Meet NYPD Sgt. Harry Griswold, a streetwise cop who becomes possessed with the spirit of a great Kabuki master, transforming him into the world’s most unusual super-human hero. Using a new arsenal incuding fatal sushi heatseeking chopsticks and pyro projectile parasols, Sgt. Kabukiman must save the day! Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. is written by Lloyd Kaufman, Andrew Osborne, Jeffrey W. Sass, Fumio Furuya, Satoshi Kitahara, Robert Coffey and Cliff Hahn. It is directed by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz. The acting is pretty good and a lot of it is tongue in cheek, this is first and foremost a comedy. The camerawork and editing is good. The soundtrack is good, the main theme is surprisingly catchy. The pacing is good, it´s never far between the laughs or the action. There´s the usual no holds barred approach from Troma Entertainment, we get crazy comedy with some fantastic dialogue and set pieces mixed with often pretty gory violence. I´m sure that this isn´t for everyone, there are quite a lot of scenes that some viewers might consider goofy and plain ridiculous but this is part of the recurring themes from Troma (although there´re are exceptions). There´s topless nudity and sexual situations in this. There is some cartoonish gore and couple of pretty juicy squibs when people get shot. There are also som epretty nice creature fx, man in suit fx I believe, towards the end.
This review is based upon the region all (region 0) DVD release from Troma Entertainment.
Rating: 5 out of 7. Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. is a pretty good mix of action, carefree crazy comedy and fantasy. It made me think of The Mask (1994) starring Jim Carrey but this predates it (although I´m not sure about when they started to publish the Mask comic book, just remember reading it). It´s a really funny and entertaining flick and in my opinion it is a great alternative to the big budget studio efforts. I would have liked it to be a little bit gorier, I would have loved if the climatic battle between Sgt. Kabukiman and the monster had been given more screentime.
/JL
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