Well, here’s a ticklish situation: Is KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR a bad film, or a good film trying to be bad, or a film so good at being bad that it’s actually bad? Japanese director Noboru Iguchi — the man who previously brought you such nuanced classics as ZOMBIE ASS: TOILET OF THE DEAD and the “F is for Fart” segment of THE ABCS OF DEATH — here tones down his predilection for raunchiness in order to adapt a 70’s tokusatsu TV classic about Secret Police agent Yutaka Daimon and his karate-fightin’ robot/motorcycle Zaborgar as they wage war on the fearsome, world-conquering Dr. Akunomiya and his not-completely credible henchpeople. Not that things are totally restrained, here, what with an attack by a giant, incontinent ant-man, weird (really weird) robot sex, and a widowed male scientist so dedicated to his sons that he breast-feeds them (yeah: ew). Throw in a mid-film ellipsis that flings the narrative twenty-five years into the future and has a now-aged Daimon re-engaging with the his arch-enemies, and you’ve got one of the weirdest, and most divisive, films explored here at the Temple of Bad.
Come join ToB participants Andrea Lipinski, Kevin Lauderdale, new regular Orenthal V. Hawkins, and Dan Persons, as they discuss whether all this is bad, brilliant, or conclusive evidence that the whole of Japanese society is seriously in need psychotherapy.
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