Well, if blaxploitation films exploited the black culture and nunsploitation films exploit the nun image, then Sex and Fury falls under the sexploitation genre because it very decidedly exploits sex. And that ain't a bad thing in my book. Anyhows, Sex and Fury is a film that also falls under what is called Pinky Violence. Essentially what Pinky Violence is, is a bunch of Japanese films that came out in the 70s that dealt with hot lady killers who went out and distributed large amounts of vengeance on evil doers. It eventually died out, but boy what a legacy of films it left behind. Sex and Fury was one of the good ones.
The story is about this little girl called Ocho Inoshika. When Ocho sees her father get murdered right before her eyes by a bunch of Yakuza leaders she grows up to be a vengeful spirit. She does nothing else in this life but search for her fathers killers. And that she does, but not without helping a soul or two along the way.
At first when Sex and Fury started out, I thought it was going to be a rehash of the story I had seen before in the truly excellent Lady Snowblood. Its a very similar story dealing with a little girl who grows up to be a stone cold killer because she had an extremely traumatic childhood experience, but the only thing is that Sex and Fury amps up the sleaze and the tits and ass a whole lot more. Suddenly, without no apparent reason Ocho begins to fight and loose her clothes. Suddenly and without warning a bad guy slashes away the top part of her gown and Ocho begins to swordfight topless! Or in another sequence a bunch of hoodlums attack Ocho as she takes a bath and she proceeds to fight them buck naked! And not just a flash, I mean the fight sequence goes on for a long time and shes totally naked, gotta admit Id never seen that in a movie before, but it rocked! Of course it does add a level of sleaze to the movie because its obviously gratuitous nudity we are seeing here solely for the purpose of titillating the males in the audience. But so what, I gotta say it works.
So I'm like oooh, OK. So thats what this is all about! A movie that purposely shows a woman fighting and killing while naked. OK, I can go with that. But it wasn't only that. This movie has some sex scenes that scratch on being porn. Suddenly and without warning these two chicks start to make out on screen, necking each other. So I was thinking "thats probably as far as they are going to go with this cause this movie is old". Boy was I wrong, that sequence totally turned out to be an extended lesbo action sequence that was practically soft porn! I was like alright! This movie is pushing boundaries, its going all out and I dug that very very much. So be on the look out for certain kinky scenes.
And as for the violence, well its plentiful. Blood sprays body parts fall and the snow is sprinkled with red on more then one occasion. Its pretty freaking obvious this one was also a heavy influence on Tarantino. The whole ending sequence is extremely similar to Oren Ishii and Beatrix Kiddos showdown in Kill Bill Vol. 1. Both in terms of music and shots. It was crazy but I was having flashbacks. Anyhows that came as no surprise to me since I had heard about this movies and Lady Snowbloods influence on Tarantino.
The only thing that hinders this film a bit is the acting from Christina Lindberg an American actress that appears in this film playing an English spy. For those familiar with Grindhouse films, she appeared in another bad girl film called Thriller: A Cruel Picture. Anyhows Christina Lindberg does some pretty bad acting on this flick and it was really the only thing that kind of messed things up for me on this movie. But its a small imperfection on an otherwise cool flick.
So, if your into film with naked chicks going around on revenge killing sprees then this my friend is a film for you! I'm off to check out its sequel: Female Yakuza. Hope its every bit as good as this one.
Rating: 4 out of 5
