Robotrix (1991)

Chikako Aoyama as "Linda" 
Amy Yip as "Anna" 
Hiu-Dan Hui as "Dr. Sara" 
David Wu as "Joe Chou" 
Billy Chow as "Sakamoto (robot)" 

Directed by Jamie Luk

Lord help me, I just have a tendency to buy DVDs without having seen them beforehand. Sure, I'm taking a chance with my $24.95, and I've been lucky enough to strike gold with titles such as "Magnolia," "Ninja Scroll," and "Gen-X Cops." Not long ago, however, I was perusing the DVD section at Tower Records and I came across a little gem called "Robotrix," with three beautiful women on the cover and a story about robots, specifically a policewoman brought to robotic life after being killed in the line of duty. Sounds like Robocop, eh? Well, I snapped it up, along with Hybrid's "Wider Angle" double album. And in case you're wondering, the CD is boss.

But it's "Robotrix" we're talking about here. I came home and looked up whatever reviews I could find to see if this film was worth the $24.95. I think I was suitably warned after reading up on this one. And so, with a little more background on my newest purchase, I popped it into my laptop and watched.the trailer. Half of the trailer is comprised of breast shots. No, I am not kidding you. I saw more breasts in the trailer than I saw in most of the R-rated movies I had seen in my lifetime (excluding Eyes Wide Shut, of course). And then I watched the rest of the movie.

Now, when you make a film and your first scene displays six or seven naked women all at once, then it's a safe bet that tactics such as these are necessary to hold your audience's attention. I get the feeling that the creators of "Robotrix" had that in mind, which is why the nudity starts about three or four minutes into the picture, as a Middle Eastern prince takes a bath with six very beautiful, and very nude women. This is right before the eyes of his security detail, led by a business-minded policewoman named Linda. While Linda steps away for a bit, the entire party, including the other cops, are gassed, and a reasonably big guy makes off with the prince. When Linda tries to confront the kidnapper, he immediately shoots the cop, and she is hauled off to the hospital. Of course, she doesn't make it.

Enter the benevolent Dr. Sara and her android assistant, Anna. After demonstrating Sara's newest creation, Eve-27, at a show for the prince's father (hereby referred to within the film as "the Oil Sheik"), she watches a videocassette sent to the Sheik. On the tape, the mad scientist Sakamoto (Chung Lam in this scene, Billy Chow in the rest of the film) demonstrates his own technique, implanting the thoughts of the dead into a robot. He kills himself, and as he dies, his thoughts are transferred into the same robot that kidnapped the prince and killed Linda. Dr. Sara reasons that the only way to defeat Sakamoto is to find a dead police officer whose experiences and thoughts they can transfer into Eve-27, making her an invaluable resource.

It doesn't take much to figure that Linda's thoughts will be transferred into the robot. Even though she doesn't believe it at first, all it takes is one look at her corpse to convince her, and then she's back on the force, picking up where she left off and heading up her boyfriend's task force. Their job is to track down a so-called "psychic killer" (according to the subtitles, though it could have been "psycho killer") who just so happens to be Sakamoto. (But aren't they supposed to be tracking down the Prince?) In any case, any attempt to describe the excuse for a plot further would just give me a headache.

However, you're not watching "Robotrix" for a plot. You're watching it for the sex and violence, and it definitely contains both in major quantities. One subplot sees Anna volunteering to go undercover as a prostitute (bait for the "psychic killer") in order to "give men's lovemaking a try." Things get out of hand when she becomes very popular, unfortunately. The subplot between Linda and her boyfriend Joe also seem to be another excuse to show breasts onscreen. As for violence, there's a most interesting decapitation in one scene.I'll leave it at that.

I wonder if this movie was ever envisioned as good during development and production, but at least director Jamie Luk gives us a film that keeps moving. There could be a little more action and a little less sex, but at least there's enough of each to keep it from getting boring. The cast is passable, but I suspect they were cast mostly for their looks, especially the leading ladies. Still, the acting isn't really that bad, though there aren't any standouts either.

Stylistically, this film's brightly colored comic-like design brings to mind Japanese anime, especially when you consider that there already exists an anime with a similar plot. Yes, I'm talking about 8-Man, a cop-turned-cyborg story that predates even Robocop. If you look hard enough, Eve's original form bears a slight resemblance to 8-Man. Even so, while she looks cheesy, she looks much better than other 'bots present, who look very much like rejects from bad '80s videos (and at worst, '80s-era "Doctor Who" rejects).

Still, for a blind purchase, I don't regret buying "Robotrix." It's not an original idea by any stretch (though it bears more similarity to 8-Man than Robocop), but it takes the cyborg supercop plot and runs with it for a solid hour and a half. I've seen much better, but I've also seen much worse, and "Robotrix" is never boring, which should say enough.

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