Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

Year: 2009
Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura, Naoyuki Tomomatsu
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1425928/

Rating: 2 out of 5

Review:
Another movie by Yoshihiro Nishimura, the director responsible for Tokyo Gore Police and Machine Girl, and just as over the top.  This movie, however, doesn’t have the  pizazz of Tokyo Gore Police or the plot depth of Machine Girl (which, granted, is pretty thin in the plot department, but is still better than VG vs FG).  The movie is mostly flat, punctuated by moments of near insanity, such as the kabuki air-guitar dismemberment scene.

The plot, such as it is, centers around a high school boy who is highly sought after by both the vice principal’s daughter and by a mysterious transfer student who manages to give him a blood laced chocolate.  This turns the boy into a “half-vampire”.  Eventually the stuck-up vice principal’s daughter attacks the vampire girl, which fails spectacularly when she falls to her death from the top of the school building.

Her father, who is not only the vice principal but also the science teacher and, unknown to all but his homicidal assistant, the school nurse, he is also a mad scientist and distant relation to Victor Frankenstein.  His dream is to reanimate the dead.  When he accidentally comes across a sample of Vampire Girl’s blood, he discovers it is the secret he’s been looking for.  He uses it to reanimate his daughter, but first he makes some “improvements”, stealing the iron arms of the wrist-cutting champion (one of the director’s trademarks) and the legs of a fake black athlete (more on this later).

The hapless boy, finally a full vampire, is captured and the showdown is on.  Vampire Girl uses her blood to make swords from her arms while Frankenstein Girl removes one arm and uses it as a boomerang.  The fight scenes, though, really lack the punch of the ones found in both TGP and Machine Girl.  Eventually the two monster girls end up on top of Tokyo Tower where Frankenstein Girl gets the upper hand.  Vampire Girl is rescued by the boy, who professes his love to her.  She then defeats her nemesis and both she and the boy fall, though she saves him and her slave, Igor, saves her.

The mad scientist and nurse get theirs along the way as well, if you care.  I really didn’t.

In the end, the boy learns he’s just the replacement for Igor, and the mad scientist returns giant sized, which is where the movie ends.  Thankfully it’s only an hour long, so it’s not so bad.

Now, a quick note – the students (all female except the boy), all seem to represent one of the Shinjuku girl stereotypes.  One set, however, while a parody of ganjuro, goes way too far, putting three of the four girls in prosthetic black face with highly over-the-top stereotypical features.  I guess for the Japanese it’s not as big a deal, but as an American watching it, it was extremely jarring.  It felt way too unnecessarily racist, especially when they began signing and dancing while praising President Obama using bongo drums and fake African dancing.  This sort of thing was just in very poor taste, and really ruined a large part of the movie.

Overall, I’d say ignore this film.  Tokyo Gore Police is far better, as is Machine Girl.  This is mostly a boring, poorly written movie that goes for too much style over substance.