Pinocchio Japan Style

Posted on Aug 13, 2010

Maid-Droid (2009)

Directed By: Naoyuki Tomomatsu

Review Written By: Justin Bozung
Mondo Film & Video Guide Editor

First let me just say that I adore this movie in so many ways.  Instantly I like it, cause it has NO listing on IMDb.com.   The Japanese have been putting out some of craziest and coolest releases over the last 10 years.  And this film, Maid-Droid is a perfect example of such.

Clocking in at just over 60 minutes, Maid-Droid is a Japanese homage to Spielberg values.  The film is the story of a man, and his robot.   Spielberg fans are you sitting up in your chairs? The film is told in flashback sequences. It begins with Ueno in his late 70′s all alone in his Japanese city house.  His maid-droid Maria’s power supply is dead.  He goes about his day, lonely, and his story starts as he thinks back to when he was a teenager, and his parents gave him Maria, a prototype Maid-Droid to him as a gift.    Ueno’s parents die in a car crash. He inherits their fortune, and decides to just let Maria take care of him.   Over the years, he falls in love with his droid Maria.   He very much wants to have sex with her, but because she is a prototype, her features are not current, like other Maid-Droids on the market, and she has no sexual capabilities.   Trying to find a solution, nothing can fix this issue.  Ueno, brings home a actual real life women, and they try to have sex, but he is displeased and unable, cause he’s in love with Maria.

With no solution available. Maria offers Ueno the option to “trade her in” and replace her body with a newer model, transferring her memory circuits into a new unit.   She loves him, and wants him sexually as well.  Ueno decides not to allow this, as he would lose the Maria that he’s fallen in love with.   So the only solution, BLOWJOB!    Yep, Maid-Droid goes from a sad hearted love story, to a soft core porno.   And it all happens in the bath baby.  The Japanese are weirdo’s about how they bathe.   They sit on stool buck nekkid and hose them-selves off.  Kinda cool but weird.   So since Maria is to serve Ueno, she washes him in the bath daily.  And one day, on Maria’s own will and decision, she decides that if they can’t have sex, then there is another way she thinks will please him.   And she blows him.  And for the next 5 minutes, in a poor shot choice by the director, you see the back of a head in close up, with the sounds of a Japanese women in pig-tails sucking down a Slurpie.

Continuing through flashback, they have a wonderful life together.  They of course, can’t have children, but they are deeply in love.   Eventually time catches up with Ueno, and as he ages, Maria the Maid-Droid doesn’t.  Until, Ueno reaches the age of 70, and Maria’s power supply runs out.    As Maria was a proto-type, her power supply was rare, and many years ago discontinued.   Ueno has lost the lost of his life, and is forced to live alone until his death, as the broken Maria rests in the stairwell.     Ueno prays and begs for mercy for his Maria to return to him.   And, seconds before the credit’s roll, the camera zooms in slowly on the face of Maria, and a single tear drips down her face.   Did Ueno’s wish come true?

Pinocchio anyone?  I’ve left out some other aspects of the plot that are really amazing and interesting, like the “Rape Machine” loose on the streets of Toyko. And also, the 10 minute off point section where a customer spends time “testing” a sexy blonde Japanese droid doggy style, as the salesman explains the “tightening options” and the “orgasm options.”   You’ll have to see this film, to believe it.  As art imitates life, there have been numerous news reports and articles written about Japanese culture, that explain that if people in Japan don’t start to pro-create, they will die out in two lifetimes.  Japanese women are reporting that Japanese men are not satisfactory.  And with standards changing, Japanese women are becoming more and more independent. I guess you can kinda see where this movie is coming from. Maid-Droid is an amazing film.

Easily considered  trash cinema, I found it to actually be a beautiful science fiction love story, Japanese style, with a bizzare sex twist.   Akiho Yoshizawa is perfect as Maria.  She’s simply beautiful, and it’s not difficult to understand how a man could fall in love with THIS robot.    Director Naoyuki Tomomatsu has been bringing us really fun films for the last decade, including the amazing, Eat The Schoolgirls, and the HD video schoolgirl comedy zombie flix – Stacy: Attack Of The Schoolgirl Zombies.  Check all of these out immediately.

Justin Bozung is the editor of the Mondo Film & Video Guide.  You can email him directly at justinb@mondo-video.com