I.K.U.

I recently took a trip to my favorite local indie movie shop to look for a copy ofHideo Nakata's Dark Water. Ifound it on VCD, but in the process also stumbled across a bizarre lookingmovie called I.K.U., which billed itself asJapanese Sci-Fi Cyber Porn, or something along those lines. This descriptionis apt, but not particularly invocative of the subject matter.

The story line, such as it is, is that at some point in the future, theGenom Corporation is sending out sex-drones to collect ecstasy data for aproduct they are developing called Iku Chips. Once the chips have beenfinalized, they will be for sale in vending machines, where anyone canpurchase one and use it to experience extreme sexual pleasure without need ofa partner. Or, at least, that's as much of the plot as I could make out.

The main bulk of the film consists of one of these drones traveling thefuture-city, and having sex (while in one of several different forms) withvarious eager partners. What is notable about this movie, however, isn't theplot, or lack thereof, which would just make it another lame skin flick. Itis the fact that it is presented along with "futuristic" wire-frame graphics,psychedelic montages, Jap-pop musical interludes, and other random tidbits ofweirdness.

This flick is full of the bizarre. Some of the cut-scenes look like pointedrip-offs of graphics from the video game Rez.At one point, one couple was going at it in the background of a screen whoseforeground was overlaid with the image of a school of fish swimming around inthe aquarium; every now and then one of them would turn to the screen and saysomething in (supposedly) Japanese. There was a repeated gimmick of thesex-drone turning her arm into a giant glowing phallus, which would then beinserted into an aperture in her partner — accompanied with trippy CGI shotsof the member moving around in glowing vaginal or anal tracts. To top it alloff, half of the actresses sound like they're trying to speak English withoutunderstanding a word of it. At times it almost sounds as though they'respeaking some bizarre pidgin. They may well be, it beats me.

Article Author: Robert Jones

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