Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is probably one of the few films I've seen recently to really surprise me. I had heard a few things about the film before seeing it, and the scattered details I had picked it up made it sound like standard Japanese exploitation - stylish, violent and misogynistic. All the elements are present in the film for this sort of product - a couple of rape scenes, the torture and abuse of women, a few moments of sadistic gore. Yet, despite these elements, this film is actually explicitly feminist in its outlook (very surprising for a Japanese exploitation film!), and is oddly lyrical and poetic for much of its length. There are few films that one could describe as being simultaneously brutal, sleazy, beautiful, absurd and emotionally affecting - "Female Scorpion" manages the rare feat of producing this strange alchemy. Definitely worth seeing for fans of Japanese filmmaking.

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An absolutely phenomenal surrealist-cum-exploitation picture, "Female Convict Scorpion--Jailhouse 41" is the second in a series of films about Matsu (known to her fellow inmates as "Scorpion"), a diminutive but volatile woman who is wrongly sent to prison by a betraying boyfriend. Incredibly satisfying and spectacularly photographed, these women's prison pictures feature an anti-heroine who is beautiful, strong, principled and basically honorable and decent--especially when compared to everyone around her. One of the truly genuine masterpieces of violent 1970s cinema, "Female Convict Scorpion--Jailhouse 41" is, in its own way, as subversive as Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg's "Performance," John Boorman's "Point Blank" and Jean-Luc Godard's "Weekend."

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Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)Meiko KAJI - wow! What an actress! While most western audiences are primarily familiar with her name because Quentin TARANTINO used two of her songs in his KILL BILL films, this great looking actress starred in the 1970ies in many top movies in her native Japan (best known are the two entries in the LADY SNOWBLOOD series and her outstanding FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION movies, two of which are available on US DVDs).
Alas, STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER! is not the highlight the promotional blurb on the DVD cover wants us to believe.
KAJI is Mako, the leader of a gang of teenage girls. It goes without saying that she is cooler than cool in her broad rimmed black hat, and tough as nails to boot. The story starts with Mako and her friends mugging a middle aged guy they accuse of molesting one of them. Relaxing after the mugging and the subsequent shopping spree in their hang out bar (cue great music interlude with a girl band singing a cool 70ies easy listening song), a bickering among them leads to the requisite cat fight outside the club (here with flashlights and knives). Just as Mako's opponent has learned her lesson, we are introduced to the Eagles gang. They are a gang of male hooligans with Jeeps, led by a quiet and well read guy called the baron, who is rarely seen without a book (!). The Baron has a crush on Mako, but he appears to be impotent and suffers from a childhood trauma, as he had watched in horror the rape and murder of his sister at the hands of foreigners (presumeably US soldiers), causing a hatred of "half-breed" Japanese in his twisted mind. Mako meets Kazuma, a young (you guessed it: mixed-race) guy in search of his sister, who was adopted as a small child. Inevitably Mako and Kazuma fall in love. Meanwhile the Baron has declared war on all half-breeds, leading to all kind of troubles and mayhem carried out with molotov cocktails and rifles...
The problem with STRAY CAR ROCK: SEX HUNTER is in my view that it does not deliver what it promises. Sure, Meiko KAJI is great, as are the early 1970ies fashion styles and the soundtrack. Special credit must be given to the girl band THE GOLDEN HALFS, who perform several cool songs (the best of which is also played over the DVD main menue). Oh, and Meiko does some singing of her own.The film is also beautifully shot and presented here in its original aspect ratio of 2.35 :1 ("Nikkatsu-scope"). Unfortunately it is too little to save the film. The vast majority of 1970ies Japanese exploitation movies really deliver in the violence, sex and sleaze department and STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER fails to do so. It is simply not violent and sexy enough.
Unfortunately the DVD does not provide too many extras. There is a filmography of director Yasuharu HASEBE (who also directed the first entry in the FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION series, a film vastly superior to this one), the STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER trailer (which is rather good), a trailer for the ZATOICHI film series DVDs and liner notes. The liner notes offer only a plot synopsis, a brief introduction to the history of NIKKATSU film studio (who produced STRAY CAT ROCK) and some interesting asides on the GOLDEN HALFs, the girl group in the film.There is also a reproduction of the original poster artwork of the film.
All in all this DVD is surely not a waste of your time, although I would recommend a rental.

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