A tank with a fighter-jet ejection seat and six anti-tank missiles tears through a neon-soaked city while lounge jazz plays like the vehicle itself is the real star. This is 1982 believing harder in its own absurdity than any show made a decade later. The MBT-99A doesn't just move through space, it moves through pure aesthetic will, and the film never blinks about it.
In the crime-ridden high-tech metropolis of Centinel City, a futuristic 2001, a reckless young traffic officer is picked to join the Techno Police, a new SCPD unit that pairs officers with robot partners called Technoids. Kyosuke works alongside his robot Blader, the powerful Vigorus and its partner Kosuga, and Eleanor with the hacker robot Scanny. When criminals working for a shadowy foreign-backed group hijack the experimental MBT-99A tank, the team forces them out. Eleanor climbs in to examine the machine, only for it to start moving on its own, programmed to reach a pier and meet an enemy submarine. What follows is a high-speed chase through the city streets as the Techno Police pursue the heavily armed tank. The film is an action-driven mecha adventure that treats its tank with open admiration.
