RoboGeisha (2009)

Shy beauty Yoshie Kasuga (Aya Kiguchi) lives in the shadow of her older sister, renowned Geisha Kikue (Hitomi Hasebe), who undeservedly treats her sibling with disdain. While Kikue is entertaining businessman Hikaru Kageno (Takumi Saitô), a pair of Tengu spirits attack, forcing Yoshie to display her impressive fighting skills. Pleased with the young woman's performance against the Tengu, Hikaru, a megalomaniac intent on ruling the world, abducts Yoshie and forces her become one of his Geisha assassins; he also operates on Kikue, giving her machine-gun tits. On seeing her sister's awesome weaponry, Yoshie opts for an upgrade, getting herself equipped with Wig Napalm and armpit swords, and soon becomes a top assassin.

When Yoshie is sent to kill a group of people who are searching for their missing relatives—the other Geisha assassins in Hikaru's army—her conscience kicks in and she refuses her orders. Displeased, Hikaru has her blown up. Luckily for Yoshie, one of Hikaru's ex-employees is on hand to piece her back together, giving her a few extra modifications in the process, after which she seeks out Hikaru, who promptly transforms his headquarters into a giant castle robot and heads for Mount Fuji where he intends to detonate a massive nuclear bomb.

RoboGeisha is another massive helping of bonkers action from Noboru Iguchi, the director who gave us the amazingly entertaining splatter-fest Machine Girl. But where that movie delivered an excess of impressive practical gore FX along with the insanity, this one opts for much more cartoonish violence, most of which is achieved via rather cheap looking CGI, making it a bit of a disappointment for those expecting more of the same. Poorly rendered digital blood is never an acceptable substitute for genuine splatter.

Thankfully, the film's relentlessly silly plot, OTT visuals, and hot Japanese babes ensure that the film is consistently entertaining, regardless of the gore. With such unique sights as a psycho nurse being sprayed with acidic breast-milk, Yoshie turning into a tank, ass shuriken, a man blinded by shrimp, and office buildings that bleed, boredom is definitely not an option, and there's always a little more fun to be had from trying to guess what Hollywood movie soundtracks are being referenced (I heard music that sounded suspiciously like the themes from RoboCop, James Bond and possibly even Rocky).