Despite its title, this theatrical feature has little to do with the
mecha adventures and ensemble comedy of the popular broadcast series
Mobile Police Patlabor. Inspector Shin'ichiro Hata of the Tokyo Police is assigned to investigate an unexplained series of violent and grisly deaths. Instead of the rogue
mecha the
Patlabor team fight, the killer is a weird, amphibious monster, the product of yet another biotech experiment gone wrong. Hata meets the beautiful scientist who created the monster--using cells from the cancer that killed her daughter. The familiar characters Noa Izumi, Isao Ota, and Captain Goto appear in brief cameos when they dispatch the mutant monster in a half-ruined stadium. Director Fumihiko Takayama tries to emulate the look and tone of Hiroyuki Okiura's
Jin-Roh, but fails to generate the ominous tension that distinguished
The Wolf Brigade. (Rated R: violence, grotesque imagery, profanity, tobacco use)
--Charles Solomon
Reader Reviews
