Yakuza Weapon (2011)

Japanese splatterfilms are an acquired taste.

Don't say you are rather surprised about that statement.

In some cases, it all works: tons of over-the-top gore, cool visuals and a ton of atmosphere that's hard to get in Europe. If needs be, there's even something akin to a storyline.

Sad to say that 'Yakuza Weapon' lacks a lot of this. And I so wanted to like this one.

The story is nothing special: a young Yakuza returns to Japan to revenge the murder of his father. Along the way he gets a machine gun replacement for a missing arm and that ups the ante quite a lot. Of course, the villains get themselves 'biomeched' too.

Normally, this would be right up my ally. Not only am I rather fond of the Japanese biomech-thing (one might call it a fetish of the Japanese and consequently, one of mine). This idea is nothing new and after classics like 'Tetsuo' or countless mangas/animes that have more or less the same subject, it is tough to come up with something new. Most of the time, they manage it. In this case: not so much.

See, there are a few problems with this one. Not that it was shot on a shoestring budget. You can work around that. Sure, the shakiness of the handheld digital camcorder can get either on your nerves or make you seasick beyond belief, but people like Lars Von Trier got praised for this, so that shouldn't pose too much of a hindrance. There is plenty of gore, albeit mostly digitalized, so again, there's that as well.

The main issues I have with this film is that the attempted comedy falls incredibly flat. It borders on the downright stupid. If you think 'White Chicks' is a great comedy, firstly: you need a brain enema; secondly you might enjoy the jokes in this one.

The storyline inserts lots of subplots that never get resolved and after about forty minutes, it is rather daunting to follow the plot, if there ever was any.

But maybe my main gripe with 'Yakuza Weapon' is that Tak Sakaguchi plays the 'hero' Shozo like a completely obnoxious character. Sure, he's a Yakuza, but he grates on the nervous system like sandpaper on the eyeballs. He overacts enormously, is nigh invulnerable and chews the scenery more than Clint Howard, and that is saying something. Again, nothing really amiss with overacting in certain cases, but here he just goes on and on and it is not funny and annoying.

Suffice to say: there are better films with roughly the same ideas than this one. 'The Machine Girl' for one.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get some sandpaper out of my eyesockets.