A teen prostitute gets a second life as a cyborg weapon—and her savior might be worse than her killer.
Rune Ballot is a down-and-out teen prostitute in Mardock City. One day, she's picked up by an ambitious casino manager named Shell who gives her everything she could want. Renewed by a false innocence, a false past, and now the false life Shell has given her, Ballot feels grateful. However, she can't help but be curious about why he's done so much for her, so she does some research about his past on a computer. This turns out to be a mistake which will change her life greatly. When Shell finds out what she's done, he attempts to burn her to death by blowing up her car.
Direction
GoHands' hyper-stylized rotoscoped chaos, for better and worse.
Acting
Hayashibara's fragile-feral duality carries the entire runtime.
Production
Mardock City's grotesque casino-baroque aesthetics are genuinely immersive.
Director
Susumu Kudo
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Megumi Hayashibara recorded her lines while visibly pregnant, channeling raw physical vulnerability into Ballot's desperation.
The Mardock trilogy adapts Tow Ubukata's novel across three films—this compression guts the source material's philosophical density for pure sensory assault.
No ratings yet
Sign in to join the discussion — comments are spoiler-gated to your watch progress.
Discussion starters
JP
