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Released by: Well Go USA
Released on: May 22, 2012.
Director: Tak Sakaguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Noboru Iguchi
Cast: Tak Sakaguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura
Year: 2010
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The Movie:
This latest Sushi Typhoon feature to be released in North America by Well Go USA follows a pretty teenage girl named Rin (Yumi Sugimoto) who is just about to celebrate her sixteenth birthday when she once again finds herself being bullied by some of the other students at her all girls high school. When this happens, she notices some strange throbbing in her hand - which makes sense when she heads home that day and her mother and father reveal to her that she is a half breed, the product of the relationship between her mutant dad and her human mom.
Rin freaks out, understandably, but before she can talk this over with her parents a team of commandos bursts in and shoots them both dead. Rin escapes with her life and joins up with a team of mutant girls lead by Kisaragi (Tak Sakaguchi), a cross-dressing samurai. It's here that the throbbing in her hand reveals its true nature as she learns to control the mutant powers that have been in her all along. Soon enough, she and her teammates find themselves battling against those aforementioned commando types, most of whom have cock shaped machineguns for noses, who are out to eliminate mutants and make things right for normal humans everywhere.
Pretty much insane from start to finish, Mutant Girls Squad is basically a really gory remake of X-Men - instead of Wolverine we get a girl who has the ability to thrust samurai swords out of her breasts and instead of Cyclops we get a girl who can pop a deadly chainsaw out of her ass, but the basic concept of mutants fighting to survive against humans who would do them in remains the same. Tak Sakaguchi makes for a completely bizarre androgynous Professor X type, training the girls in his team to best use their powers, and he provides quite a bit of bizarre comic relief here, not that the movie is lacking for it at any given time as nothing is played in the least bit straight here.
This all moves at a pretty fast pace, with rarely more than a few minutes going by without some sort of crazy carnage taking place on screen. If heads aren't being sliced in three and brains aren't being split in two then boobie swords are slicing and dicing guys with penis guns and a girl is carrying around her twin brother's head, still attached to her internal organs. Rin herself becomes quite apt quite quickly with her newfound abilities, striking up some interesting camaraderie with the other girls on the team as she quickly learns to accept her newfound role in life and basically jumping headfirst into the fray and killing anyone who gets in her way.
All of this is done with tongue placed firmly in cheek but a few interesting plot twists keep the storyline strong enough that it works. Of course the main reason anyone is going to want to watch this is the same reason anyone would want to watch any of the other Sushi Typhoon projects, the gore, but it all works rather well here. Don't take this one any more seriously than the filmmakers want you to (which is obviously not at all) and it's hard not to have a good time with Mutant Girls Squad.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Mutant Girls Squad was shot on high definition video and the AVC encoded 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen 1080p presentation showcases the movie in its original aspect ratio. The image is as clean as you'd expect though it has a very artificial look at times, no thanks to the goofy CGI that is used throughout the movie - but that's part of the fun of the Sushi Typhoon movies, really. This actually works in the context of the world where the film takes place, however - the movie isn't going for realism, it doesn't want or need to. There aren't any problems with compression artifacts to note, and black levels are generally strong and deep. Contrast is properly set and detail is generally really good here as is color reproduction - the reds in particular. Shadow detail is strong and while some shots that are really heavy on CGI look a bit softer than others, overall this is a very nice looking image.
Audio options are supplied in Japanese language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and Japanese language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with optional subtitles available in English only. The lossless track is a decent one with lots of great surround activity and strong bass throughout the presentation. The levels are well balanced and the score used throughout the movie has some nice and impressive clarity to it. Arterial spray always sounds cool in lossless clarity, doesn't it? This movie has a lot of it. The English subs are free of any obvious typos and aside from a few instances where they appear overtop of a lighter colored background, are easy to read.
Extras kick off with almost a half an hour's worth of footage shot that the film's premier in Japan. A lot of this is fairly light, but some interview bits and pieces make it worth checking out if you want more information on the movie. It's hardly deep though. A half hour long Making Of Mutant Girls Squad featurette is more interesting as it contains some decent behind the scenes footage. Also included on the disc is a sixteen minute short film spun off from the feature entitled Yoshie Zero - if you dug Mutant Girls Squad, take the time to check this out too as it's a kick. From there we get interviews with the cast and crew, including input from Yumi Sugimoto, Yuko Takayama, Suzuka Morita, Tak Sakaguchi, Noboru Iguchi and Yoshihiro Nishimura. Each interviewee chimes in on what they did on this project and gives some quick input on how they felt about working on the movie. Rounding out the extras are a trailer for the feature, trailers for a few other Well Go USA releases, animated menus and chapter stops. As this is a Blu-ray/DVD Combo pack release, a standard definition disc is included and it contains identical extra features. All of the extras are in Japanese with English subtitles and presented on the Blu-ray disc in HD.
The Final Word:
Say what you will about these Sushi Typhoon gore films but Mutant Girls Squad turns out to be a whole lot of great, bloody fun. It's not deep but it's loaded with creative splatter effects, over the top carnage and cool characters and if you're in the right frame of mind for it, the movie can be relentlessly entertaining. Well Go USA's Blu-ray looks and sounds very good and contains some cool extras too - all in all, a very fun release for those who appreciate this type of thing.
