Assault! Jack the Ripper

During the mid-1970s and early 80's,Nikkatsu-the most important of the pinku eiga studios-launched a series of pink films which were progressively more extreme in their level of sexual violence."Assault!Jack the Ripper" is certainly one of the nastiest pink films I have ever came across.It tells the story of a young waitress and a cook,who after incidentally killing a young woman on a street ends up sadistically raping and murdering women via stabbing them in the crotch.The scenes of rape and sexual violence are truly unsettling,but the film is well-made and acted.Yasuharu Hasebe directed a series of very extreme Nikkatsu pink movies including brutal "Rape!" and horrendously offensive "Rape!13th Hour".In 1979 came Koyu Ohara's "Zoom Up:Rape Site",notorious for a scene in which a rapist shoves a light bulb inside a woman's vagina,then stomps on her stomach until it breaks."Assault!Jack the Ripper" is not easy to find,but for fans of misogynistic Japanese exploitation this sleazy sickie is a must-see.10 out of 10.

A disgruntled waitress and a shy male pastry chef "accidentally" become serial killers when, while driving home one night, they pick up a crazed hitchhiker (kind of a female version of the guy in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") who strips out of her clothes, smears cake batter all over her body, and cuts herself with a razor blade. After they accidentally kill this nut-job, they have frenzied sex for the first time and realize that murder is a real turn on. . .

This movie is kind of a horror/black comedy like Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers". But it doesn't have the smug hypocritical "social commentary" of that film (i.e. preaching against violence in the media at the same time you're wallowing in it). It's also a Japanese "pink film" so it has a lot of gratuitous sex and nudity. It's obviously very politically incorrect, so people who are always getting offended by movies (isn't there enough stuff to get offended about in real life?) should probably avoid it. The truth is though where American movies tend to take murder with a grain of salt (and sometimes even make it entertaining), Japanese films do the same with murder AND rape. Thanks to years of misguided feminism, Americans tend to take the latter very seriously, but nobody is REALLY being raped in these movies anymore than they're really being murdered. (Wouldn't all the political energy be better spent by, I don't know, trying to enforce the prosecution of REAL-LIFE rape as an international war crime or something?).

For what it's worth, this movie is not as "rape-happy" as a lot of Japanese exploitation flicks. The far more disturbing thing is that this couple is sexually turned on by blood and violence. It is also, however, a very well made by a respected Japanese director. The lead actress is not very attractive in the conventional sense (although she is a lot more impressive with her clothes off), but this actually works well with her "outsider" character. The male lead is also very good, transforming believably from a shy male virgin to a raving psycho. This movie obviously isn't for everyone, but if you're the right kind of viewer and in the right frame of mind, you might very well enjoy it.

Everyone with an eye to see this film will no doubt have heard about how brutal, violent and shocking it is; and after seeing it, I've got to say that Assault! Jack the Ripper lives up to its reputation. I've no idea what the title is alluding to, but to surmise the film; it's an unflinching depiction of murder and rape that is all the more shocking because of the fact that most of the film is really quite realistic. The film is a part of the 'pinky' genre that was popular in Japan around the sixties and seventies, but unlike many of these films; this is not amusing or 'fun' - Assault! Jack the Ripper goes straight for the jugular! The plot focuses on two restaurant employees. While out together one night, they accidentally murder a hitch-hiker. The pair soon realise that murder is their mutual aphrodisiac, and from there the murders continue as the restaurateurs begin an unflinching rampage of rape and murder, with any random stranger unlucky enough to be in their way the victim! Naturally, this relationship doesn't last too long...

The only place the film is lacking is on the actual 'money shots' - we don't get to see the protagonist stab his victims in the crotch, and the reason for that is down to the Japanese penal code - which states that no full frontal nudity can be shown in films. This is a shame both for this film and just about every other Japanese exploitation film ever made. However, director Yasuharu Hasebe doesn't let that stop him delivering the shocks. The lack of full frontal nudity is more than made up for by the brutal violence and the film features plenty. It's not a particularly gory movie, but there's plenty of stabbing and butchery going on to please the gorehounds. The atmosphere is dirty and sleazy throughout and this compliments the brutal action nicely. The film is very short at just seventy two minutes, but this is not really a bad thing. The plot is very thin and while there's more than enough to keep the audience entertained for the time that it's on for, any longer and the film may have ended up grinding to a halt considering the thin plot line. Overall, I'm not raving about this film; but it lives up to its reputation and I wasn't disappointed by it.

A shy pastry chef gives a newly employed waitress a lift home. They pickup an attractive, but mentally deranged young woman who is standing in the pouring rain. She gets into the car takes off her clothes and attempts suicide with razor blades. The couple push her out of the car to find she has collapsed and died in the middle of the road. They then hide the body. After the event they find themselves strangely turned on by her death. What follows is Ken murdering men and women using a chef's palette knife and having sex with Yuri afterwards.

The mixture of sex and violence is still strong even by today's standards. The film uses optical censorship, as well as carefully placed objects to obscure the most explicit sex scenes, but there is still frequent nudity and a high number of sex scenes even for a Nikkatsu pink film. The film clearly takes influence from the Italian Giallo films of directors like Umberto Lenzi and Lucio Fulci more so than the "stalk and slash" American horror films of the 70s. The violence is bloody and frequent with much talked about scenes involving a knife being inserted in-between women's legs.

It's all sleazy stuff and aficionados of exploitation films have seen it all before. What elevates this one is nice moody photography, well known faces of Nikkatsu putting in convincing performances and a high level of mayhem.

The DVD from Mondo Macabro features a nice print and some good extras. I'm not sure if this film would pass uncut in the UK.

ASSAULT! JACK THE RIPPER is one of those films that just ain't gonna be everyone's cup of tea. It's brutal in it's depiction of rape and murder and has pretty much no redeeming value in terms of "entertaining" cinema - and that's exactly why it is such a "classic" of the pinky genre. At a time when many other pinky films dealt with sleazy subject matter in a more "fun" and tongue-in-cheek manner, ASSAULT! went straight for the jugular, or more appropriately, crotch...

Two restaurant co-workers realize their penchant for brutal rape and murder after a mishap with a whacked-out hitch-hiker. As the two find that murder is their only aphrodisiac - things get out of hand. They continue to "feed" off of each other and pick up random strangers to do their "business" with. Homeboy finds that he has a thing for stabbing the victims in the cooch - this appears to be his major "turn-on". Homegirl starts to get a little to clingy and jealous when she realizes that he's been doing some "moonlighting" on his own. This all results in the end of their relationship, among other things...

There's nothing really comical or fun about ASSAULT! (except for the strange disco soundtrack...). It appears that the main goal of this film is to shock and disgust, which it does appropriately enough - especially for it's 1976 time-stamp. Although the crotch-gouging is not "graphically" shown, the sound FX and inference of what's going on is enough to be disturbing. This is a rare film as it predates a lot of more sadistic films that became notorious throughout the late 70's through today. Again, not a film for all tastes, but for those that are looking for something a little "rougher"...this may be the one. 9/10