Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom

From the director of 'Star of David: Beauty Hunting', and the pink masterpiece 'School of the Holy Beast' comes this eye-popping, sex & violence soaked cult film. Norifumi Suzuki's 'Terrifying Girls Highschool' is finally available on DVD, as part of the great Pinky Violence box set. Featuring two icons of pink cinema, Reiko Ike, as well as the original 'Zero Woman', Miki Sugimoto, as bad girl leaders in a high school for violent girls. Dressed in the traditional school uniforms, seeking to avenge the murder of a friend, Sugimoto is tougher than ever here. Especially great is the way Suzuki introduces each of the three girls in the beginning. We see each of them separately committing the crime that lands them in the same school, which is more like a prison. Featuring some dazzling torture set pieces, including a tense 'blood draining ceremony', genital electrocution, as well as a disturbing scene featuring a light bulb. Suzuki's trademark seems to be the bladder trick, where some hapless girl is forced to hold her water while a clock ticks in the background. I have seen 3 Suzuki films so far, and this trick is utilized in every one, and always successfully. Of course nothing can top 'Holy Beast', Suzuki's masterpiece. However I found this to be a lot more entertaining than 'Star of David', but I guess this is a matter of personal taste. TGH features some good music as well, and classical pieces are used effectively. The climactic showdown between students and riot cops is wonderful, and there is humor here and there, but not so much as to take away the power of the images. And I must mention the lesbian scenes, tastefully filmed and very erotic as well. Though the girls are beaten and often nude, they somehow always come across as tough, and never victims. That is the best thing about these films, and this quality is missing in American exploit films, where the girls are sometimes just there to be abused and undressed for the pleasure of the viewer. I only hope DVD labels like 'Panik House' and 'Tokyo Shock' keep restoring and releasing these special films. 'Terrifying Girls Highschool' looks great in it's anamorphic transfer. They are going to great lengths to release high quality products, and I look forward to future releases. Especially ones that feature Miki Sugimoto, my personal favorite bad girl of pink cinema! Incidentally, if you like 'Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs', than you should like this as well.

While "Kyôfu joshikôkô: bôkô rinchi kyôshitsu" aka. "Terrifying Girls' Highschool: Lynch Law Classroom" of 1973 may be one of the weaker Pinky violence flicks by director Norifumi Suzuki ("Sex And Fury"), it is still a highly entertaining exploitation flick that fans of Japanese Cult-Cineam should not miss out on. More precisely, out of all Pinky Violence flicks I've seen, this is actually among the weaker films, but I am talking about an awesome exploitation sub-genre that includes awesome films such as Suzuki's own "Sex And Fury", "Female Yakuza Tale", "Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs" or, especially, the brilliant "Joshuu Sasori" (aka. "Female Prisoner Scorpion") films with Meiko Kaji.

What makes "Terrifying Girls' Highschool" especially worth watching is the casting of Japanese exploitation dream-team Miki Sugimoto and Reiko Ike, basically THE two ravishing goddesses of Pinky Violence cinema. The reason why this is one of the weaker Pinky flicks is the fact that the story is occasionally pretty damn silly. However, it does make up for this fault with an enormous amount of sleaze and perversions. The film actually starts out very disturbingly, with an opening sequence that I will not describe any further, as I don't wanna spoil anything. The film is about a High school for delinquent girls, in which a sardonic vice-principal and his henchgirls rule with unorthodoxly brutal methods. When three young female delinquents, one of them the ravishing girl-gang boss Noriko (played by sexy Miki Sugimoto), are brought to the school, however, they are not willing to just put up with the abuse like their fellow students...

The tons of explicit sleaze should be reason enough for an exploitation fan to find the film worthwhile, and the film has several other qualities. "Terrifying Girls' Highschool" has a weird (and very sleazy) sense of humor, that is, at some points, ingenious. The main reason to watch this, however, are its ravishing stars Miki Sugimoto and Reiko Ike. Reiko's character is actually not introduced until about half way into the film, but Miki is the leading character, and she's once again both incredibly cool and incredibly sexy. The film's plot may be a bit messy (in the middle, it sometimes even drags a little), but that is not to say that it isn't highly entertaining. Overall "Terrifying Girl's Highschool" isn't as quite as good as the comparable "Girl Boss Guerilla" (also starring Reiko and Miki), and certainly no highlight of Pinky Violence cinema, but it is nonetheless an immensely entertaining film that I highly recommend to my fellow lovers of Japanese Exploitation!

These Pinky Violence movies have always fascinated me. They are hard to find, I got my copies from Amazon Germany, so far I've watched 3 out of 4 of them and this is the one I like the most. First of all, this movie is violent and nudity recurs often, hella often! It is a dizzying combination of prison-movie archetypes, social satire, and S&M-fueled kink, that is definitely not for all tastes, but there's a surprising amount of artistry behind it. The story is very catchy and there is also torture in it. The movie itself is a pearl, like a picture of Japan in the 70's, I really recommend it because it has lots of stuff that will make you understand more about the culture and the way some Japanese conceive eroticism. The OST is even great! Lots of bass lines and percussions! If you love low budget movies, but violence, sex and torture and action, this movie is definitely for you! Lead actresses Miki Sugimoto and Reiko Ike are amazing! I read some reviews that defined the movie as disgusting and boring. I must confess it is not boring at all and the sex scenes are not explicit as in porn and there are still more violent movies nowadays even on TV. Give it a shot, if you are looking for some emotions!

This lacks a little of the style of the other movies gathered within the Pinky Violence collection but if it's missing some of the street cool, it is certainly sexy action all the way. More of less restricted to within the confines of an all girl school we get one set of girls put in charge of another, with extreme torture considered a reasonable discipline. Then we get the 'baddies' released from detention to be improved at the school and they immediately take against the other girls. Even with all this there is more because the teachers are for ever being seduced or deciding to rape various girls who also now and again make sexual advances upon one another. The film begins with a murder, includes a hanging and ends in delirious mayhem. Not as story bound as some and containing more sex and violence than would seem possible. Well shot and with decent score too.

This is a great little movie: it's one of the most far-out and over-the-top movies I've seen, yet at its core it tells a fairly heartfelt story of underdog misfit high school girls bucking a corrupt and at times downright evil school system. Over-the-top though it is, you sometimes can't help but wonder if what you're seeing is a more-or-less true depiction of actual events that took place in a Japanese high school some where, some time, not terribly long ago...

Anyway, I thought I'd include here the Production Notes as they appear on the Special Features portion of the DVD:

PRODUCTION NOTES:

The "Terrifying Girls' High School" pictures were a kind of spin-off to the "Girl Boss" series. Reiko Ike stars in all four. Miki Sugimoto co-stars in the first two, and the outrageousness factor is in just as full flower. However, here the girls are not former reform school inmates, they're high school girls – albeit emotionally warped, perverse, violent, sexually precocious high school girls. The tone of the entire quartet is pretty dark, even compared to most of the "Girl Boss" sagas, with less of the goofy, adolescent humor that sometimes overstayed its welcome in that series.

The second episode, "Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom (Kyofu Joshikoku: Boko Rinchi Kyoshitsu, 1973)" is the best – a lunatic erotic/grotesque sleaze fest that remains one of director (Norifumi) Suzuki's wildest movies. Sugimoto is the leader of a trio of underdog delinquents at a super-strict girls' school. Independent yakuza biker chick and all-around free spirit Reiko Ike arrives midway to assist Sugimoto and her pals in fighting a homicidally fascist band of schoolgirls whom the principal (Kenji Imai) has recruited to keep the rowdier misfits cowed. These neo-nazi types are merciless sadists who love to drain their victims' blood, burn them with hot light bulbs, and generally make their lives miserable enough that they'll commit suicide! Ike, in turn, is helped by her yakuza pal, the suave but somewhat klutzy Tsunehiko Watase. Watase engineers blackmail scenarios by setting up sex stings on various hypocritical school staff and a corrupt member of the Diet (Nobuo Kaneko), a bunch unable to put the brakes on their voracious appetite for underage poontang.

The climax sees a full-scale riot at the school, with the girls keeping the hordes of cops at bay with rocks and fire hoses. Supremely anarchic entertainment. This film is really the strongest of all of Miki Sugimoto's performances and the first time she ever really carried a film without Reiko Ike. Ike's presence was greatly scaled down, in order for the producers to build a more antagonistic relationship between the two leads. It also allowed an opportunity to build stars out of the other supporting cast members like Misuzu Ota, Yuko Kano, Ryoko Ema, and Rena Ichinose. The fact that none of them ever reached the heights that Ike or Sugimoto attained is more a tribute to Reiko and Miki than criticism of the others.