Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701's Grudge Song

After narrowly escaping brutal Detective Kodama Sasori hides out in a seedy strip joint in the back streets of Tokyo.There she encounters Kudo who was humiliated and tortured by Kodama and his cronies years ago.The two strike a bond and soon set out to exact Kudo's long dreamt-about justice against detective Kodama.But their plan is not going to end happily."Female Convict Scorpion Grudge Song" is filled with sadness and unrelenting nihilism.Yasuharu Hasebe,the creator of violent pink sub-genre directs with a sure hand and Mejko Kaji is fantastic as a relentless Sasori.She even kills a cop with a white rose.There is also sleazy gang-rape scene and plenty of nudity.If you enjoyed previous installments of "Scorpion" pinky violence series give this one a look.8 out of 10.

Yasuharu Hasebe (Black Tight Killers) took over for director Shunya Ito for this, the last Female Convict Scorpion picture starring Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood). The film opens with Nami Matsushima (a.k.a. Matsu, a.k.a. Scorpion) once again on the lam. The police track her down at a wedding, but she manages to escape. Badly injured, she is saved by a man who works in a strip joint and holds a grudge against the police for torturing him. Can the Scorpion trust a man again? Should she?

One of the reasons Kaji decided to stop doing the Scorpion pictures is that Toei kept slashing the budget with each new installment. This film is smaller in scale and more straightforward than the first three chapters. It is easily the least of the four Scorpion films featuring Meiko Kaji; however, it is still engrossing whenever she is on the screen.

And so at last we come to the end of the great Matsu the Scorpion's bloody, weird, and incredibly thrilling saga. This is the only entry in the series not directed by Shun'ya Ito, so I was a bit nervous going into this film; I've really enjoyed all the FPS movies, and I really didn't want the final outing to fall flat on it's face.

To my great delight, this film didn't fall flat; it delivered everything I'd want from an outing with Matsu. At the same time, Matsu's story seems to be wearing a little thin; at this point in the saga she's escaped from prison with others, had her revenge, and in the last entry ("Beast Stable") she even become a kind of savior for oppressed women. In this entry, history more or less repeats itself; the storyline in "Grudge Song" is relatively the same as the first and second entries ("FPS #701" & "FPS: Jailhouse 41"), only the story is compressed into an hour and a half. If you've seen the other entries, you pretty much know what's going to happen in this entry, and while there isn't necessarily a problem (people still line up for Marvel movies, and they're all relatively homogenous), to me, the series has started to loose a bit of it's appeal, and I honestly think ending it here was probably the best choice: go out on a note that is still relatively positive, and people will be keener to return to the franchise. I, for one, will happily go through Matsu's journey multiple times in my life.

Nami Matsushima, the Scorpion, still on the run from Kodama, meets Yasuo. Together they try to exact revenge on the corrupt detective, but when things go awry, Nami is back in prison and has to find a way to escape before being hanged.

Meiko Kaji returned to play the title role, but director Shunya Ito was replaced by Yasuharu Hasebe (1932-2009). Hasebe was more controversial, and is best known for his movies in the "violent pink" subgenre of the Pink film, such as "Assault! Jack the Ripper" (1976), and the provocatively-titled "Rape!" (1976), "Rape! 13th Hour" (1977) and "Raping!" (1978). Take from that what you will.

Because of the change in director, some people do not consider this to be a "full" sequel in the Scorpion series, despite the lead actress returning. I have no opinion on that one way or the other.

This begins well enough and has enough going on, a male helper this time, to maintain the interest until the most exciting scenes come along. It is a good idea that Meiko's seeming saviour here has had history with the police already from his days of 60s student rebellion. Flashbacks enable stand-in director Hasebe to double his violent police demonstrations with current and b/w past. This is number four in the series, however, and needed more not less in the way of interesting action and visuals. Gone are the stylish sequences and gone the surrealism. The endings, both false and actual are fun and if this is a disappointment it is no disgrace and while not the greatest of finales, probably a much better fourth episode than many might have expected. Worth seeing.