DVDfever.co.uk - The Machine Girl Blu-ray reviewDVDfever.co.uk - Charts, News and Reviews of Blu-rays, DVDs, Games, CDs, Hardware, Laserdiscs, Cinema Films & more
Hot Japanese schoolgirl blows away the baddies by having a machine gun for an arm? That premise works for me!
Thus begins, The Machine Girl which does more for promoting disabled causes than any government campaign,
since this girl only has one regular arm, the other for which she attaches her kablammo appendage!
As the film begins we see Ami (Minase Yashiro, right) offing some school bullies early on as they're tormenting another
lad, and also one of them was directly responsible for the death of her brother, Yu, and his friend Takeshi. Then, we go back six months in time
and, while there are a few slow bits early on, we get to learn how her brother came to lose his life and the fate of
those who pissed Ami off in the process, but from 30 mins in, there's a great bloody rampage as she exacts revenge on
them as well as showing how she lost her arm.
Along the way, Ami befriends Takeshi's parents, not easy to manage especially after his Mum, Miki (Asami, below-right with Minase Yashiro),
hates her for believing the allegation that her parents were murderers. However, in the end it'll be them against the
parents of the little bastards responsible for it all.
The Machine Girl is all a bit too daft and comical for what I was expecting, and the basic story is a bit lame
to throughly engage you inbetween violent deaths, but I did enjoy those. It's also probably one of the grossest films
I've ever seen, and certainly one of the goriest.
The film is presented in a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen ratio and the picture on this Blu-ray disc is a bit on the
grainy side in some scenes and a bit flickery in others, depending on the style of the scene. Either way, it's certainly
not as perfect as it could be. The sound is loud and proud in DTS 5.1 for when the action kicks in, often with, as the
title suggests, the machine gun in place of an arm.
The disc is short on extras. Firstly, there's a Behind the Scenes (10:05) feature which shows our heroine training
and being interviewed while on set as she takes to the acting reins for the first time ever, followed by interview snippets
with other cast members and a brief look at some of the key implements in the film.
On the plus side, the film is well chaptered with 23 in total and subtitles come in English only. The main menu
contains music from the film along with stills from some of the characters.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
DVD: 
Hot Japanese schoolgirl blows away the baddies by having a machine gun for an arm? That premise works for me!
The film is presented in a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen ratio and the picture on this Blu-ray disc is a bit on the
grainy side in some scenes and a bit flickery in others, depending on the style of the scene. Either way, it's certainly
not as perfect as it could be. The sound is loud and proud in DTS 5.1 for when the action kicks in, often with, as the
title suggests, the machine gun in place of an arm.
