This ridiculously silly low budget B-movie was actually brought to my attention (though strictly not “recommended”) by fellow blogger tokyo5 who mentioned it in a comment on my ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III‘ review a couple of years ago.

Having heard that this comedy, horror film holds a rare 0% rating on the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes website (based on the percentage of approved critics giving it a positive review) I thought that I have got to see this so after forking out a few quid on the dvd I settled down to watch it in the early hours of a jet-lagged morning.

Now, of course I haven’t seen the 1984 original but that doesn’t really matter as what little storyline there is, is often explained in the narrative including the lady from the abominable Apocalypse Corporation explaining to her members the background on the Toxic Avenger and some lame connection to Tokyo which sees the Toxic Avenger come  here to find his father. The first film was a big hit in Japan and was I guess the reason they came here to make the sequel much like what happened in the equally awful ‘The Bad News Bears Go To Japan‘ (1978).

This tripe was served up by those kings of campy movies; Troma Entertainment, with the imaginatively titled Tromaville being the home town of the Toxic Avenger who, five years on from the original, is now around to protect its people from all manner of evil. Once he’s been lured to Tokyo by his shrink (working undercover for the enemy) his absence gives the Apocalypse corporation the chance to take over his beloved Tromaville where they have their sights set on first owning it and then destroying it and turning it into a toxic dump or something along those lines. Of course, its then up to the deformed superhero of superhuman size and strength to save the day.

Japan is first seen 34 minutes into the movie with locations including Tokyo Tower, the Yamanote platform, Asakusa Senso-ji, the area around Harajuku station, a pachinko parlour, Tokyo station, Tsukiji fish market and a tsukudani (small seafood, meat or seaweed simmered in soy sauce and mirin) boutique in Tsukishima.

There seems to be some debate to the edit of the film but my version was the directors cut which, at 102 minutes long, has an extra 6 minutes of gore! Lucky me! In fact the original edit was supposedly over 4 hours long so it was split into two movies so ‘The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie‘ followed 8 months later in the same year. I can kind of see why it’s supposedly a cult film among the younger generation  as the action is often fun in a “so-bad-its-good” way. It’s also got a fair amount of gratuitous nudity and foul behaviour as well as its own catchy theme song at the start to keep them attentive throughout.

Tokyo Fox Rating 4/10