MPD Psycho

Siren Visual

3 Disc Set

R4 DVD

MPD Psycho is a very strange six part miniseries directed by Takashi Miike. It is based on a rather extreme and graphic comic book, but as it was made for Japanese TV it has been stripped of a lot of the gore. Miike made a rather quirky decision in regards to the series, when he was required to censor the nudity scenes he decided, by way of protest, to also censor all scenes of violence and gore as well. Accordingly, any graphic content is covered by a blur and this really has a detrimental effect on the whole series.

The story centres on a serial killer named Shinji Nishozono who has died. However, all is not as it seems, he can transfer his essence via digital means and starts to infect others. Now this many seem strange but it is only the start of the weirdness of MPD Psycho. The detective in charge of the case is Amamiya but this is only one aspect of his personality. It seems he witnessed his wife get butchered by Nishozono and developed multiple personalities in response, as Amamiya he kills an unarmed suspect but as Yousuke Kobayashi cannot remember doing so.

Nishozono’s digital essence is now being transferred to others who then develop a digital bar code on their eyeballs after receiving a call from Lucy Monostone who sings them a strange psychedelic song.

While MPD Psycho is surreal and intriguing it is really let down by the censoring. It covers so much of the action of the film and makes the series fairly ineffectual by removing a lot of the shock value of pivotal scenes as well as much of the suspense and quite a bit of the context. Sometimes you see a killing, yet loose most of the details as they have been textured over.

At the same time, there are lots of weird, strange and downright bizarre scenes in MPD Psycho which make it an interesting series. Some of the special effects are pretty lame, especially later in the series, but there is enough there to sustain your interest.

After watching the whole series I end up being in two minds, I generally love Miike films but the combination of digital censoring (and it seems there is no uncensored edition available) and extremely surreal nature of the plot which at times borders on nonsensical, makes it hard to reach a final conclusion about what I actually think about it . Fans of Miike are also divided about this one, so I suggest you watch it yourself and make up your own mind.

This review will appear in Volume 2:1 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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