Pretty, rebellious prisoner Misaki Sayama (Aki Hoshino) awakens to find herself on a remote island, in a rehabilitation establishment where she is called by a number (1316), made to wear a tiny tight black vest, and forced to take part in daily cross-country jogs. Unhappy with the gruelling exercise regime, Misaki prepares to escape, little realising that her movements are being monitored by director Sakamoto and head warden Asakura, who have their own plans for the unruly upstart.
Like all good women-in-prison films, Death Row Girls is packed with sexy, young hotties wearing next to nothing, or better still, nothing. Like all good women-in-prison films, there are numerous shower scenes and vicious cat-fights. And like all good women in prison films, there's one beauty, tougher than the rest, who is is determined to beat the system no matter what the cost.
Unfortunately, although Death Row Girls ticks all of these boxes, it still fails to make the WIP grade thanks to a story that simply fizzles out in the final act, and a dearth of genuine sleaze and nastiness: I ask you, what good is a women-in-prison flick without midnight visits from a sadistic lesbian guard, the application of electrodes to the most sensitive parts of the female anatomy, and a rousing finalé that sees the desperate, downtrodden women rise up to take bloody revenge on their captors? (The answer: not much!).
However, even though it doesn't qualify as a particularly great WIP flick, Death Row Girls is still pretty enjoyable exploitation trash, with loads of Asian eye candy, a smattering of soft-core sex, and even a pervy dwarf (whose inclusion raises my rating from 6/10 to 6.5/10, but doesn't do enough for me to round my score up to 7 for IMDb).
