This nineties-era Japanese thriller, whose plot is neatly summed up
by its subtitle, has amassed a minor cult following, even though it
isn’t all that good.
The Package
This 1991 effort, a.k.a. MIKADROIDO, was produced by
Toho Studios for the Japanese video market. That’s evident in the cheesy
photography and low budget special effects. Beyond that there’s not a
whole to say about this film, outside the fact that it’s attained a
following due to Video Search of Miami founder/ASIAN CULT CINEMA editor
Thomas Weisser, who for some reason promoted it incessantly, and that it
features the filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (of CURE,
SEANCE and PULSE) in a small role.
The Story
Underneath Tokyo’s popular Disco Club Layla is an
abandoned laboratory where back in WWII a heavily armored android
soldier was created from an athlete’s body by the Japanese military. The
“Mikadroid” is still in the laboratory, and late one night springs back
to life after decades of inactivity. This is bad news for those
unfortunate folks afoot in the club’s underground parking lot; they
include a bimbo who’s slashed to death by the Mikadroid and a
skate-boarder machine gunned in mid-skate.
A young woman and her mate manage to elude the
Mikadroid, who pursues them through an underground labyrinth. Also afoot
in the area are two athletes who were part of the WWII experiments, and
are now looking to take down their android colleague. This will be
tough, as in addition to the arsenal of weaponry the Mikadroid
possesses, the thing also has spikes that emerge from its back and
entrap people--including its former colleagues!
The Direction
This film has a certain rotgut charm. In my view it’s
impossible for any movie subtitled ROBOKILL BENEATH DISCO CLUB LAYLA to
be completely uncompelling. There’s some diverting violence, notably the
early slashing of a young woman that spins her around and around in a
dance macabre. With more scenes like this one the film could have ended
up a goofy exploitation classic in the mold of
LADY TERMINATOR.
Alas, it’s not.
The proceedings are staunchly action oriented, yet
excessively ponderous and slow moving. This seems due in large part to a
lack of content; even though the running time is only 73 minutes (at
least five of which are taken up with credits), there’s a lot of evident
padding. A making-of segment on the 2006 DVD release reveals that the
filmmakers had a lot of promising ideas that for various reasons didn’t
end up in the finished film. It seems the only idea that really did make
it through was that of a bunch of people chased around by a murderous
android…and that’s been done before!
Vital Statistics
MIKADROID: ROBOKILL BENEATH DISCO CLUB LAYLA (MIKADROIDO)
Toho/TFC/Tsuburaya Eizo
Director: Tomoo Haraguchi
Producer: Akira Tsubaraya
Screenplay: Tomo’o Haraguchi
Cinematography: Yousuke Mamiya
Cast: Yoriko Doguchi, Yuki Yoshida, Hiroshi Atsumi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa,
Sandayuu Dokumamushi, Kenji Hayami, “Little Man” Machan, Leo Morimoto,
Masako Takeda
