Film Review: Tokyo Ghoul (2017) - Japan

Tokyo Ghoul (2017) - Japan

Reviewed by Andrew Chan

This is the gore and violence genre that Japanese have been famous for over the past few decades. Countless of films about human fleshing eating and cruel machine gunning of body parts are the central core of these films. Tokyo Ghoul definitely does not step down in that department and even manages to excel and at times alluded to some difficult themes about human nature and survival. Still these are all superficially dealt with and the result is the gore, outright bloody violence and disgusting flesh eating factor overtaking these central themes. It can both be a blessing or a curse. 

Masataka Kubota headlines the film as the geek turned half human and half Ghoul that needs human flesh and coffee to satisfy his appetite. The opening cameo from Aoi Yu sets the tone well and is suitably terrifying. Luckily or unluckily upon her crushing death, her organs are donated to Kubota and thus begin his transformation into the world of Ghouls. There is a ghoul disguised coffee shop where the population of somewhat good hearted ghouls resides and Fumika Shimizu is one of them. Shimizu shows good presence and confidence in her role and her awkward chemistry with Kubota works. Then we have the two white doves aka Ghoul hunters trying to destroy the shadow populations. The result is some insane fight sequences and totally disguising sights to behold.

All in all, Tokyo Ghoul is one of those films where the over the top gore and violence ends up over shadowing everything from plot line to meaningful words or even it's characters. We get a thoroughly enjoying ride from start to finish and depending on level of appetite, your level of enjoyment will rise and fall. Make sure you watch with an empty stomach, let the viewers beware.

I rated it 3.5/5

Coming soon on Blu Ray and DVD at https://neofilmshop.com/search?q=tokyo