Purchase AJA Io XT for broadcast-quality capture, monitoring and output for Avid and receive free Eye Scream Factory presets to quickly add stunning effects to your productions. Pair Io XT with Avid, MacBook Pro and Thunderbolt storage for a no-compromise
more...
For a limited time, Digistor is including Digital Tutors online training with every commercial 3ds Max or Maya purchased* giving you and your team access to the world's largest online CG training library for free.
more...
Grass Valley and Corsair Solutions are proud to announce that, as part of a special competitive upgrade promotion, users of Apple's Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, and Avid's Media Composer can now upgrade to EDIUS 6 nonlinear editing software for just...
more...
IF and the Sydney Film Festival are giving away a Flexi10 worth $137
more...
Your Vote
Do you agree that the producer offset should be raised from 20 to 40 per cent for television?
Yes
No
|
Arresting visuals in Tokyo Gore Police
[Mon 18/05/2009 08:00:46]
By Rodney Appleyard
We often hear about how big budget blockbuster horror movies have to be re-cut, toned down or re-shot because they end up being too graphic for the audience and run the risk of alienating families and children.
As a result, we are not always exposed to the director's complete vision and to a large degree, freedom of expression is compromised. That is why it is interesting to stay in touch with the independent film industry and movies made from different parts of the world.
Japanese movie Tokyo Gore Police is a very good example of a horror film that revels in going to extremes, and is comfortable with poking fun at the genre along the way.
The filmmaker has not held back on any of the taboo areas that Western filmmakers might think twice about it in order to appeal to the widest audience possible.
There is no shortage of blood and gruesome deaths, as well as sexually explicit scenes. But this is all delivered with tongue in cheek humour. On many occasions the filmmaker also teases his own culture.
The film is full of very imaginative special make-up effects, which are all very interesting, such as a woman who ends up with a large attacking body part (her private parts) that resembles an enormous Venus flytrap; and a man who experiences the joys of his manhood being turned into a gun the size of a bazooka after it is bitten off by one of the baddies.
The only thing that lets it down is a handful of the effects that look a bit too rubbery. Plus the director's obsession with spraying blood gets a bit repetitive after a while.
So what is the story about? It is set in Tokyo in the future, which has become a dark and violent world where life is cheap and the police force has become a private corporation.
Samurai sword-wielding Ruka is a special forces cop, known as a "Hunter", and she is charged with the job of hunting down homicidal mutants known as "Engineers". These Engineers have the ability to transform any injury they receive into a deadly and gruesome weapon.
Where did these Engineers come from? And how can they really be stopped? Are they connected with her father's assassination? Ruka must carve a bloody trail of limbs and gore to find the answers to this mystery.
Nearly every scene contains elaborate special make-up effects that are very original in their look. Director Yoshihiro Nishimura, who was also the special effects make-up artist on the movie, told us about the inspiration behind the movie.
“The project is a remake of my independent film called Anatomia Extinction, which I shot when I was 23 years old. So I used figures from the past projects and I also shaped the monsters that appeared in my dreams. The design of “Keyman” is exactly same as the original version.
"Much of the inspiration for the film actually came from my nightmares. I just based the creations on these and transferred the characters into the real world as best I could. This was my guideline for making the film a unique experience. It was a lot of fun making this movie, although making 1200 injuries in two weeks of filming was also very tough.
"However, I couldn’t have completed the film without the talented crew and cast members. Also, the hard part of being a director was that, if I had any other job, I could have taken a nap at the corner of the set, but I couldn’t do it this time.”
He has used a number of traditional techniques to create the illusion of people having their arms, heads and limbs cut off, with blood spraying excessively every where.
The most impressive effects by far are the injuries that are transformed into weapons. For example, one character develops an arm that turns into a chainsaw after it is cut off. This chainsaw arm is cleverly integrated into the rest of the body, which helps it look even more believable.
The character also has the ability to throw the chainsaw at people as if it is a boomerang. After it is thrown to cut somebody's head off, it returns immediately back to the arm socket. Visually and technically, this is quite an achievement for the special effects department.
Of course, these characters are hard to kill because as soon as our heroine cuts off one of their limbs, another dangerous weapon grows back in place of that original body part. She literally has to slice them up into little pieces to properly kill them. When this happens, the director is not shy about showing each part of their severed anatomy on the screen, such as their eye balls, ears and noses.
Nishimura says he really enjoys creating effects in camera. "I prefer using analogue key effects in general. I use CG only when it’s impossible to make the scene with analogue effects…Well in fact, I really can’t depend on CG because the budget is limited. This is also due to the limited shooting period. I also try to depend on the efficiency of people to move props on the set. Using machines can help, but we might lose the shooting opportunity if they break down.
"I have used very simple techniques and effects in this movie, although some of the effects are rarely used by other filmmakers, as they are quite risky. But I took chances and used these techniques only sometimes in the film. I think a unique idea is more important for low budget films such as this though, and it is my hope that people are surprised by what they see here."
Overall, Tokyo Gore Police is an extremely bloody film packed full of visionary make-up effects. But despite all this gratuitous violence and challenging sex scenes, the story is still strong enough to hold your attention all the way through. Purely from an effects point of view, the director has to be respected for the mutating mayhem and the sheer numbers of make-up effects he made for this movie.
The film was recently released on DVD in April, 2009. To find out more, visit: http://www.madman.com.au
.jpg)
trap; and a man who experiences the joys of his manhood being turned into a gun the size of a bazooka after it is bitten off by one of the baddies.
