by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Costas Mandylor, Yoshika Nishi, Robert Rhine, Chiri Arikawa
Intro:
... a riot from end to end.
Yoshihiro Nishimura was one of the most exciting and fun B-movie directors the world has ever seen. While his decades-long visual effects resume speaks for itself, from Suicide Club to Shin Godzilla to Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead, the true extent of his gonzo genius becomes even more apparent when looking at his directorial work. Wielding both a nightmarish eye for ways to distort the human body into all manner of horror and weaponry, and a vehemently anti-authoritarian perspective on Japanese culture, his blood fountain brand of entertainment ranged from the drugged-out zombie action-horror Helldriver, to the Yakuza ramen musical Tokyo Dragon Chef, to his fleshy masterpiece Tokyo Gore Police. His passing in May of this year was a serious blow for fans of J-horror excess, with Geisha War his final offering to a world now lacking his idiosyncratic insanity.
Given the man’s predilections for gory and subversive fetish content, with just as much scantily-clad dancing women as bloodspray, Geisha War being a collaboration between Nishimura-san and Girls And Corpses is such an overlapped circle that it’s a wonder that it hadn’t happened before.
Geisha War is built on tensions between American and Japanese cultures, with Carmine (Costas Mandylor) trying to swindle his way into owning the ‘Old Town from Sin City’-esque red light district of Yoshiwara.
From his introductory Trumpian bloviating, Carmine and his assortment of gangsters and turncoats go up against local ramen girl Kiki (Yoshika Nishi) and Yoshiwara’s eclectic community of courtesans. Not that we get much in the way of characterisation for anyone here as, much like genre, aspect ratios, or consistent visual effects, the script is more a suggestion than a concrete foundation for what’s going on.
The visual aesthetic is everything that makes a Yoshihiro Nishimura joint such a riot from end to end. Solid practical gore effects punctuated by hilariously cartoonish digital effects (enhanced by AI, in a way that weirdly incorporates itself into the chaotic mess unfolding at any given moment), fight scenes that aim for raw WTF reactions and usually grabbing them by the throat, all backed with a rocking soundtrack with bookending assists from Long Beach band The Anti-Groupies. There’s just… so much going on that it devolves into this grin-inducing flurry, and while it may be relatively tame by Nishimura’s standards, it’s still world-class insanity by anyone else’s. A rickshaw/hoverboard combo going Ludicrous Speed, a chainsaw polearm, spring-loaded daggers snaking out of a geisha’s chitsu, giant scissors slicing a face clean off; and that’s without getting into Carmine’s final form which, even with everything written above, has us at a loss for words.
Geisha War is a fitting and satisfying swan song for one of J-Horror’s true mavericks. A championing of all things weird and violent, embracing the carnage while aiming it squarely at those who see subjugation and vulgar tourism as part of the act of engagement. For the most Americanised of Nishimura’s catalogue, its approach lends itself well to the (admittedly slight) culture clash at the heart of the fighting on-screen, and as delightfully unhinged as it is, its quiet epilogue gives the film a surprising yet fittingly emotional final note to send off such a uniquely unclassifiable film artist.
