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 A policewoman who gets killed in the line of duty has her consciousness
transplanted into a "new cyborg body". The back of the box claims that "she
becomes the sexy super-heroine Robotrix" though I don't remember anyone in the
movie ever calling her that (they just called her Linda). Anyway, they claim
that "the fight against crime will never be the same". 1991, 94 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
If you see only one Hong Kong movie about a woman cop who is killed in the line
of duty by a crazed robotic scientist and is then brought back as a robot
herself by a couple of hottie robotic specialists (Hong Kong must be crawling
with folks who have expertise in the robot sciences - do they have a DeVry
Institute over there or something?), then you probably could do worse than Robotrix. Here was a movie that frequently made very little in the way of actual sense
(I never did get a grasp on what this Arabian sheik was babbling about when he
was talking about starting a "Robot Legion" and why was the fat, comic relief
cop named Puppy?), but periodically delivered some fight scenes involving
people flying through the air and get hitting hit with very large pipes. I
like to see people get hit with pipes. There was some funny moments, but if
you've ever seen a movie about Hong Kong cops, you were probably expecting
that. They were after all the group that had a hearty laugh when one cop threw
a severed breast on the back of another female cop in the otherwise sullen and
forgettable Dr. Lamb. They even threw in some sensitive scenes, such as when Joe Chow (hey, that's
what it says his name is on the Internet Movie Database) took his gal, Linda
(though he clearly keeps calling her Selina as does the back of the DVD box),
out to dinner for her birthday. Of course, he didn't realize that she had just
had all her thought patterns dumped into a perfect female robot body. In fact,
it's so
perfect, that he didn't realize it even as he was banging her brains out in the
next scene. Later, she tells him that she is a robot and somehow this involves
her taking her shirt off which didn't make a lot of sense to me, because he'd
already seen her shirtless on her birthday (Aaaaaaah-slut! Excuse me! I must
be allergic to these "sensitive" scenes or something). Joe was kind of like,
"yeah, I've seen your implants - that's why we're dating". The only thing you
need to get from this scene is that robot girls don't worry about stuff like
wearing bras.  Having established this movie's credentials as one of those
can't-miss-borrowing-the-DVD-from-your-buddy affairs, let's take a look at why
Hong
Kong has suddenly begun an affirmative action program in an effort to integrate
their police force with mechanical sluts. Linda is just you average copper who
is in charge of security for some rich Arabian prince and promptly gets
herself killed by some maniac that pumps knock out gas into the whirlpool room
where the prince is having an orgy (Linda is not yet a hooch made of metal, so
she discreetly waits outside). This maniac kidnaps the prince and leaves a
videotape on Linda's corpse. We then cut to the big Robot Expo that you may
remember Hong Kong had back in 1991 (Can you even remember back to a time when
the world wasn't overrun by robots?). This is where that whole Robot Legion
angle comes into play. The father of the Arabian prince wants to create a
Robot Legion (no, I don't know why or even what it is, but some robot fights
are coming up, so pipe down) and he is there evaluating the latest models. The
German model is some grody guy wearing a satin half shirt. The American
version is a guy wearing a black satin jumpsuit and a headband, making you
think that these first robots were designed to take over Broadway as kind of a
proving ground for their talents. These two robots engage in some rather
stilted combat and eventually run into each other's heads and collapse, with
the American robot going whacko and trying to attack the crowd. To the rescue
comes a silver female robot who beats up the American robot. It is revealed
that a *gasp* woman is the inventor of that robot and is in fact assisted by a
very human looking robot named Anna. The Arabian likes what he sees (and since
he's seeing Amy Yip instead of a pasty German guy in a crop top, the choice is
isn't too surprising) and signs them up for his Robot Legion. But then
he finds out his kid has been taken hostage and the videotape left with Linda
shows the villain to be this crazed robot builder named Ryuichi. He's pissed
because he wasn't picked to help out with the Robot Legion and shows that he
can transfer thoughts of a dying person into a robot body by killing himself
and returning in a real muscular body with a penchant for wearing leather.  Back at their secret robot lab, Anna and her creator Dr. Sara fix up Linda with
a shiny new robot body. I thought that the fact that these robots were built
with eye shadow
and lipstick already on them was a pretty neat feature. That she is a robot is
hidden from Joe Chow at this point, chiefly because a guy whose name is Joe
Chow surely doesn't have a lot of cognitive development and would thus be
unable to comprehend such a development (well without the aid of a topless
scene anyway). No time for any of that now since we need to be concentrating
on getting that Arabian prince rescued. And what of his captor? What sort of
nefarious plot has he hatched with his superior intellect and new found mega
powerful robotic body? He's buying hisself some hookers! At first I was
outraged that a supervillain like this guy would be spending his time and
abilities debasing himself like this, but the more I thought about it, the
more I became convinced that this was demonstrating a level of realism not
often seen in these Asian robot cop movies. I mean, really, if you had
acquired this hard new body and looked that good in leather pants, would you be
sitting around the lab cutting and pasting a ransom note for the Arabian prince
you have stashed in your abandoned railroad car hideout? Heck no! You'd be
hitting the discoteques in search of the lay-dees! Ryuichi gets himself one
and humps her to death and tosses her out the window of his third floor flop
house
room. The most telling thing about all this is that when Ryuichi is getting
down to business, he is totally naked except for his studded leather wrist
bands. I'm not sure what this tells us, but it must be telling us
something.  Back at police HQ, Joe Chow, Puppy, and the rest of the lovable scamps at the
4077th are bemoaning all the prostitutes that are being killed in the city.
Well, they actually call them "whores" for the duration of the movie, but
they're worried that if it keeps up all the whores in the city will be dead and
that the department will shut down their anti-pornography squad and be forced
to lay some of them off! Joe Chow announces he has a plan and someone
(probably Puppy) asks him if it's time for them to go undercover and dress like
whores again! Errr, not exactly. See, the Commish has assigned Linda and her
two robot pals Anna and Dr. Sara to the case, and Joe decides to put their
assets to good use. Since Anna has been going on and on about "sampling men's
love" ever since walking into the station house, it is decided that they will
set her up as a whore and wait for Ryuichi to come and see her and nab him
then. The beauty of this plan lies in its simplicity. No, wait. Actually,
the simplicity of this plan is pure idiocy. Anna enjoys the samples that Hong
Kong's horniest give her and soon there's a line outside the door into the
street (Is she in the yellow pages or something?) making you think she's more
intent on giving Annabel Chong a run for her money than in nabbing Ryuichi.
You've even got Puppy putting on a disguise to give her some little doggie
treats and finally it all gets shut down by the Commish. I don't recall how we
ever find this guy we're looking for, but I do remember a fight at a nightclub.
I also remember Puppy getting run over, a fight in a hospital, Ryuichi
throwing hand grenades at the cops, and a fight outside of town. There's also
time during all this to let us know that Joe Chow is scared of heights, thus
immediately revealing the end of the film will involve him climbing
something. Somehow they capture Ryuichi and remove his head and begin interrogating it.
They find out where the prince is being held. Dr. Sara and Ryuichi are left
alone in the lab for awhile and Ryuichi's body gets up, puts it head back on
and then goes and rapes Dr. Sara for awhile. Guess that's one lab that will
have to be re-sterilized. Linda, Anna, and Joe Chow arrive just in time to
engage in a very destructive battle to the death with Ryuichi. Linda ends up
getting a gigantic drill shoved into her chest by this guy and Anna has to try
and get him to cut it out. Joe Chow just gets slapped around by whatever robot
he gets in the way of. Ryuichi makes his escape and Anna and Joe Chow go after
him. One more final battle to the death occurs at the old abandoned scrap yard
and Ryuichi ends up having a large metal container dropped on him (whoops).
There's a happy ending for Linda and Joe Chow and Dr. Sara seemed to be
recovering nicely from her brutal rape, so despite the fact that one robot
turned into a slut, Joe's girlfriend got killed two or three times and the
kindly robot inventor got all raped and stuff, this was really one of those
movies you could enjoy with your kids since it shows that if you are able to
have your thought patterns transferred into a brand new body, you can survive
anything! This one falls into that "dumb but fun" category of movie - the type
we all secretly
wish we were watching while we're sitting through something like The Pianist or one of those Lord Of The Hobbits movies no one but guys who paint miniatures and talk about what level their
orc is (not me - I'm a twentieth level paladin!) like. You get your gore, kung
fu fights, gals in spandex, robots, lowbrow humor, and a guy named Puppy that
gets run over! You've even got an Arabian prince being tortured! Did I also
mention that you get the unintended laughs from the subtitles whenever they
refer to Ryuichi as a "psychic killer" when you just know they meant "psycho"
(at least I hope they did - I never saw any evidence that this guy was psychic.
A leather freak, yes. A mind reader, no.). This one is pretty much
everything you wished The Terminator was, but with robot cops instead of a killer cyborg and a couple of busty Asian
chicks in place of a busty Austrian guy.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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