the same time being part of everyday life that we take for granted.

This is the sort of thing that suits James Spader perfectly so it’s no surprise that he’s excellent. Elias Koteas is effectively disturbing as Vaughan. Rosanna Arquette is terrific. I especially loved Deborah Kara Unger as Catherine Ballard. She’s so detached and disconnected which is exactly right for the part.

All the performances work because they’re all slightly cold and disengaged.

The visuals have a starkness which works extremely well. We really do feel that this is a world that is no longer quite the familiar world. It’s just subtly wrong.

Crash was hugely controversial. In terms of explicit content it’s very tame but the ideas upset some sensitive souls. J.G. Ballard loved the movie.

Crash is Cronenberg at his best. Very highly recommended.

The Criterion Blu-Ray includes an excellent audio commentary by Cronenberg. Cronenberg insists that he has zero interest in political messaging which increases my admiration for him considerably.

Nemesis (1992)

Nemesis, released in 1992, was apparently the first film in an entire franchise the existence of which I had never suspected. The first four films were all directed by Albert Pyun so you know that while they might not be art they will action-packed and exciting. This review concerns the first movie in the series.

This is a dystopian cyberpunk science fiction film with definite post-apocalyptic overtones. Civilisation has not collapsed but it has descended into violent semi-barbarism.

It begins in L.A. in 2027. The city is not quite a hellscape, but close.

We are introduced to LAPD counter-terrorist cop Alex Rain (Olivier Gruner). He’s in the middle of a running battle with a terrorist cell led by a chick named Jared (Marjorie Monaghan). 

Several thousand rounds of small arms ammunition get expended and lots of stuff gets blown up before Alex is overcome. He’s been shot countless times and he’s lost a few limbs but he’s a cyborg and once they find him the LAPD will have him put back together again.

Jared had apparently been his girlfriend and he feels that she betrayed him.

He’s totally disillusioned but the police commissioner tells him he’s needed for another mission. He doesn’t have much choice - they put a bomb in his heart so if he doesn’t co-operate he’ll be blown to pieces in three days.

And the mission involves Jared. She’s stolen a computer disk that has to be retrieved before she passes it on to another terrorist faction.

After an interlude in Brazil he finds himself in Java. And meets up with Jared’s pal Julian (Deborah Shelton).

The storyline is a bewildering series of double-crosses but there’s so much insane action you won’t fret too much about the plot.

There’s clearly a kind of war between those who embrace cyborgisation and information technology and those who oppose it. In this society it seems that the battle is all but lost - cyborgs are everywhere and it’s impossible to visually identify them as cyborgs. There are also personality uploads (an idea that was hugely popular in 80s/90s cyberpunk).

And since virtually all the characters are cyborgs or androids it’s no use shooting them once, or three or four times. To make sure it’s best to shoot them a couple of hundred times. That at least slows them down a bit.

I like Olivier Gruner’s performance as a man who is just tired of everything and no longer really believes in anything. He’s not an obviously charismatic hero and he no longer wants to be a hero but he keeps bouncing back.

The locations are terrific and Pyun uses them to their best advantage.

Pyun knew how to do action scenes. He goes insanely over-the-top but it works. You can try counting the explosions but you won’t be able to - they just keep coming.

There’s one brief nude scene but this is an action movie and that is its entire focus.

I’m starting to like Albert Pyun’s movies. Alien from L.A. (1988) is goofy but Cyborg (1989) is truly excellent post-apocalyptic cyberpunk.

I’m quite fond of 80s/90s post-apocalyptic sci-fi in general, with Hardware (1990) being a bit of a favourite.

Nemesis is a wild ride and a thoroughly enjoyable one. Highly recommended.

Nemesis looks great on Blu-Ray (my copy is the Spanish all-region disc).

Barb Wire (1996)

Barb Wire (1996) has a reputation as a trashy Pamela Anderson action thriller. That’s OK. I like trashy thrillers. And it’s a post-apocalyptic dystopian cyberpunk action thriller. That’s OK by me as well. It’s based on a comic book.

It’s the aftermath of the Second American Civil War. Now Steel Harbor is the only free city. It’s city of crime, chaos, corruption, sleaze and depravity. You can have a lot of fun in Steel Harbor and you can get into a lot of trouble.

Barb Wire (Pamela Anderson) runs a bar there, called the Hammerhead. Curly (Udo Kier) manages it for her. 

Barb makes her living in various ways, some legal and some illegal, including bounty hunting and stripping.

She has an uneasy relationship with the local chief of police Willis (Xander Berkeley). Willis is moderately corrupt but Barb doesn’t mind that since she’s moderately crooked as well. There’s some erotic heat between them. An attraction of two morally compromised people.

There’s a totalitarian government and of course there’s a Resistance. There’s a genius scientist named Cora D with the antidote to the government’s most potent bioweapon. She’s on the run. And she needs some high-tech retinal contact lenses to escape detection.

Barb has the contact lenses and they’re worth big bucks and that could be her ticket out of Steel Harbor. But the bad guys (from the totalitarian Congressional government) are determined to get the lenses and to get Axel and Cora D (who are irritating starry-eyed idealists and not that bright).

Axel is helping her to escape. They want Barb’s help. Barb had loved Axel but he betrayed her. Barb has now had enough of causes.

Barb’s brother Charlie is with the Resistance and he’s idealistic and you just know he’s going to get himself into trouble.


Now at this stage you might be thinking that you’ve seen this film before. And if you’ve seen the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Cyborg you have seen it before. The plot is pretty much identical. Barb Wire also owes a lot to Casablanca.

The bad guys are cardboard cutout villains.

The main thing wrong with Barb Wire is that the basic concept is not very original and the plot is very unoriginal.

On the plus side the action scenes are extremely good. I can’t really fault the job done by director David Hogan. He keeps things moving and as interesting visually as he can.

And there’s Udo Kier who is always a joy to watch.

In my view the movie’s biggest asset is Pamela Anderson. Barb is a larger-than-life outrageous comic-book kickass action heroine and that’s how Anderson plays her. And with impossibly voluptuous figure, her blonde hair, her leather gear and her corsets she doesn’t look real. She looks like a comic-book heroine. That’s how it should be.

It’s easy to point out this movie’s many faults (and they are many) but if you don’t worry about the plot you can just enjoy the mayhem. There’s very little gore and very little blood. It’s about excitement rather than gore. It’s also very tame where nudity and sex are concerned. Perhaps too tame.

Barb Wire is a comic-book B-movie with a comic-book B-movie heroine and that’s fine by me. Mindless entertainment but it’s not trying for anything more than that. I enjoyed it. Recommended.

And it looks nice on Blu-Ray.

Armitage III: Dual Matrix (2001)

Armitage III: Dual Matrix was released in 2001.

Something that needs to be clarified in regard to Armitage III: Dual Matrix right at the start is that this is not the third film in a series. It’s the second film in a two-movie series. It’s a sequel to Armitage III: Poly-Matrix. It’s called Armitage III because the heroine, Naomi Armitage, is a Third.

Armitage III: Poly-Matrix was in fact an OVA which was later edited into feature film format.

You need to have seen Armitage III: Poly-Matrix first, otherwise you won’t understand where the heroine is coming from and you won’t understand what she is. The background from the first film is that this is a world in which Mars has been colonised and has a large population of both humans and robots. Robots have become ubiquitous. The second-generation roots, known as Seconds, are useful for routine work. The Thirds, the third-generation robots, are a different matter. They are almost indistinguishable from humans, which makes many people uneasy.

Armitage was a cop working for the Martin PD, partnered with a human cop, Ross Sylibus.

Thirds have something very much akin to human emotions. Armitage knows she is a robot but she feels that she is also a woman.

As Armitage III: Dual Matrix opens Armitage is married (to Ross) and they have a daughter, Yoko. Yoko really is Armitage’s daughter. But Armitage is a robot. How can that be possible? It’s possible because Armitage is a Third. That’s the secret of the Thirds, the secret that has been closely guarded but now a sinister robotics tycoon is determined to get hold of that secret.

There’s also a move afoot to give robots legal rights. That has triggered a major political storm on both Earth and Mars.

There’s more to this struggle than is apparent on the surface. It has some connection to much earlier events, an apparently robot-inspired revolt known as the First Error.

It’s not just stubbornness that makes Armitage determined not to reveal the secret of the Thirds. It is vital that the secret remains a secret.

This is one of a number of cyberpunk movies (from Japan and elsewhere) dealing with the blurring of the line between humans and machines. In Blade Runner there’s Rachel who doesn’t know she’s a robot because she has her childhood memories (which are actually someone else’s memories). That’s her tragedy. In Ghost in the Shell Motoko has an entirely prosthetic body but she still has her (genuine) human memories. She still has her “ghost” - the essential human core of her consciousness - within the shell (the body). But she has to wonder if that’s enough to make fully human.

And here we have Armitage. She knows that she is a robot but she is a robot that may have crossed the threshold into consciousness. She feels things the way a woman feels things. But is she a woman?

One thing I love about the Armitage films is that Armitage is not a kickass action heroine who could just as easily have been a male character. Her femaleness is at the very core of the story. And being a mother is at the core of the story.

And although in the first movie Armitage and Ross start out having a kind of regular cop buddy movie relationship in this second film their relationship as husband and wife, and mother and father to Yoko, is crucial. This is what motivates all of their actions.

There is of course a vast amount of violent mayhem, done with energy and style.

By the mid-1980s anime dealing with complex grown-up subject matter was becoming a big thing. This was around the same time that cyberpunk was becoming the fashionable style of science fiction. In a way anime and cyberpunk grew up together. The Japanese took to cyberpunk like a duck to water. They loved the mood and the aesthetic.

By the time the first instalment of Armitage III came out in 1996 there had already been some great cyberpunk anime. Ghost in the Shell (1995) obviously but also Goku Midnight Eye (1989) and Cyber City Oedo 808 (1990). There’s also a slight cyberpunk flavour to the excellent Angel Cop (1989-94).

Armitage III: Dual Matrix is top-tier cyberpunk anime and it’s highly recommended.

I have the old Madman DVD which is sadly out of print.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is writer-director Mamoru Oshii’s sequel to his 1995 masterpiece Ghost in the Shell. 

Both take Masamune Shirow’s brilliant manga as a starting point.

This 2004 film is a sequel. I’m not going to reveal any spoilers for the first film here but you absolutely must watch the earlier film first. Not because of the plot but because of something very very important involving one of the main characters that happens in the first movie.

Gynoids (female androids) have been running amok and killing their owners. That’s disturbing. What’s really worrying and puzzling is that often the gynoids then commit suicide. That’s something that androids do not, and cannot, do.

Batou is assigned to the case. Togusa is now his partner, the Major Motoko Kusanagi being (for very complicated reasons) unavailable for duty. They’re initially puzzled that this case should have been handed to Section 9. Section 9 usually deals with much more overt threat to public security.

The gynoids are personal servant androids but the first thing that Batou and Togusa find out is that the gynoids causing the problems are a special type of gynoid. They’re sexbots.

The various branches of the Ghost in the Shell franchise all deal with the intersection of the human and the digital worlds. The blurring of the lines between man and machine. In this future cyborgs and androids are ubiquitous. Batou is a cyborg and there’s not much of him left that is entirely human. Motoko Kusanagi is entirely a cyborg. The only human element to Motoko is her Ghost. But of course the Ghost is the most important thing of all. Cyborgs have human brains and cyberbrains. The Ghost resides in the human brain. It comprises our memories and it’s our memories that make us human.

This is obviously the kind of territory that has been extensively explored in cyberpunk fiction and cyberpunk movies such as Blade Runner and Total Recall. The Ghost in the Shell franchise takes a deep dive into this territory.

Batou and Togusa are making progress, or so they think. That’s assuming that the things they have found are true. They may be trapped in a web of illusions and lies.

When they reach the ship things get seriously weird. Reality starts to fragment. In a world of virtual reality and artificial intelligences is there any actual reality? If everybody is permanently connected to digital networks and everybody has a cyberbrain would you be able to tell if you were real or not?

There’s plenty of violent mayhem but this is a very cerebral movie. This is not a cool sci-fi action movie. It’s cool, but it’s cool in an incredibly complex and philosophical way. Western sci-fi movie-makers (and makers of TV sci-fi) will flirt with really complex ideas but it’s the Japanese anime makers who are prepared to take those ideas to the limit.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is visually stunning but it looks nothing like the first movie. It’s moving into entirely new aesthetic territory. And it’s tonally quite different.

In western cinema the advent of digital technologies, CGI and the like, had mostly disastrous results. That was not the case with anime. In an anime movie such as this one what matters is having people who can use these techniques as something more than a crutch. Or a gimmick. And these techniques can be blended seamlessly into animated movies. In live-action movies they seem like they’re shoe-horned in.

You do need to watch the 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie first. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is a very different movie in many ways. It’s different thematically and stylistically. But to fully appreciate it it helps to have seen the first movie and it helps to have read the original manga. That makes it easier to understand why Mamoru Oshii chose not to make a straightforward sequel.

The extensive Ghost in the Shell franchise has a complicated history. It began as a manga by Masamune Shirow. Then came the first movie in 1995, directed by Mamoru Oshii and written by Kazunori Itô. Then in 2002 came the excellent Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series. It does not follow on directly from the movie and may possibly take place in a slightly different timeline. In 2004 there was a second series of the TV series. And also in 2004, the second movie. In 2006 came the movie Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society. There have since been other iterations. It’s been a spectacularly successful franchise.

You could argue that it’s not a franchise in a conventional sense but rather a complex web of interrelated works.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is strange and moody and surreal and it’s very highly recommended.

Blind Date (1984)

The first thing to be noted here is that this review concerns the 1984 Nico Mastorakis-directed Blind Date, not the 1987 Blake Edwards movie with the same title.

Mastorakis has made movies in both his native country, Greece, and in the United States. Blind Date was shot in Greece.

Mastorakis was one of those guys who figured out early on that the secret to making money out of modestly-budgeted movies was to get involved in the production side so he set up his own production company. On most of his movies he’s the producer, director and screenwriter.

In Blind Date we are introduced to Jonathon Ratcliff (Joseph Bottoms), a young American now working for an advertising agency in Athens. At the office he meets Claire (Kirstie Alley). They sleep together. Everything seeks to go fine in the bedroom. Jonathon seems like a fairly regular guy with no particular hang-ups.

Except that there was that girl at the photo shoot. He thought he knew her. Or at least he thought she was a girl he knew in the past.

Something terrible happened to that girl in his past. But it wasn’t his fault. That’s what he was told.

And then we see Jonathon with a pair of binoculars, watching people through their windows. He appears to be a Peeping Tom. Which is a bit odd. He has a hot girlfriend. And she apparently has no complaints about his performance in bed. Guys with hot girlfriends and normal sex lives are not usually peepers.

Then we find him watching a young couple making out in a car. The guy spots him and chases him. That’s when the accident happens. The bizarre and unlikely accident that leaves him blind. So we have a Peeping Tom who is now blind. I think they call that irony.

And there has been a brutal murder, of a woman.

There are some hints that things may not be as straightforward as they appear. We’re not sure what is really going on with Jonathon. Maybe it’s not simple voyeurism but something to do with his obsession with the woman from his past. We have no idea if Jonathon is actually involved in anything genuinely disturbing or violent. Or if he ever has been. All we have are hints that could point in those directions but we’re aware that perhaps we’re being led up the garden path.

Another murder takes place. We still have no clear indication that this has any connection whatsoever with Jonathon.

What we have here is a setup for an erotic thriller, or perhaps a slasher movie. And then the cyberpunk elements kick in. Jonathon is given bionic vision. It’s like very crude 80s video game graphics. He cannot see any details at all. He cannot identify individual people. But he can now get around. The problem is that he will find himself in dangerous situations where he needs to see details. He needs to be able to identify people’s faces. It’s a nifty thriller plot mechanic.

It’s incredibly interesting that Mastorakis was playing around with cyberpunk concepts in 1984, at a time when cyberpunk was in its infancy. The movie Blade Runner had established the cyberpunk aesthetic but content-wise it was not full-blown cyberpunk. Wililam Gibson’s short story Burning Chrome had been published in 1982 but it was not until 1984 that his novel Neuromancer put cyberpunk on the map. But here we have Mastorakis dealing with at least some of the themes of full-blown cyberpunk in a movie released early in 1984, a movie that was presumably already in production before Mastorakis could have had any opportunity to read Neuromancer.

Mastorakis did something similar a few years later, in his excellent In the Cold of the Night (1990). That movie starts out as an erotic thriller with neo-noir overtones and then veers into cyberpunk territory.

Mastorakis was very good at choosing locations that provided production value without spending much money. He uses Athens rather well. This is not tourist Athens. There are no shots of the Parthenon. This is the Athens of the wealthy middle class but it’s still clear that this is a movie that is not set in LA or London or Rome or any other familiar thriller locations. There’s just that very subtle hint of the exotic.

Joseph Bottoms is an adequate lead. He is ambiguous, which is what was needed. It’s not a demanding role for Kirstie Alley but she is very good.

There’s decent suspense and the action scenes are made interesting by the fact that at times we’re seeing things through Jonathon’s primitive video game graphic vision.

Blind Date is an enjoyable thriller made much more interesting by the proto-cyberpunk touches. Highly recommended.

Ergo Proxy (TV series, 2006)

Ergo Proxy is a 2006 Japanese cyberpunk anime TV series. 

This is cyberpunk with quite a few other added flavourings.

This is a complex intelligent puzzling fascinating grown-up anime with multiple layers of meaning and lots of narrative uncertainty. And lots of ambiguity.

You can find my full review at Cult TV Lounge.

Demon City Shinjuku (1988)

Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s supernatural anime Demon City Shinjuku (AKA Hell City Shinjuku AKA Monster City) is a follow-up of sorts to his superb 1987 Wicked City. It deals with very similar themes - a confrontation between the demon world and the human world - but does so in slightly different ways.

It begins with an epic fight between two master swordsmen, Genichiro and Rebi Ra. Both have learned to harness the life energies of the universe who gives them almost supernatural powers. Genichiro is on the side of good. Rebi Ra has sold his soul to the forces of darkness in order to gain unlimited power. Rebi Ra plans to turn the human world into another version of the demon world. He doesn’t quite succeed but he unleashes a massive localised earthquake which devastates the Shinjuku district.

Shinjuku is now a wasteland dominated by demons.

Flash forward ten years and Rebi Ra is ready to try again. Only Genichiro’s high school student son Kyoya might possibly be able to stop him.

Rebi Ra had tried to assassinate the world President. Kyoya hooks up with the president’s daughter Sayaka. Together they enter Shinjuku, with the aim of stopping Rebi Ra.

They get some assistance from a lively cynical streetwise kid.

They also encounter Mephisto. Mephisto is an ambiguous figure. He is human but so disillusioned that he figures things can’t be any worse if the demons win. But Mephisto does offer some aid to Kyoya and Sayaka. Whether he will become an ally or a foe remains to be seen.

There are lots of terrifying monsters to be defeated. Kyoya has also still not fully developed his powers and he’s running out of time to do so. He also has to defend Sayaka with whom he is slowly falling in love.

The biggest problem with this movie is that you are inevitably going to compare it to Wicked City and Wicked City is much the better movie, with ideas that are more fully developed and complex and with more complex characters. Demon City Shinjuku is just a bit too straightforward in plot terms. Kyoya doesn’t have to work hard enough to harness his full powers. Sayaka is cute and likeable but there’s not much depth to her.

We also never really feel that Sayaka is in great danger. That would have added a bit more bite to the suspense and it would have given Kyoya more of a chance to show us some emotional depth.

Mephisto is the most interesting character and perhaps the movie should have focused on him a bit more.

Demon City Shinjuku also lacks the kinky eroticism of Wicked City. Wicked City is full-blown erotic horror done superbly. The lack of eroticism in Demon City Shinjuku makes it seems a little bland.

There are no love scenes between Kyoya and Sayaka which make their romance seem a bit too much like two high school kids experiencing puppy love.

Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s involvement would lead you to expect something visually spectacular and that’s what he delivers. Demon City Shinjuku might be a slight disappoint in other ways but the animation is excellent and there are plenty of very very cool images.

The fire monster is not just visually interesting - it provides the movie’s most effectively chilling and emotionally wrenching moments. This is where we see what evil really entails. This movie needed more moments like this.

Demon City Shinjuku looks impressive and it offers action and excitement. It just doesn’t have quite enough substance to back up its unquestioned style. I’d still recommend it.

Demon City Shinjuku has been paired with Wicked City in a two-disc Blu-Ray set which I recommend.

I’ve reviewed Wicked City (1987) which really is superlative.

Hardware (1990)

Hardware is a 1990 post-apocalyptic science fiction-action-horror movie that borrows heavily from other movies in these genres. There’s nothing original about the ideas but the execution is interesting if a bit pretentious at times.

It’s the usual post-apocalyptic setup. The United States is now mostly a radioactive scrap heap. The government is vicious and tyrannical but perhaps not very efficient.

One way to survive in this world is by scavenging. There’s a lot of discarded tech stuff around if you’re prepared take a few risks to find it. Some is just junk. Some is worth money.

A strange wandering dude finds a couple of interesting items in the desert. A mechanical hand and a robot head. He sells them to a scrap dealer, who sells them on to Mo Baxter (Dylan McDermott). Mo gives them to his girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis). Jill is a crazy artist who makes weird sculptures out of scrap metal, discarded tech and plastic dolls.

Mo is a kind of Space Marine but he’s not particularly motivated. It pays well and he needs the money.

Jill is paranoid, which is a sensible thing for a girl to be in this world. Her apartment has ultra-sophisticated security.

The relationship between Mo and Jill is uneasy. They’re in love but relationships are difficult in this world. Mo’s job takes him away a lot of the time, which Jill resents.

The robot head is not mere junk. Unfortunately it still functions although nobody has realised that yet. It’s part of a military android. The world is in ruins but the government can still find the money to finance horrific killing machines for the military. The Mark 13 combat android is very nasty indeed. It is of course only supposed to kill the enemies of the state which would be fine if it were functioning properly, which it isn’t. It sees everyone as an enemy.

And it’s now sitting in Jill’s living room. This is not going to end well. Of course we know it will go on a killing rampage.

Jill also doesn’t know that she is being watched by a very creepy Peeping Tom in a neighbouring apartment. His name is Lincoln and he’ll play a part in this story.

Mo’s good-natured spaced-out buddy Shades will play a part as well.

There are several rock stars in this movie which is appropriate since it plays a bit like an ultra-violent MTV video. Iggy Pop’s voice is heard for about 90 seconds in total (as a DJ) but he got prominent billing and a pay cheque so I guess he wasn’t complaining. Lemmy contributes a cameo as a water-cab driver.

This was a low-budget movie but the special effects are very impressive. It has a very strong and very effective cyberpunk vibe, but this is a grungy decaying post-apocalyptic cyberpunk world. There’s nothing wildly original about the aesthetic at work here but it’s executed very well. The killer android looks convincingly evil and menacing. The budget may have been small but the money that was spent is all up there on the screen.

The whole thing is hyperactive and gets a bit self-consciously clever at times. It tries very hard to be arty. Sometimes it succeeds. There’s a lot of gore.

The acting is barely adequate.

There is a steamy sex scene which apparently got the movie into trouble with the moral watchdogs.

What this movie does have is plenty of action and energy. It’s reminiscent of Alien in the sense that it’s about horrifying events taking place in a confined space. There’s nowhere to run to for either the monster or his potential victims, so it’s kill or be killed. And that works extremely well.

Hardware offers exciting mayhem done in a visually interesting way and it’s highly recommended.

Hardware looks great on Blu-Ray.

Angel Cop (1989-94)

Angel Cop is a 1989-94 Japanese anime OVA. It comprises six 30-minute segments.

There is some slight cyberpunk flavouring but this does not have the feel of fully-fledged cyberpunk.

It has a near-future setting. Terrorists are trying to destroy the Japanese economy. An elite anti-terrorist unit, the Special Security Force (SSF), has been set up. They have a licence to kill. In fact they have a licence to do anything at all they consider to be necessary. They’re a law unto themselves.

Their latest recruit is a sexy girl cop known as Angel. Even by SSF standards she’s ruthless. When asked if she would shoot a terrorist who was using a hostage as a human shield, even if it meant killing the hostage, she replies that she wouldn’t like doing it but she’d do it anyway. We’ve already seen her in action. We know she isn’t kidding.

The SSF has captured a terrorist leader and they need to keep him alive. There are lots of people from various groups who want him dead.

The SSF’s approach to anti-terrorist operations is ruthless to say the least. It soon becomes apparent there are other groups out to kill terrorists. There are the Hunters, and both their nature and motivations are obscure.

As the six linked episodes progress more and more conspiracies come to light, and each revelation has the effect of making the entire situation even murkier.

The Hunters are simply trying to exterminate all terrorists. There seems to be another group hunting the Hunters. There is infighting among the terrorists. There is infighting on the government side. The SSF is a government agency but there are other government agencies trying to destroy the SSF. And when I say destroy I mean they intend to kill every single member of the SSF. There’s also a possibly unstable scientist with access to very high technology who seems to have his own agenda.

These factions are all extremely well-funded with access to advanced weaponry. They have powerful shadowy backers. Some of these backers may be domestic, some may originate outside Japan. Some of these backers may be pro-Japanese while others are anti-Japanese. There are factions within the Japanese government. The motivations of all of these factions and groups might be ideological, they might simply be motivated by greed or they might be out for power for its own sake. There’s no way of knowing just how many conspiracies there are.

The paranoia levels are off the scale.

While this OVA can be considered as a kind of political thriller don’t let that put you off. It’s not obsessed with ideological preaching. Angel Cop is more focused on the nature of political power games considered purely as power games. The truth is that none of the players are actually motivated by ideals.

There’s also a considerable interest in the corrupting effects of power. The SSF routinely employs hideous methods of torture. There’s one chilling scene in which a suspect is being horrifically tortured while in the office next door the female SSF operatives calmly catch up on their paperwork, oblivious to the screaming.

Another theme of Angel Cop is loyalty. Angel is a loyal Japanese. She has always assumed that loyalty to the Japanese government and loyalty to Japan are perfectly compatible and indeed almost synonymous. Unfortunately that assumption might prove to be incorrect.

There are lots of other things going on in Angel Cop. The nature of the Hunters is mysterious. They have just be the products of ultra high technology. They might be supernatural entities. They might have psychic or paranormal powers and if so those powers might be enhanced by technology. Their powers look like magic but it would be a mistake to jump to conclusions.

Angel is an interesting heroine. She’s tough, brave and very competent but she’s no super-woman. She also has some serious character flaws. As far as she is concerned she’s a cop. A cop does her duty. Angel has never thought beyond this. She lacks empathy. She has repressed her emotions entirely. She is breathtakingly ruthless and callous. She will have to learn to be a human being as well as a cop. The question is whether she will be capable of doing this.

She has been partnered with Raiden. It’s an uneasy partnership. Raiden doesn’t trust her. You can’t blame him. Their relationship will evolve but not in the way you would expect in a non-Japanese story.

There’s an immense amount of carnage and it’s extremely graphic. There are epic battles involving both conventional and psychic weapons.

The tone is generally dark and often very dark. It gets steadily darker and more paranoid.

The ending has lost none of its power to shock. It is deeply Japanese, reflecting distinctly Japanese cultural attitudes such as bushido, the code of the samurai. To understand the ending I think you have to assume that Angel does indeed see herself as a samurai, and not in a superficial way. And that Raiden comes to see himself as a samurai as well. They have chosen the way of the samurai and they are prepared to accept everything that that entails. I don’t see any other way of making sense of the ending.

The Discotek Blu-Ray looks terrific. It includes the Japanese language version with uncensored English subtitles. For hyper-sensitive souls there’s also the option for censored subtitles or there’s the censored English dub. The censorship has nothing to do with bad language or sexual references. The original version would have been considered antisemitic and would have been totally unacceptable to American distributors. It’s unfortunate that many people have been so distracted by this element that they have overlooked two other far more interesting elements that reflect an uncompromisingly Japanese point of view that would have been deeply disorienting to American audiences.

Angel Cop is fast-moving and action-packed with an enormous amount of very graphic violence. It’s a bleak paranoid vision of the future. It’s not for the faint-hearted but I highly recommend it.

Cyber City Oedo 808 (anime OVA, 1990)

Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Cyber City Oedo 808 is top-tier cyberpunk anime.

Criminals recruited as cyber-cops. Lots of paranoia and violent action in a high-tech dystopia. And there are also vampires! Of a sort. And a love story. Of a sort.

Lots of style, tragedy, mystery and weirdness.

Read my full review at Cult TV Lounge.

Armitage III: Poly-Matrix (1996)

Several things need to be cleared up in regard to Armitage III: Poly-Matrix right from the start. Firstly, despite the title, this is not the third film in a series. In fact it’s the first film in a two-movie series. It’s called Armitage III because the heroine, Armitage, is a Third. I’ll explain that later.

Secondly, it started life as an OVA (original animation video) with a total running time of 120 minutes. In 1996 it was edited down to 90 minutes as a feature film. The editing required some dialogue changes which made it impossible to use the Japanese language track from the OVA. As a result there is no Japanese language version of the Armitage III: Poly-Matrix feature film. Since the feature film was clearly aimed at English-speaking markets such as the United States and Australia that was no problem. And while so many 1980s/1990s animes were given truly atrocious English dubs by American and British distributors this one has a perfectly acceptable English dub. Armitage is voiced by Elizabeth Berkeley and her partner Ross Sylibus is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland. They’re both fine, and Berkeley is actually rather good - she sounds like an anime heroine.

It also seems likely that the OVA was shot in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio and cropped to 1.85:1 for the feature film release. Some shots certainly look like they might be cropped.

Armitage III: Poly-Matrix is very much in the cyberpunk mode. The setting is Mars at some future date. Mars now has huge cities and a large population. A significant segment of the population comprises robots. These are mostly Seconds (second-generation robots). They’re quite suitable for undemanding routine work and there’s a lot of tension as a result - the humans on Mars resent the robots for taking jobs away from them.

There are also Thirds (third-generation robots). They are almost indistinguishable from humans and are regarded with enormous suspicion.

Chicago cop Ross Sylibus has just arrived on Mars to join the Martian PD. He has personal reasons for not liking robots.

He is partnered with Naomi Armitage, a tiny but formidable female described by one of the other cops as a terror in hot pants. Armitage doesn’t wear too much in the way of clothing. Too much clothing cramps her style.

On arrival on Mars Ross finds himself in the middle of a pitched gun battle. Left behind is the corpse of a famous female country singer, except that it’s not a corpse but the remains of a robot.

Someone seems to be trying to destroy all the Thirds. That’s a crime problem that needs to be solved but there are other puzzles as well. Why are all Thirds female? And Why exactly were they created? The Seconds were quite adequate when it came to performing most of the functions required of robots. There was no obvious need for robots that were indistinguishable from humans.

The audience will be pretty aware from the start that Armitage is in fact a Third. Ross however does not know this and when he finds out it comes as something of a shock. He has to figure out exactly how he feels about the fact that he has been partnered with a non-human.

Armitage has always known that she was a machine but she has never quite come to terms with it. She feels like a woman. She has emotions. She has a woman’s emotions. She wants to be accepted as a cop but she’d like Ross to accept her as a woman as well. That’s not to say that she fell instantly in love with him or had an overwhelming urge to sleep with him but being female is important to her. It becomes more important to her. Ross becomes more important to her.

The plot is quite complex. There are all kinds of secrets and conspiracies and there are important things that Armitage needs to discover about herself. She needs to know these things for her own sake, and for the sake of Mars.

One of the things Armitage doesn’t know is why she even has emotions. A robot doesn’t need emotions. A cop doesn’t need emotions. This seems like a design flaw. She is definitely a robot but she is definitely a woman as well, and she was deliberately designed that way.

This is anime so you won’t be surprised to find out that Armitage’s learning experiences involve a huge amount of mayhem and a lot of explosions. The Japanese have no problems whatsoever with the idea of combining mayhem with intelligent provocative themes. Armitage III is typical cyberpunk anime in the sense that it combines rollercoaster action sequences, extreme violence and sexiness with big ideas and complex emotions.

Japanese cyberpunk was heavily influenced by Blade Runner both aesthetically and thematically. Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell and Armitage III all deal with similar questions - what makes us human? And all three movies deal with female characters having to grapple with the question of whether they are women or machines, and having to grapple with what this means in terms of their emotional lives. All three movies tackle these questions in slightly different ways. Armitage III has never attracted the same degree of critical adulation as those other two films and that may perhaps be a little unfair.

All three movies also deal to some extent with the Uncanny Valley phenomenon - the idea of a robot that is almost totally physically indistinguishable from a human is inherently disturbing and if the resemblance is total it becomes even more disturbing. Anyone who has encountered AI-generated art knows just how disturbing the Uncanny Valley effect can be.

The great thing about this movie is that it’s Japanese. An American movie would have handled the subject matter in a much more predictable and safe way.

Oddly enough the makers of this film claimed to have been influenced by Lovecraft and there are a couple of Lovecraft references that are fun to spot.

Having been made as an OVA this production did not have a feature film budget but on the whole the visuals are quite satisfactory.

Armitage III: Poly-Matrix is a pretty good cyberpunk anime that does not deserve to languish in obscurity. Highly recommended.

The Madman Australian DVD release dates back a few years. It’s letterboxed but the transfer is fine.