Full Metal Yakuza Details

Full Mental Gokuda

Ah, Takashi Miike, he's given us singing zombies and blood-splattered virgins, not to mention a happy spew of familial necrophilia and other eyebrow-raising goodies.

As always, Full Metal Gokuda is massively uneven in the pacing department, which means you're just as likely to fall asleep as you are revel in its occasional, sheer, unadulterated brilliance.

As you're probably aware by now, this is Robocop run through a skewed Japanese perspective, which means unlikely artificial Yakuza body modification meets bizarre knob jokes. Seriously, no lie.

It's brutal, especially in its treatment of women, and obsurdly humorous at the same time. If you're a Miike fan, you'll love the early pointers to his later, brilliant, work. If you're anyone else, this is generally way too slow, whacked out and inexplicable for a mass audience.

However, as a casual rental - and that's what we're here for, right? - it's a stunning curiosity piece for one of the most significant, prolific, and downright original creative maestros of our time.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Not As Sci-Fi As It Sounds.

A Yakuza is brought back to life as a cyborg in this suitably strange and at times extremely gory Takashi Miike thriller. Not as sci-fi as it sounds, and definitely not the stuff of comic books. This may be a little slow at times, and the action is not as flamboyant as 'Ichi The Killer', but this is still entertaining in the usual Miike twisted way.