Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion Director's Cut [Blu-ray]

Description

Combustion (2011) is the second of three features based on the Mardock Scramble novels by Tow Ubukata. After being rescued from a murderous gunfight with Dimsdale Boiled by Dr. Easter, agent Rune Balot finds temporary peace in the lab facility known as Paradise. As she wanders through its candy-colored forests, she waits for the mysterious figure known as Oeufcoque to recover. The villain engineering their problems is Shell Septinos, whose dangerous memories are stored in microchips hidden inside million-dollar chips in a flashy casino. Easter and Rune head for the casino, with Oeufcoque appearing as a glowing golden mouse, then as a pair of gloves that help Rune win at cards and roulette. At just over 60 minutes, Second Combustion plays like two episodes of an ongoing series. It begins where the first film ended and stops where the third presumably begins. The characters don't really grow or change, and the plot doesn't go much of anywhere--or make much sense. It's difficult to understand why it's being released on its own, rather than the three films as a set. The egg-based names quickly become inadvertently funny, but the gratuitous nudity and violence feel like throwbacks to the days of Demon City Shinjuku. In addition to the theatrical version of Second Combustion, the disc includes a director's cut that's about four minutes longer, but no clearer. The Mardock Scramble books were also adapted to a manga series, but plans for both an OVA and a live-action film failed to materialize. (Rated TV MA, VSD: graphic violence, violence against women, grotesque imagery, extensive nudity, tobacco and drug use) --Charles Solomon