Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)

Way down in the lower depths of Jailhouse 41 (it’s not actually called that in the movie), the eponymous Scorpion (aka Matsu, played by Meiko Kaji) lies chained, subject to the sadistic whims of the cycloptic warden Gorda (Fumio Watanabe).  After enduring humiliations from both guards and fellow inmates alike, Matsu and six other prisoners make good their escape.  But their flight to freedom will prove more harrowing than their stay in the penitentiary.

Meiko Kaji is one of those cultural icons revered more for their looks (i.e. the act of looking, not their physical traits, though she is also a striking beauty) than any thespian skills.  This isn’t to say she can’t act, but from what I’ve see, she’s rarely called upon to do more than clench her jaw and glare.  And she does both spectacularly well.  Here in Shunya Ito’s Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (the second entry in this influential series), the entirety of her performance is physical.  She doesn’t speak at all until near the film’s end, and then it’s only two lines of dialogue.  Nonetheless, we know exactly what’s going on in her head at all times (it helps a bit that this generally boils down to three emotions: hatred, suspicion, and pity).  This is Matsu’s strength.  She doesn’t mince words because there’s nothing left to be said.  The ultimate pragmatist, Matsu sees the world for what it is – a merciless, misogynistic shit hole – and deals with it in the same way that it has dealt with her.  All of this is reflected in her eyes.

Speaking of eyes and reflections, Jailhouse 41 is rife with them, and not only from Kaji.  Gorda’s dead, false eye attempts to consume and violate Matsu’s soul.  His eye, Matsu’s eyes, and Oba’s eyes (the contagonist or secondary antagonist, if you wish, played by Kayoko Shiraishi) all give off the same look throughout the film but with different meanings.  Matsu’s deadpan stare is a retreat into herself, a fortification against the external world, and a coiled trap waiting to be sprung.  Her fellow prisoners misread her limp inactivity as acquiescence and apathy, when, in fact, it is anything but.  Gorda’s eye is a metaphoric monster and the ugliness inside the male psyche, the male id unleashed.  He’s a lecher and a brute, not above using his status and his staff to destroy the women in his charge.  When first we meet him, he’s one year into his attempt to drive Matsu insane (it can be argued that he’s wasting his time, because she already is, in a sense).  The blacked-out lens of his glasses reveals for the audience the cruelty and alienation in the man, as we espy the horrors he subjects others to in it.  His false eye, when it’s finally popped out of his head, presents not just a victory but also a portal to an alternate reality, a looking glass world where the events of the narrative never took place (and if you think about it, this shot is similar to the first shots of the film which focus on Matsu’s eyes, and the entire film can be seen as a pure dream/nightmare sequence from her perspective).  Finally, Oba’s gaze is pure bestial fury (she’s even honest enough to admit this – “I know I’m a beast!”).  She hates everyone and everything, a nihilist preferring the solitude of her rage to what sisterhood she may form with the other escapees.  Everyone is an enemy, because they’re different from her, and she’s paranoid enough to believe that this matters (not without some reason).  This comes through crystal clear in her baleful gaze (often cast from under her eyebrows).  

These three viewpoints form a worldview of how these women (all seven of them, but, by extension, all women) are seen and treated.  In one of several fantasy sequences, the crimes of the escapees are described.  The women kneel, dressed in matching outfits (like their batik prison uniforms, this unifies them) before a field of blackness.  The camera glides past each as a narrator (in, I’m guessing here, Noh Theatre style) sings of their sins.  While they are all guilty of their individual crimes, it is stressed that all of these women were driven to commit them by men.  This tableau is presided over by an old woman.  She was found, alone and deranged and clutching a knife in a death grip, in an abandoned village.  She, too, has been cast off by the world of men, and it has destroyed her.  She is a portent of what will happen to all of the protagonists, but it’s Matsu who refuses to accept this fate.  Later, we see a reenactment of Oba’s crime.  In it, the local villagers surround her, net her, and beat her.  Oba transforms into each of the escapees, tormented by the people who put she and them in this position.  Again, it’s Matsu who stands up defiant, the ideal of feminine individuality in the film.

Jailhouse 41 is as gorgeous and carefully crafted as any film from Japan at this time (it does bear some stylistic clichés of the era, but they fit for the nightmare quality of the picture) while being as enthralling as any exploitation movie made.  For as sleazy as it is, however, the tone is grim.  This isn’t light fare, though it certainly has heightened moments.  Its exploitation elements are more condemnatory than titillating.  The film is designed to provoke some thought, not erections (or at least I found nothing sexy here).  What I did find was excellent filmmaking for any level of budget or genre constraints.

This will likely be the only film from the Arrow bluray box set that I review.  This is not because I don’t like the others in the series (they’re all fantastic in their own ways), but they do tend toward a certain formula (this one being the exception) which would make further reviews redundant.  Then again, who knows?  Maybe I’ll come back and want to dip my toes and pen in these waters somewhere down the road.  Anyway, the set is outstanding, packed with the usual quality supplements in which Arrow excels.  There has been talk about the color timing on these films, and I have to say that the level of blue in this film is noticeable, but I also feel that it adds to the atmosphere of the piece.  I also know that Arrow stated that this coloring is due to the level of restoration they performed on the original materials, so if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

MVT:  Ito displays a deft hand, stylishly and narratively.

Make or Break:  The scene where the prisoners are punished for an attempted riot proves their breaking point, and it may be the viewer’s, as well.

Score:  8/10 

Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973)

What’s the allure of people in uniforms?  Men and women alike share this attraction, the most common cliché (to my mind) being police officers (though I’m sure soldiers and fire fighters get some loving from both sides as well).  I think the draw comes partially from the barriers society has between work and play.  Picking up a police officer off the clock is one thing, but getting them to drop their official duties for some nookie is a formal transgression that amps up the erotic, “naughty” aspect of the tryst.  Men, being pigs, expand their horizons on this fetish.  This is where the classic French maid and (especially) schoolgirl outfits come into play.  Maybe it’s the amount of leg showing from underneath the short skirts.  Maybe it’s the power play of seducing/corrupting young, nubile co-eds.  Maybe it’s a fantasy of older men to reaffirm their sexual attractiveness to young women and stave off obsolescence.  Maybe it’s none of that, maybe all, maybe more.  Any way you slice it, the schoolgirl trope is, and likely always will be, with us as a sexual pipe dream (pardon the pun).  Certainly, the Japanese have embraced, run with, and jumped off the cliff of this proclivity, and they sure aren’t shy about taking it to extremes.  All one needs do is have a gander at Noribumi Suzuki’s Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom (aka Kyofu Joshikoko Boko Rinchi Kyoshitsu), wherein student Michiyo (Emi Jo) is tied up in the school’s science lab while other students in red surgical masks slice her breasts with a scalpel and drain her blood before dropping her off the school’s roof.  And this is only the film’s first few minutes.

Three young troublemakers, Noriko (Miki Sugimoto), Razorblade Remi (Misuzu Ota), and Kyoko (Seiko Saburi), are sent to the School of Hope for Girls where they run afoul of the resident Disciplinary Committee headed by sadistic student Yoko (Ryoko Ema).  Naturally, there are people higher up pulling the Committee’s strings, and Noriko hatches a plan to take them all down for very personal reasons.  And then Reiko Ike shows up as a rival gang member to further obfuscate Noriko’s scheme.

Lynch Law Classroom is an example of the Pinky Violence genre, one not necessarily exclusive to Japan in terms of its elements but absolutely in the refinement and expansion them (Plus, I believe that the actual term Pinky Violence refers only to Japanese product, the same way that Poliziotteschi refers to crime movies made in Italy).  I won’t pretend to know all the ins and outs, the highs and lows of the Pinky Violence genre, but here’s what I do know based on my relatively narrow experience.  These films all feature strong females as their protagonists (and they are usually members of, if not leaders of, a girl gang).  There is commonly another girl gang whom the protagonist has to fight with and/or gain the respect of (though this element is many times more of a subplot that will have to be resolved after the big finale, much like in the vast majority of the Zatoichi films).  They all feature yakuza on whom the protagonist typically wants to take revenge for the death of some loved one.  More than these, the Pinky Violence genre, holding true to its name, highlights sex and bloodshed, often in the same scene.  Women are routinely bound up and tortured with everything from knives to genital trauma to cigarette burns, and those are probably some of the tamer means.  Sex is plentiful with lots of groping, breast gnawing, butt shots, and so on, and lesbian loving gets almost as much screentime as straight, so fair play on that.  Toei Company, Ltd, the studio that produced a vast array of the more popular Pinky Violence films including this one, had the genre down to a formula, and damn it all if they didn’t do it extremely well.  Granted, some are better than others, but the same can be said for Universal’s classic monster movies of the Thirties through the Forties. 

The women in these movies are in no way, shape, or form shrinking violets, nor are they afraid to get their hands dirty.  Noriko is a badass of the first order.  When she is caught trying to boost a car, she immediately throws down with both the car’s owner and the cops who arrive on the scene.  Remi doesn’t bat an eye at taking on a gang of thugs who harass her in her little cowgirl outfit.  Kyoko gives a “helping hand” to the trucker who gave her a lift, causing him to run into a cop and wreck his vehicle.  She’s pretty blasé about the whole affair, and that’s the thing about the tough girl characters in this genre.  They are cold as ice, all business, and taking no shit from anyone.  They are, for all intents and purposes, the same generic characters as are given us in just about any Yakuza film you could hit with a dart, the only difference being their gender.  This means that honor and revenge play a huge part in the proceedings, and this film is no exception.  Noriko is at the school specifically to avenge the murder of her friend and lieutenant, and it’s this touch of humanity that demarcates the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.  The male yakuza in this film couldn’t care less about other people, even the ones in their own organization, but Noriko and her friends share a bond that goes beyond that of mere association.  Hence, despite the lengths to which they are willing to go, the cruelties in which they will partake, Noriko and company are compelling and likeable as protagonists.

There is also a strong theme of hypocrisy in the guise of decency flowing through Lynch Law Classroom.  The local juvenile delinquent cop writes up Michiyo’s murder as an accident.  Vice Principal Ishihara (Kenji Imai) runs the Disciplinary Committee, and his sole concern at this juncture is making sure that the school’s Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, which includes a visit from local Chairman Shigeru Sato (Nobuo Kaneko), goes smoothly.  The Committee follows Ishihara’s orders explicitly in order to maintain their own power and privilege.  Ishihara is engaged to teacher Toshie (Yuko Kano), but he’s only involved with her for her family’s wealth.  Further, he’s completely okay with pimping her out to meet his ends.  Likewise, every other man in a position of power, from the Mayor to the Chief of Police, is corrupt to the core.  They all leap at the chance to have an orgy with a bunch of schoolgirls.  The appearance of respectability is all-important, hiding the immorality that lies in their hearts.  The protagonists, by contrast, are exactly what they are on their face.  Their lack of hypocrisy and pretense is what sets them apart from and above the other characters.  They are true to themselves, take it or leave it, and in much the same way, so is this film and (I’m assuming a bit here) every other film in this genre.  Personally, I’ll take it.

MVT:  The thoughtful way the film combines sleaze with craftsmanship and makes it all work.

Make or Break:  If the opening scene doesn’t put you off, you’ll be along for the ride.

Score:  7.5/10 

Rica (1972)

Believe it or not (and despite my constant protestations that I detest nature), I actually went to summer camp twice when I was young (I even went camping a few times, but I think those experiences only hastened my distaste for the out-of-doors).  The first time was to a music camp, but I remember learning very little there, and couldn’t tell you if I even got to perform in the big concert that closed out the week.  The second time was just a regular old summer camp.  Having seen too many films like Meatballs and Friday The Thirteenth and so on, I expected to either have a raucous frolic of a time or be stalked relentlessly before being killed in some horrifically graphic manner. 

Neither actually occurred, as you might guess, but since I had a whole mess of pent-up expectations, they had nowhere left to go but into an over-anxiousness which led ineffably to unintended destructiveness and a tendency to act out.  Thus did I find myself on the wrong end of disciplinary measures.  Oh, no one hit me or molested me in any way, shape, or form, but I wound up being put into “time out” (at a time before “time out” was the first resort of authoritarians) for much of my stay.  On the plus side, our cabin did a karaoke stage show (more like a Puttin’ On The Hits lip sync show) of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man (I got to pretend I was Bill Ward).  Needless to say, we didn’t win the talent show.  From this experience I can’t say I know what being sent off to a reform school is like, but you wouldn’t know it from the way I felt arriving home (I literally kissed the ground when I walked in my house).  Naturally, they’re not the same thing, but try telling that to a twelve-year-old.

A very pregnant Kazue (Wakako Chiara) writhes on the black, sandy beach, crying in torment.  Young Rica (Rika Aoki) comes upon her friend and discovers she has taken poison to kill both herself and the baby.  Barging in on Kazue’s husband Hiroshi (Goro Daimon) having sex with another woman, Rica delivers unto him his stillborn child, telling him to give it a proper burial.  Hiroshi and members of the Tachibana Gang show up at Rica and her gang’s hangout, and she and Hiroshi have a hand-to-hand duel.  After plucking out the man’s eyes and killing him, Rica is shipped off to reform school, but her gang are attacked, raped, and kidnapped by the Tachibanas for a purpose even more nefarious.

It’s amazing to me, the level of subtlety actually at play in Ko Nakahira’s Rica (aka Rika The Mixed-Blood Girl aka Konketsuji Rika), considering it’s part of a subgenre (Pinku Eiga or Pinky Violence, among other sobriquets) not known for nuance.  Rika plays the role rather stoically, some would say woodenly, but it’s fitting to my mind for a character who has had to toughen up fast.  Rika hasn’t had an easy life.  She was an unwanted child, and her mother (Kazuko Imai) became a hooker after Rica was born.  The man her mother brings home (Sotoshi Moritsuka) not only rapes Rica (her first sexual encounter) but also plays a sizeable role in the remainder of the plot.  And there are also very light suggestions as to themes of love versus sex.  Rica has no compunction about using sex to get information (and then maiming her informant afterward), and she even dances and sings in her underwear at the Tachibana Gang’s club (one of the highlights of the film), but she does it all out of a sense of loyalty for those she counts as friends as well as for Tetsu, the gangster who appeared out of nowhere to offer Rica assistance when she was jumped by yakuza.  

Yes, Rica has a heart, and she does offer it up but only when the receiver has proved his worth to her.  However, it is difficult to argue for female empowerment in this and other Pinky Violence films.  True, Rica is a capable young woman, and she takes no guff from men.  Usually she is in charge of whom she gives her body to, and she makes conscious, fully-aware decisions in that regard.  By that same token, Rica and just about every other woman in the film is sexually objectified in the sleaziest manner possible.  If you’ve ever seen a film like this one, you know what to expect: the men’s bulging eyes, the tearing off of women’s clothes, the clawing and gnawing of men on women’s bodies (mostly the breasts, though the shoulders get a good working out, too).  So, for as strong as any woman is in these films, I would argue they’re really only as strong as the male audience is comfortable watching.

Like so many films coming out of Japan at the time (and for a long time following) the plot of Rica is fairly random (or at least has a strong feeling of randomness about it).  It leaps from situation to situation with no seeming regard for a through line.  It sort of has an overarching plot that it follows whenever it damn well pleases, but the filmmakers appear to not care how it actually turns out, so long as something skanky or bloody happens every ten minutes or so (give Nakahira credit in this regard; he knows his audience).  There’s a circularity at play, and it’s almost comical.  When you see Rica sit down and make a heartfelt plea with the head of one gang only to get screwed over, and then see her sit down and make a heartfelt plea with the head of another gang later (using many of the same camera angles and shot framing), you can’t help but chuckle.  Plus, this woman has more hand-to-hand duels (replete with henchmen who are told to stay out of it) in one film than in any ten Jean-Claude Van Damme films.  Yet characters appear for what we assume is just a small bit only to disappear for long stretches and then reappear later on as major players.  For as cohesive as the story is allowed to be, it also confounds said cogency.  I’ll give you an example.  Rica goes looking for her mother and tracks her to a department store where she witnesses a crime which takes the film off in a completely different direction, forgetting about her mother entirely until she pops up later so coincidentally as to be absurd (though the ultimate payoff of this discovery is pretty great).  The film hits the points it needs to, and it’s entertaining enough for them, but the structure is so scattershot it makes it difficult to immerse yourself in Rica’s trials and tribulations enough to care about what happens to her, her gang, or her acquaintances.  Am I interested in seeing the other two films in the trilogy?  Sure.  Am I in any rush to get there?  Not really.

MVT:  Looking at 1970s Japan from this gutter level angle captivates me.  The seedy side of the polished financial juggernaut intrigues me no end, and just knowing that the Japanese fell prey to many of the same piss poor fashion trends as the rest of the world (maybe even more), makes me happy inside.

Make Or Break:  The opening sequence of the film is startling and compelling as all hell.  It promises a level of depth and depravity, but the remainder only really delivers on the latter.  I defy you to come up with a curtain-raiser more jaw-dropping and attention-grabbing than the one in Rica.

Score:  6.25/10