If there was ever a candidate for a movie to be deemed neo-grindhouse, it’d be the ultra stylish and apparently low budget actioner “The Machine Girl.” It’s a techno punk action revenge thriller with an outlandish plot device and premise that’s sadly been pushed into the background thanks to its similarities to character Cherry from “Planet Terror.” But in all honesty, this device is used with much more efficiency and creativity than Robert Rodriguez’s horror comedy, in the end. It’s just a shame that Iguchi’s action thriller is a hit or miss affair, with a slight emphasis on the miss, mind you. “The Machine Girl” had every opportunity to be a whirlwind action gore fest, and instead it thrives on being nothing but another mediocre Asian entry that’s cooler in description than it manages to be as a film. Perhaps I was too stoked to see it, or perhaps the hype was so prevalent that I bought in to it, or perhaps I still don’t get the style of Asian action cinema, but there were rarely moments in “The Machine Girl” where I discovered I was having a blast. A pure cartoon from minute one, Iguchi’s flick is a revenge movie about a girl whose left arm is ravaged thanks to seemingly endless encounters with maniacal royal families whose sons have formed a gang and murdered her brother.

There are the ridiculous villains who lack any and all menace and mystique (there’s a group of parents whose sons were killed by Yami who form the “Super Mourner Gang”… seriously!), the vapid supporting characters who serve no purpose, the clunky foreshadowing between Yami and her ill fated brother Takeshi, and horrible acting that tends to undermine the attempted camp and is just painful. Iguchi’s film takes too long to lead into what we want to see, and when it finally arrives, it only becomes a climactic device and nothing more. Though it’s a planned series, I really wish the selling point would have also been the focal point of the movie. A Machine Girl, with a Machine Gun arm. Something we only got to see in the last half hour. The rest is based around Yami looking for retribution for her brother’s death and trying to prove he didn’t commit suicide, another sub-plot that’s undeveloped and unresolved. Iguchi does supply audiences with brutally over the top grue, most of which was fun to watch and soak in. As well, the deaths are often disgusting and very creative. I just wish I didn’t have to slog through an hour of pointless melodrama to get to Yami putting on her metallic prosthetic to kick her ass and achieve some sense of vengeance.

Damn it and I was so looking forward to seeing what Iguchi had up his sleeve, too! Sadly, “The Machine Girl” is a very disappointing and sub-par action effort with no focus, horrific performances, and failure to deliver on what we came to see in the first place: A Machine Girl.