I.K.U.

If you look at the box art and read the description this movie sounds like a Japanese "Barbarella" with sex scenes. Instead what you get is a silly porn masquerading as art. The problem is it is not good enough to be great porn or great art. The sex scenes are lifeless and forced, even for porn standards. And the qualities that should make it rise above porn status are lacking. The "high tech" graphics are cheesy, desktop animated, three- dimensional renders over live action video. Even in 2000 the look of these graphics is outdated and poor. The anything that would give it a story is non-existent, meaning you get an hour and a half of lame sex scenes, but nothing to connect them to some plot or story like the box suggests. In the end you are left wondering why watched it when there are many other actual science fiction movies, or actual porn movies for that matter, that actually achieve their intended goal. This just falls short of both!

IKU isn't even worth being called porn, because simply it lacks anything resembling erotic. There isn't anything here for anyone other than young teens who are unable to purchase porn from the local adult store. Like another movie called BAISE MOI, IKU was made for people who thinks getting plain brown packages in the mail is still too indiscreet for their tastes.

In other words, no one with any obvious taste would watch IKU. Even for porn, it's not well done and doesn't offer up enough porn material to make it worthwhile.

Stay away.

2 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of the movie and reviews of other foreign films)

Japanese sci-fi porn about sex robots going out and collecting sexual data by having sex. There really isn't a plot (There's an idea but it doesn't amount to much of anything),just flashy visuals and erotic imagery.

As a collection of images its great but there is little beyond it. Its a variety of couplings with text over them explaining the company that makes the robots and what the background for it all is. A chunk of it is pixelated and a few shots are graphic, but after about ten minutes, when you realize its not going anywhere, it begins to fall down. While I like the idea of the flashy visuals mixing with sex and a semi clever idea, I hate that it just doesn't go anywhere (and does so really fast).

Better to rent an Japanese porn video.

This film had a great deal of potential to merge hardcore pornography with art in the same fashion as the last days of American 35mm adult cinema. Instead of getting a cross between a Rinse Dream film and Blade Runner, we are left with a cyber punk piece of censored frustration. Shots are not held long enough for the raincoat crowd, and the Japanese fogging makes everything that much cheesier. There is some very creative and beautiful camera work going on and the women are pretty hot, but who really cares.

This film got a bit of attention in the press when it was the first porn to ever be screened at Sundance. It was hyped as "erotic entertainment of the future"; an adult film made with a geek sensibility. Ultimately, it comes across as being pretentious, boring, and most importantly, completely devoid of sexual heat. There's supposedly a plot involving the evil operator of a virtual reality habitat that provides sex for anyone that "jacks in" (pun intended). But, you have to read the supplemental material on the DVD to get a sense of it. It's an embarrassingly cheap looking future, littered with BLADE RUNNER references and knock-off Wendy Carlos music ( cued when sub-par dance music from the mid-90's isn't being played). The sex scenes involving penis to vagina contact are all blurred; understandable for a Japanese release, completely unacceptable for a U.S. DVD. Don't even bother renting this movie.